Newly released internal documents have brought to light the circumstances surrounding what many saw as a belated move to effectively close ACT schools as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Australia.
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That attendance at some schools had fallen to 75 per cent, despite the ACT government and medical experts advising that campuses were safe, shows just how concerned parents were in those frenzied days in mid-March.
Education Minister Yvette Berry might have been the one to announce schools would move "pupil-free" until Term 1 school holidays, but it was Canberra's parents who more or less made the decision for her.
In the weeks that followed, the ACT effectively eliminated the virus from territory, giving the government, along with parents and teachers, the confidence to transition back to the classroom learning far earlier than many had anticipated.
Students will be back in class on Monday for the start of Term 3. Something resembling normality has resumed at our schools.
But as this ongoing global emergency has repeatedly reminded us, circumstances can, and very often do, change.
And change rapidly, too.
Victorian parents and students might very well have thought the days of remote learning were behind them as their state brought the virus' spread under control in early June. But the state's second wave has forced most of them back to online classes until at least August 19.
With NSW fighting to contain a fresh outbreak, and with news of two cases in Batemans Bay, Canberra parents might be starting to feel a little trepidation about the prospect - however faint it might be - of a return to remote learning.
Ms Berry this week said ACT public schools were prepared to make the shift if required, pointing out that 6000 teachers had been schooled in delivering online classes ahead of the Term 2 transition.
If remote learning was again forced on parents and students, would the ACT government again use the supervised "hub" schools model, which proved so controversial last time around? It's not clear at this stage.
It is unclear, too, what would trigger a move to remote learning. Large-scale community transmission of the virus in the ACT? Parents pulling their children out of school en masse?
When asked this week, Ms Berry said the government would act on the "relevant" advice and consider the views of key stakeholders, including parents and unions.
Parents, teachers and students are right to seek clarity on these crucial questions.
Similarly, they deserve reassurance that the ACT government has learnt the lessons from its first brush with remote learning, lest it became necessary in the future amid another wave of COVID-19.
