GRANADA – After opening Thursday’s Granada-Huntley-East Chain (GHEC) School Board meeting by choosing not to do a four-day school week, the board discussed options for next year’s calendar.

Multiple options were given. Superintendent Doug Storbeck said the first option is a standard calendar.

“The first difference is we do get to start before Labor Day,” he said. “That was approved by the State of Minnesota for this year and next year, because Labor Day is so late. They are allowing schools to start on Sept. 1. Our current calendar does not have a work day at the end of the year.”

To wrap up everything efficiently at the end of the year, Storbeck said adding a workday for May 28 would be preferable.

The second calendar concept came after discussions with teachers regarding how to move forward after moving on from a four-day school week.

“A comment was made about, ‘Are there some things that we can do? Take some concept out of this four-day week and apply it to our campus,'” Storbeck said. “I did take a little bit of that. The total student contact days on this calendar are 170 instead of 173. My thought process is to increase our school day by five minutes. Over the course of the school year, it’d be pretty much the equivalent of the three days that is reduced.”

In doing so, Storbeck said they would have days off on the 23rd and 26th of April as comp and work days, and the 21st and 24th of May as staff development days. A third option takes this same concept but moves some off days around, adding Jan. 4 as an off day and moving the staff development days to after school ends, among other things.

Talking to staff, Storbeck said there is one issue that could cause some disagreement.

“The biggest push back, and I don’t know how strong a pushback it is, but it’s starting early,” he said. “That is a change I don’t know everybody’s on board with. We’re probably going to have to start early anyway, because of construction.”

Storbeck said to know for sure, he would like to connect with their architects and the ICS construction company to get their input. Board Member Laura Koch agreed.

“If they can’t start until July 1st of 2027, then there’s an argument of not necessarily needing to start school so early,” she said. “We really won’t know until the contractor comes in.”

Ultimately, the board decided to leave it at a discussion and table a decision until later.

In other news:

— Storbeck said they are pursuing a new idea as they look to add elective courses that provide exposure to differing career paths.

“One thing that we’re looking at is the Health Science Career Academy. This is something I gained exposure to through my own children at Blue Earth Area and my wife at UHD. They have students who will come there one day a week, and the first course would be a medical terminology course. That’s the prerequisite that can get you into a nursing course, where they can do their CNA certificate so they can work at a nursing home.”

— Storbeck said Principal Andy Walden’s decision to remove Chromebooks from the middle schoolers for six weeks has not resulted in any complaints. Storbeck said they are looking to discuss with the leadership team the amount of technology utilized in the classroom and whether it should be scaled back.