GRANADA- The first Granada Huntley East Chain (GHEC) school board meeting of the year was held on Tuesday in Granada. During the meeting the board completed school board committee assignments and approved its school calendar for the upcoming school year. The meeting marked the beginning of the current term for school board members Ken Madsen and Brad Mattson and was the first for newcomer Laura Koch.

Koch comes from the East Chain area and said she was looking forward to sitting on the board and contributing to her local school district.

Koch will sit on committees dealing with policy review, GHEC’s special education cooperative, community education and classified negotiations. Other committee assignments remain largely unchanged.

The board elected Jessica Salic as chair and Brad Mattson as vice-chair. Chris Pytleski was designated as clerk/secretary and Ken Madsen as treasurer. These positions are unchanged from 2022 with the exception of Madsen replacing Amy Maday as treasurer after she left the board last year.

The board also approved a calendar for the upcoming school year.

“I feel like were relatively early in comparison to other schools when it comes to approving our calendar but this is something we’ve always done since I’ve been here,” said Superintendent and Principal Doug Storbeck.

The calendar approved by the board would move the day of middle school and high school conferences from October 17 to October 16 and makes no other changes.

The board heard fewer reports compared to a typical meeting. In his report to the board Storbeck noted inclement weather has led to three school closures and three e-learning days. The district has two e-learning days remaining this year before it would need to consider extending the school year. Storbeck also said the district was working with the South Central Services Cooperative to provide district employees with cybersecurity training.

In other business:

— The board accepted the resignation of paraprofessionals Chloe Jensen and Anna Tenney as well as agriculture instructor Star Nelson. They also approved a contract for new paraprofessional Shylynn Cintora.

— The board approved changes to the student handbook requiring students who violate the district’s chemical and tobacco use policies to undergo new substance use education.