The purpose of this study is to examine how responsible grade-level instruction in Korean elementary schools is enacted and reconstructed through teachers’ interpretations and practices. Eight third-grade teachers at ○○ Elementary School in Gwangju participated in the study. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and non-participant observations and were analyzed using an interpretive qualitative approach grounded in hermeneutic inquiry. The findings reveal that the enactment of responsible grade-level instruction unfolds as an interpretive cycle consisting of constraint–discretion–adaptation–sharing. Teachers did not implement institutional guidelines in a mechanical manner; instead, they recontextualized the policy by attending to students’ emotional and relational conditions as well as classroom dynamics. Through this interpretive work, the policy was reconstructed as an educational practice rather than an administrative directive. Such enactment functioned as a meaning-making process rooted in teachers’ professional judgment and collaborative engagement, enabling the policy to operate as a “living institution” within the school. These findings offer practical, policy, and scholarly implications for the design and implementation of responsible grade-level instruction and provide a conceptual basis for extending future discussions on the contextual enactment of foundational learning policies.