GRANADA– The Granada-Huntley-East Chain (GHEC) School Board on Thursday heard from Activities Director, Erin Roiger, who said that the winter sports season is wrapping up and they’re gearing up for the spring season.

“Our basketball programs have been busy on the road. Our junior high will end their season next week and the end of the regular season is on the horizon for our 9-12 boys and girls teams. We’ll see what the post season has in store for us and are hoping for some home playoff games,” Roiger said.

Last week Roiger said she attended a Tomahawk Valley planning meeting in Sleepy Eye and reminded the board that next school year the district will be joining that conference. It includes school districts from Comfrey, New Ulm, Springfield, Sleepy eye and Wabasso.

“We talked about rotation schedules for cross country pre-season and conference meets, basketball conference championship dates and set up a golf rotation. We plan to have three joint meetings next year moving forward,” Roiger said.

Spring sports sign-up sheets will go up next week and Roiger said they’re still looking for some coaches. In fact, the board was slated to approve the spring coaches for 2024 during Thursday’s meeting but Roiger pulled the item until next month’s meeting because she said only two coaches have confirmed for the season.

The baseball and golf coaches are in place and Roiger said a few individuals have shown interest in taking the track coach position.

Moving to the topic of fine arts, Roiger said the theater arts department will put on a comedic murder mystery play, WCKY, on March 9 and 10.

“There are 25 7 through 12th grade students in the cast and four crew members helping out as stage hands and we’re anxious to see how the play is going to go in the small gym,” Roiger said.

Finally, community education opportunities were touched on. Roiger said that they have been busy with after-school offerings and noted that picklball recently started back up.

“We’ve had a full house almost every Wednesday night. Just last night, a few community members said, ‘thank you so much for doing this for us,’ and it just makes me happy that we’re doing it,” Roiger said.

She said they also put on a Great Puzzle Race last weekend which saw good attendance and that they’re planning another for the month of April.

“It’s a goal of mine to have one community event each month. This month we’ll be having a community game night, Friday, Feb. 23rd from 5 to 7 p.m.,” Roiger said.

Next Andy Walden provided a middle and high school report. He said that sophomore students will be taking the preACT test next week. He also shared that the school recently posted two positions– one for an industrial teacher and another for a high school science teacher.

Walden also said that students in FFA are planning special dress up days and events for National FFA week, which is Feb. 17-24.

“We’re looking forward to a good week, courtesy of our FFA,” Walden said.

Moving to other matters, the board considered an agenda addition– approving a boiler purchase up to $200,000.

School board Member Brad Mattson said that they have two bids so far but are waiting for a third bid.

“The reason we’re not waiting for the March meeting is because the lead time to get everything ordered in time for summer… if we get approval now, we can get the ball rolling,” Mattson said.

He said that the new boiler will be smaller and require less horsepower than the current boiler, which is from 1953.

“We’ve been kicking the can down the road as long as we can and there’s some work on the boiler that has to be done, so we’re not going to spend any more money on it,” Mattson said.

The board approved the purchase of a new boiler up to $200,000.

In other action, the board:

— Approved the hire of Dartan Will as Director of Buildings and Grounds, effective Feb. 5.

— Approved the hire of Kim Kastens as a part-time paraprofessional.

— Approved the hire of Lori Putney as a full-time paraprofessional.

— Approved a resolution proclaiming February as School Board Recognition Month.

— Approved the school calendar for the 2024-25 school year.

— Approved a resolution to limit the enrollment of non-resident pupils for grades K-12 for the remainder of the 2024-25 school year. Superintendent Doug Storbeck indicated that he feels it’s in the best interest of students to limit open enrollment for all grade levels.