JCPS teachers prepare for first day of school at Gutermuth Elementary

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - JCPS students return to the classroom in less than a week.

This week, teachers throughout the district have been hard at work setting up their classrooms; including at Gutermuth Elementary.

Second-grade teacher Sarah Blatz said she been teaching for 13 years. She said she’s looking forward to having her classroom full of kids.

”Even if you teach the same grade year after year, it’s a brand new group of kids, and I’m always finding something new over the summer,” Blatz said. “New books, coming up with new ideas.”

Currently, masks are required inside all JCPS schools, including Gutermuth Elementary.

During last school year, because of COVID-19, schools had a year mixed with NTI and in-person learning.

Jefferson County is currently in the red, or “high,” for community spread and hospitalizations for COVID-19. This means JCPS teachers are required to make sure there are masks are on every face.

”I have a basket over there for masks, for students who might not come in with them,” Blatz said. “We provide them for students.”

”We have the gowns, the face shields, the gloves,” Guturmuth Elementary principal Heather Scott said. “This is kind of what we kind of start teachers off at the beginning of the year.”

JCPS follows the CDC and the Kentucky Department of Public Health for guidance. Universal masking indoors and on school buses is required if the county’s community level is high.

Schools are not required to implement masking in school settings if community levels remained in the low or medium categories.

In case the mask mandate doesn’t drop, Blatz said she expects her students to cooperate and adjust to COVID protocols like in the past.

”We didn’t have any students last year who fought me with a mask, or who, you know, complained about it,” Blatz said. “Sometimes you have to remember to tuck your nose in.”

The first day of school for JCPS students is August 10.

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