So many folks I talk to say that the kids have got to be back in school in the fall where they can receive full-time instruction in a classroom setting.

The decision to open school should not be made a political issue as some are trying to do.

Education leaders need to ensure that students are going to be able to be learning full-time and, if they're in an area with high incidence of virus, then they need to be learning remotely full-time.

In looking at the risk factor the biggest risk deals with questions about the spread of the coronavirus.

We are faced today with the fact that many states relaxed coronavirus restrictions and now there are new hot spots but data about this can be confusing and in some cases misleading. There is definitely more testing taking place now, and this easily raises the cases of COVID-19.

New York State has come up with plans that will be used to reopen schools.

Schools can reopen if the region is in Phase 4 and daily infection rate is five percent or lower over a 14-day average.

Specifics on re-openings are being left to the state's school districts and locally parents have been sent questionnaires to be sent back to their school districts.

Another big factor that has to be taken into consideration is that the first COVID-19 vaccine tested in the United States revved up people's immune systems just the way scientists had hoped and no matter how you slice this…this is good news.

Researchers reported anxiously awaited findings from the first volunteers who rolled up their sleeves back in March and sure enough the vaccine provided a hoped-for immune boost.

Interesting to see where this leads us.

Ed Townsend provides year around "Beyond The News"coverage in this column with over 60-years of photojournalism analysis and insight. The column can also be read on his Web blog at http://bght.blogspot.com