It is right that everyone — parents, teachers, students, the entire extended education family — would celebrate last week’s announced reopening of public schools for in-person learning this fall. More than almost any milepost on the pandemic road to recovery, this marks a return to normal routines, both at home and in the community.

However, crossing this threshold also means clearing a hurdle for students and especially for teachers: They must help the kids to close gaps that likely opened during a year of distance learning. That process will begin with summer school programs, but it surely won’t end there.

Layer on top of that the lingering concerns about COVID-19, and the pending appointment of a new superintendent, and it’s clear that the state Department of Education has a daunting task ahead.

Public education officials will have to enlist the help of community resources, from academic tutors to after-school recreational programs, to bring students back within striking distance of standard academic benchmarks.

The DOE and state lawmakers grappled with these concerns Friday in a legislative briefing on summer and fall program planning. Free summer programs are offered at 252 schools, prioritizing students falling behind in their grade-level work, outgoing schools Superintendent Christina Kishimoto told the joint briefing of House and Senate education committees.

On Monday, Kishimoto announced that all campuses would be fully opened to in-person instruction and all student activities when the 2021-22 academic year begins Aug. 3.

What’s enabling this move is the broadening distribution of vaccines, with the Pfizer-BioNTech shot authorized for emergency use in adolescents age 12 and up. The vaccine landscape remains somewhat clouded, though, because even that authorization may not come for younger children until later in the fall, with full Food and Drug Administration clearance of any vaccine unlikely until some time thereafter.

This means that mandating vaccines for students — an unlikely order until the FDA approves at least one shot for children and youth — would not be happening for some time. The FDA is expected to clear at least one vaccine for adults by then, however, suggesting that a mandate for staff and faculty would be possible.

Given all the unknowns at this stage, it would be smart for the DOE, in consultation with state health experts, at least to begin discussions with unions for teachers and other school employees about what pandemic measures would support such a mandate.

A decision could be based in part on the percentage of the community that is fully vaccinated by then, with the risk of viral spread judged to be sufficiently low. Meanwhile, most of the students themselves are likely to be unvaccinated, so clear guidance on safety protocols for masking and distancing will be crucial.

Further, there should be transparency on any outbreaks that still could occur. The Legislature rightly anticipated this imperative, passing Senate Bill 811, a measure requiring the DOE to publish a weekly report on schools where positive COVID-19 cases are confirmed.

If Gov. David Ige signs it, as he should, the reports would begin July 1, posted on the DOE website, including the school name, the date of the positive test result and the date the person infected was last on that campus. Certainly at this stage awareness will be critical to keeping further spread of an infection under control. The last thing students and families need are more school closures.

That said, it’s also important for the schools to have contingency plans. DOE officials have said the focus will be entirely on students reconnecting in the classroom, rather than through distance learning, and that’s good.

But it makes sense to have online learning platforms kept at the ready for the near term. Long-term, distance learning continues to have value in making courses accessible to students in remote locations, and could supplement education resources statewide, said David Miyashiro, executive director of the nonprofit HawaiiKidsCAN.

Miyashiro has been watching preparations for summer and fall classes with some concern. The DOE is properly targeting its programs to students needing the most help, he said, but they may not be signing up for the free summer classes.

It is encouraging that Kishimoto underscored that learning loss will be addressed over consecutive school years: This is not a problem to be solved in the course of a single summer.

The hope is that implementing progress will not falter when Kishimoto’s contract ends July 30. A crucial role thus must fall to the state Board of Education, called on to select a replacement who has the capacity to tap educational resources, public and private, to carry out these plans.

Getting students truly back on track will take all hands — and someone at the helm who knows how to marshal the forces for that challenging work.