Glidden-Ralston (G-R) Community School District Administrators held a town hall meeting Wednesday evening discussing the district potentially transitioning into a four-day week in the upcoming school year. Superintendent Tom Ridder says administration and the school board started exploring the idea in September, with the main reason being to attract students to the district after losing three students in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 and 13 students in FY25.
Adding declining enrollment, open-enrolled students and losing students to private schools equates to a 37-pupil loss over a two-year period for G-R, with the district losing around $300,000 in funding over the same timeframe from the state. A proposed tentative schedule would be instruction days Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., for an approximate 153 days or 1,109 hours. Teachers would utilize one Monday per month for professional development, meetings, and prep work for their academics, which High School Principal Tony Napierala says would be extremely beneficial for staff.
In parents’ surveys that were sent out prior to the meeting, a question of concern came up about academics and how it would be affected with losing a day of instruction. Former administrator at Martensdale-St. Marys Beth Happe says that district saw grade level improvement of over 40 percent for testing in English-Language Arts, around 88 percent for math, and approximately 66 percent for science, as there was more time throughout the day to implement instruction.
The next major concern that was address was daycare, which Ridder says the district is looking into opening the building up to the Lil’ Wildcat Education Center to be able to accommodate additional children. Both Happe and Exira-Elk Horn-Kimbalton (Exira-EHK) Superintendent Trevor Miller says before transitioning they had a plan to offer additional child care opportunities, but it was not needed.
Other concerns were for support staff pay, which Miller says Exira-EHK raised hourly staff wages so they would make similar to what they do only working four days instead of all five days, and food insecurity, with a food pantry now available for all district families in need at Exira-EHK. Ridder says while no definite plan is being proposed, G-R will explore all ideas to address those same concerns. G-R Administration and the school board plan to review data received from surveys, and have a few more town hall meetings before a recommended action will be voted on during the Feb. 11, 2026 meeting. Anyone with additional questions or concerns are asked to reach out to any of G-R admin team, contact points have been included below.
Tom Ridder, Superintendent: tridder@glidden-ralston.k12.ia.us
Tony Napierala, 9-12 Principal: tnapierala@glidden-ralston.k12.ia.us
Eric Hjelle, PK-8 Principal: ehjelle@glidden-ralston.k12.ia.us
or calling (712) 659-3411
