With new principal, Grant begins another school year

Students returning to Grant Elementary School in Fremont on Wednesday were greeted by a new face in the principal’s office.

Greg Borland welcomed students to the school, which operates on a continuous calendar and was the first Fremont Public Schools building to open. Other FPS schools are scheduled to begin Aug. 26.

“It’s been a smooth day -- a couple bumps, but nothing major,” Borland said. “The kids have been great and the teachers have been even better.”

Borland spent much of last year as interim principal at Platteville Elementary. Prior to that, he was a teacher at Clarmar Elementary for seven years.

He takes over as Grant’s principal for Mike Aerni, who has moved into that position at Washington Elementary.

Borland moved into his new office on June 22.

“That was a nice transition time,” he said. “I had plenty of time to get myself organized and settled.”

There also was an open house Monday where students got the chance to meet their teachers and Borland.

“It’s really good for the kids to see their teacher and know where their room is, so when they walk in like they did this morning, pretty much every kid knew right where they were going when they walked in the door,” Borland sad. “It’s those little things that you can kind of take care of before the doors officially open.”

Borland met with children in kindergarten through second grade in the morning and had a meeting with those in grades 3-5 in the afternoon.

He used those meetings to detail his expectations of the students,

including such things as lunchroom and playground behavior.

Since he is new to the school, Borland said he is trying to familiarize himself with the students as quickly as possible.

“I’ve set it as a goal for myself to learn a lot of these kids’ names before the end of the first quarter,” he said. “I’m working rally hard at it. That is going to be a challenge because I’m walking into a building and starting from scratch as far as the names go.”

Other goals for Borland include trying to ensure that the teachers’ needs are met.

“I think it’s real important to be that person that they can come to and something will get done,” he said.

Borland also wants to make sure that the continuous calendar Aerni established remains successful.

“Mr. Aerni has done a great job of establishing this calendar and making it very popular and appealing to people,” Borland said. “That will be an ultimate goal of mine to make sure that I continue to make it appealing and that people want to come to Grant. We have a large transfer base that comes into this building and I want to continue that.”