The Teacher Rotation Policy (TRP) is a recent teacher policy developed in the context of China. TRP seeks to close China's teacher quality disparities through rotating 'high-quality' urban schoolteachers to teach in hard-to-staff rural schools for a period of time. This qualitative case study examined how five policy actors carried out TRP in one rural county from 2012 to 2015. Guided by a sensemaking perspective, the study generated interview and observational data over three months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2016. The analysis of the data revealed high administrative expenses as well as unintended consequences of rotating teachers across schools. Three sensemaking strategies, namely using argumentation techniques, tailoring policy incentives, and leveraging cultural logics have emerged from the participants' efforts at enacting this policy. These research findings suggest implications for the efficacy and effects of teacher rotation for equalising teacher workforce in China and internationally.