Crookston students will return to class on Tuesday, and the principals at Highland Elementary and Crookston Middle and High Schools are ready to kick off the 2026-27 school year.
Crookston Middle and High School principal Lisa Conzemius is eager to get the year started. The schools have implemented a few changes over the summer, including updated electronic device and backpack policies, but a significant change is the integration of the school’s schedules. Previously, the schedules for the middle and high schools were off by three minutes. Conzemius realized that with some teachers splitting time between both schools, there could be a supervision problem with classes, so the schedules were integrated, with first through third periods running together and fifth through seventh periods as well. The only remaining difference is the fourth period and lunch schedules. Conzemius has already heard from teachers who approve of the new schedule, which streamlines things for both schools. “The biggest thing for me was supervision,” said Conzemius. “I have 10 times in our school day that a high school teacher is teaching a high school class, and then their next period is a junior high class. And what happens is, if you’re teaching high school, when your ending bell rings, the middle school bell was starting, so there were kids in a classroom somewhere in the building without a supervisor because you were on the high school side. And by the time you get there, there’s that unsupervised time. And legally, we can’t have that. So that was my biggest thing that pushed me to fight that we had to be on the same schedule.”
Highland Elementary co-principal Greg Garmen has spent the last couple of years helping out at Highland as a substitute teacher and working in the district office. This year, he and longtime Crookston educator Dave Kuehn were recruited to lead the school together following the retirement of Chris Trostad. While everything has been moving quickly since Garmen and Kuehn were named co-principals, Garmen believes the kids can handle the new principals splitting time at the school, since many students are already familiar with both Garmen and Kuehn. “Kids sort of know me because I was there two years ago, so I know a good portion of them,” said Garmen. “Yet Dave was here as a superintendent three or four years ago, so they know him yet a little bit. They’ve seen us around, and I think the kids will be fine, and they’ll take it all in stride. Dave and I are quite similar in how we’ll deal with people, how we deal with staff, so I don’t think there will be a big change from Monday when I’m there to Tuesday when Dave’s there.”
Interim Crookston Superintendent Todd Selk enters his first year in this position and his 41st year in education, and he is excited to see students and teachers return from summer break and establish their routines for the new school year. “I just love the start of a school year. It’s a chance to get rebooted and coming off a nice, healthy summertime of free time, etc,” said Selk. “I think we all kind of, in the back of our minds, though sometimes we say we don’t like routine. Really, it’s routine that really guides us and gives us purpose, and certainly our routines now will change when we have students in the building. But I think it’s a welcome routine that comes to us on an annual basis.”
Highland Elementary School classes begin at 8:00 a.m., and middle and high school classes begin at 8:15 a.m.
