NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Get the backpacks ready! Students in Rutherford County are going back to school on Monday.
The school district says this year may have the largest increase in new students in years.
Rutherford County's Chief Communications Officer James Evans says two thousand additional kids are filling the seats of Rutherford County classrooms this year. Normally they see a growth of about a little over a thousand a year.
The district says they've worked hard to get those students registered and verified for the school year. They're preparing teachers for larger classrooms, but they say they're excited to have more students.
"Two thousand is definitely larger than what we're used to. We usually grow one thousand or fifteen hundred each year, so when we saw two thousand that was more than normal. Some of that is pinned up because of COVID. Now that things are back in full swing, we think we'll get one thousand or fifteen hundred new students," said Evans.
Rutherford County has also had a lot of back-to-school nights over the past couple of weeks to prepare for today's return.
In addition to thousands of new students, the district announced a new safety policy.
Schools require clear bags and purses for extracurricular activities like football games, pep rallies or any other event put on by schools and the district. They're not requiring clear backpacks or purses for students to attend day-to-day classes. They're advertising the change to parents ahead of the return to school today. They say parents support the move and want it to send a clear message about safety.
"We have such large turnouts for our sporting events and some of our other extracurricular activities, it makes it a lot safer for us to be able to scan and look for things that shouldn't be there. That's why we're enforcing these clear bags as a policy," said Evans.
Parents who don't want to buy clear bags can use gallon-sized baggies or anything transparent. Schools are also selling branded clear bags to abide by this policy and show school pride at the same time.
