The key feature of the district's classroom reopening plan -- hybrid scheduling -- has posed new problems for parents like Sara Hagan, whose 7-year-old son is in first grade at Stopher Elementary.

Thursday marked the second day of in-person instruction at Jefferson County Public Schools and the first for students in kindergarten through fifth grades whose last names start with the letters L-Z.

The district’s average participation rate of 90.7% serves as a dividing line of sorts in a trend that has Kentucky’s largest school bracing for a years-long effort to make up months of academic stagnation and decline for some of its poorest students.

"No matter how much I care and no matter how much I try, I can't do it all," W.E.B. DuBois Academy teacher Natalie Rashad said.

Both say the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn federal appeals court ruling allowing Gov. Andy Beshear's prohibition of classroom instruction at religious schools to continue.

Gov. Andy Beshear had said schools could resume elementary instruction this week if counties are not in Kentucky's COVID-19 "red zone."