Going into the new year, the school looks a little bit different. This past summer, GHS changed the furniture throughout the entire building. That means that every classroom received new chairs, individual tables, new bookshelves and standing desks. The journey to get to this point has not been an easy one.
Principal Theresa Huttmann noted that teachers had to move their personal belongings and furniture before they ended the past school year.
“We moved over 50 classrooms and offices of furniture in and out. So old stuff got taken away and new stuff got brought in. So, inevitably, some things either got moved, misplaced or broken.” Huttmann said. “It wasn’t really very many—it was probably three or four—so out of the grand scheme of things, we are pretty happy with that, because humans are humans.”
For the small number of misplaced or broken items, the district either provided a replacement or compensation.
Sophomore Berkeley Eyman said she is not a fan of the new furniture.
“No, I don’t like the fact that we are trying to be like Gretna East because we aren’t them, and I just don’t like it,” Eyman said.
She said she has mixed feelings about the individual tables and chairs.
“I don’t think the chairs are a lot more comfortable; they are about the same,” Eyman said. “But I like the fact that the tables are bigger, because I have more room to put all my stuff.”
Teachers within the building were given access to totes located in the teacher’s lounge to pack up their classrooms in the last couple weeks of the 2024-2025 school year. Spanish teacher Amy Muhs packed dozens of them with her classroom materials.
“I’m adjusting because I have to adjust, but I liked the way it was before because I had gotten it to be exactly the way that worked well for me and where I needed it,” Muhs said. “I had access to everything, and then a lot of the stuff that we used for storage was taken away. So now teachers just have to kind of figure out a place to put things.”
In Muhs’ classroom, students do not have new desks. She said she wanted it that way.
“I’m glad they honored that there are some of us who don’t want desks,” she said. “And I’m glad that they let us not have desks, because our classrooms are way smaller than East’s. And, in order to fit 27 desks, chairs and bodies in here, there’s no way. And my room is pretty small.”
Senior Sarah Doble said she sees the positives with the new tables and chairs.
“I think they (the chairs) are comfier than the old ones, although the back pad has a weird curve at the top, and I don’t like that. But I do think they are comfier,” Doble said. “And I don’t like the fact that we are trying to be like Gretna East because we spent a lot of money on new furniture when we should have been fixing our bathrooms. I am tall, so I do like it better, because I have a lot more space, and I also just think it is overall comfier, and it’s better to have bigger desks so we have more space.”
