Families and communities need schools to be ready to reopen as soon as public health officials report they are safe. After all, the nation was recently reminded how vital schools are. Schools connect students with peers and mentors, channel the energy of youth into productive pursuits, teach essential academic skills and knowledge, and give busy parents the chance to breathe and work. It is therefore urgent that schools find a way to reopen this fall if possible. Reopening safely and responsively will bring new challenges. Therefore, leaders must start planning immediately. But let’s be clear: Several public health officials, including the usually cautious Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have indicated they expect schools to reopen. probably this fall. What will it take to prepare schools for this fall, amid huge uncertainties? The path to reopening must rest on public health frameworks guiding the gradual relaxation of the intensive social distancing measures adopted this spring. Any consideration of reopening must consider the wide variability in the circumstances that states, communities, and schools face. Depending on the public health situation, there may be waves of arrests and restarts, partial or phased openings or other developments (determined by local health facilities, vulnerability of the population, etc.).These decisions will require strong community engagement to produce both cohesive planning and community support. Education officials must start planning now based on the current best understanding of Covid19 and what is needed for continued containment and mitigation. At the same time, this dynamic public health situation requires adaptive planning that can change with science and circumstances. Despite the uncertainty, state policy makers, school administrators and community leaders should develop plans based on the following assumptions informed by the most recent guidance from public health officials. Schools will remain closed for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year but will reopen in the 2020-21 school year (although with the potential for localized and mobile closures for 14-28 days triggered by de new waves of infections).