Henning to start school prior to Labor Day in the fall
News | Published on March 24, 2026 at 12:07pm EDT | Author: henningmaster
0By Chad Koenen
Publisher
The Henning School District will join a growing number of school districts across the state who will be starting school early in the fall.
During its regularly scheduled meeting last week, the Henning School Board approved the 2026-27 school calendar in which the first day of school will be one week prior to the traditional day after Labor Day start. The change was made due to how Labor Day falls on the calendar in the fall in 2026, which is the latest it can possibly be this year on Monday, Sept. 7.
“Because Labor Day is so late we are able to start before Labor Day, if we so choose, and the teachers are in favor of that,” said Henning School Superintendent Melissa Sparks.
The first day of school will officially be Tuesday, Sept. 1 and students will attend school Tuesday through Friday, before having a three day weekend due to Labor Day.
In previous months the school board heard that if students did not start school prior to Labor Day it would be difficult to get all of their days in during the school year and still be done by the Memorial Day weekend in the spring.
The new calendar also included one more student contact day than the 2025-26 school calendar.
In other news
• Accepted the retirement of Glenn Scott as bus driver. Scott has driven bus for 52 years for both the Henning and Pipestone School Districts. He told the school board he had planned to retire from driving bus when he turned 80-years-old and encouraged the school board to look at increasing the amount of money that is paid out to bus drivers when they retire from the school district.
• Accepted the retirement of Jenny Haugdahl as elementary teacher.
• Accepted the resignation of Jessica Iliff as the assistant volleyball coach.
• Approved the hiring of Eric Koep as an Otter Tail Central junior high baseball coach.
• Approved the MOU between the Henning Education Association and the Henning Public School District whereby the association and the district agree to waive one percent of the two percent annual professional development set aside for the 2025-26 school year. This equates to moving approximately $29,894 from restricted revenue to unassigned revenue.
• Approved holding a work session on April 21 at 5:30 p.m. to review the revised budget. The work session will be held prior to the regularly scheduled meeting.
• Approved calling for bids for parking lot and handicapped accessibility improvements. The school board had previously approved seeking bids, but will need to change the scope of the project due to the city’s plan to reconstruct Marshall Ave.
• Heard the community ed report that stated the school district is looking for ways to grow the summer recreation program and what things the district could add or change to meet the needs of the community to increase participation. The community ed group is planning to put together a survey to have available at the end of March for the parent/teacher conferences. There were also 33 children signed up for elementary cheer leading and the plan is to have the summer food application completed by May 1.