The last, last day

By Bobby Ellis
bobby.ellis@education.ky.gov

The last day of school at Taylorsville Elementary School carried with it an extra sense of finality this year, as students and teachers will move to a new building next school year.

While the building may have been around for awhile, opening in 1937 as a K-12 school, it became the home of Taylorsville Elementary (Spencer County) in 2005. Several teachers have spent their entire careers there. 

“I’ve been here since it opened 12 years ago it was my first job,” said Erin Kelley, a music teacher. “Part of me is going to miss it, there’s so much character. There other things I’m not going to miss, like finding critters. I found a bat while packing up a box.” 

On the last day some students traveled between rooms handing letters to their favorite teachers. Others huddled in their homeroom watching movies. Students in kindergarten through 2nd grade packed into the gym with their parents to receive awards for the work they’d put in during the year. 

Finally, the entire school filed outside for a field day, complete with sack races, an obstacle course, tug-of-war, hula hoops and more.

“It’s a little sad, but it’s also very exciting,” said Principal Steven Rucker. “Today we’re just making sure the kids have a great last day.”

Besides the boxes and trash bags found in the rooms, there was little to point toward this day being anything other than a normal final school day of the year. With the students and staff moving into a new building, things seemed more like a transition than a finality. 

“We’re ready to be in the new building,” said Rucker. “The old building is neat, but it’s time to move on.” 

As students ran in the grass and dumped water on themselves during the field day, the only sad looks to be found were on the faces of kids who were told they couldn’t dunk their heads into the water buckets they were using to fill cups for a game.