A school report card is available for the Elementary and Junior-Senior high school.  Click on the links below.

Prairie Elementary School

Prairie Junior Senior High School

Enrollment by grade – quarterly

Our Mission

We will create, deliver and responsibly manage opportunities for all children to learn every day and become contributing citizens. These opportunities will be developed in partnership with the community and will be provided in a safe and supportive environment.

Our Motto

Every Student Learning Every Day

Our Values

Respect, Dignity, Honesty, Responsibility and Teamwork

Awards

Prairie Jr/Sr High a 5 Star School
Prairie Elementary a 4 Star School
Distinguished Elementary School
NATIONAL BLUE RIBBON SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE 2014

Superintendent’s Welcome to the 2025-2026 School Year 

This is year #5 as the Cottonwood School District Superintendent.  The first 4 years have gone by very fast and I am looking forward to kicking off another school year.  

We are less than 3 weeks away from students walking through the door on Tuesday, September 2nd.  Both buildings will start seeing teachers in and out of the building in the next couple of weeks, but the first official contract day for staff is Tuesday, August 26th for district meetings.  

Cottonwood School District’s enrollment as of the beginning of August was 418 students.  This number will change as we have registration at the high school on Wednesday, August 13th and there may be new students enrolling. Last year at this time we had 423 students enrolled.  We currently have 41 open enrolled students from other districts.  

Our fall sport practices kickoff on Monday, August 11th for football, volleyball and cross country.    First action for football is Friday, August 22nd @ CV for a jamboree, first game of the year is at home Friday, August 29th vs. Deary.  There are 25 boys out for football.  Volleyball kicks off their season with a jamboree at PHS Tuesday, August 19th.  The first game of the season is @ Logos on Thursday, August 28th.  There are 26 girls out for volleyball.  Cross Country doesn’t have their entire schedule set, but as of now their first XC meet is scheduled for Wednesday, September 3rd @ Moose Creek Invite.  There are 13 cross country runners out.    

Jr High football and volleyball will start a little later in August as their first games don’t start until the middle of September. Good luck to all our athletes this Fall!  Student organizations BPA, HOSA, FFA, Prairie League, and Knowledge Bowl will begin their meetings when the school year starts.

Open House at the elementary school is planned for Wednesday, August 27th from 4:30-6:30.  We will provide burgers, hot dogs and chips for students and parents as they drop off their supplies in their new classrooms and meet their teachers.  

Prairie is offering numerous dual credit and IDLA courses again this year.  We have a great partnership with LCSC and appreciate the dedication our teachers show by giving our students the opportunity to accrue numerous college credits before they graduate high school.  945 credits earned in 2024-25 compared to 702 credits earned during the 2023-24 school year.  This saved the students $472,500 in 2024-25 compared to $351,000 in 2023-24.  The numbers keep increasing each year!.  We look forward to continuing this opportunity for all of our students.         

We welcome new staff members to the district this year

Carly Behler – Business Manager/District Clerk

Carly took over Denise Uhlenkott’s spot at the district office due to Denise’s much deserved retirement!  Carly grew up in Cottonwood as the youngest of four children to Rod and June Behler. After graduating from Prairie High School in 2009, she went on to earn her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an Accounting emphasis from Lewis-Clark State College in 2012.  In 2018, she married her husband, Adrian McCrum. When she’s not working, she stays busy trying to keep up with the activities of her 17 amazing nieces and nephews. She’s also a proud pet parent—her fur baby, Finn, is incredibly spoiled. Be sure to stop by her office to check out the “Finn Wall”!

She loves spending time outdoors—whether it’s camping, floating the river, picking berries, or enjoying a sunny beach day. When the weather cools down, you’ll likely find her cozied up with a good puzzle, a warm blanket, and a well-worn copy of Harry Potter.  You can also catch her watching her 49ers in the Fall, she is a die hard 49ers fan!

She’s honored to be following in Denise’s footsteps in this position. Denise always spoke about how much she loved this job.  Carly can already see why. It feels great to be here—and she’s so happy to be a Pirate again!  Welcome Carly!

Garrett Beckman –  Physical Education teacher

Garrett was born and raised in Lewiston, Idaho and graduated from Lewiston High School in 2018.  After high school he attended Treasure Valley Community College and then Eastern Oregon University, playing baseball for both of these schools and coaching at EOU. During that time he received his bachelor’s degree in Health and Human Performance and his masters degree in teaching. He married his wife (Dani) in December 2024 and they are expecting their first child this Fall. In his free time he enjoys coaching baseball, camping, hunting, fishing, and relaxing with his wife and their dog Frank! He is very excited for this upcoming year and working with this awesome community!  Welcome Garrett!

Hope Christopherson – Prairie Elementary School paraprofessional

Hope was born in Cottonwood ID, her parents are Daniel and Leslie McIntire. She graduated from Prairie Jr/Sr High school in 2019. She enjoys helping people, staying active and spending time with her family and friends. This summer she got married to Tanner Christopherson and she is currently training for her third 1/2 marathon.  She’s excited to start working with the staff and students at Prairie Elementary School.  Welcome Hope!

CiCi Chavez – Prairie Jr/Sr High School paraprofessional 

CiCi graduated from Prairie High In 2021, and went to college for psychology and graduated in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree! She had her daughter one week to the day after she graduated.  She is now a crazy little animal but CiCi loves her very much. CiCi currently lives in Grangeville and she’s working on getting her clinical psychology degree to become a counselor. She’s very excited to work and get to know everyone and revisit with her high school teachers who helped to get her to where she is now. Welcome CiCi!

Amber Nuxoll – Head Cook

Amber worked in the cooking position from April 2022 – May 2023. She taught the Prairie High School release time class last year and also subbed as needed at Prairie. She’s coming back as the District’s Head Cook.

She grew up in Cottonwood and graduated from Prairie in the class of 2010. She went to LCSC and North Idaho College. She came back in 2014 to help her grandparents.  She now lives at her grandparents farm in Ferdinand with her family, who include her husband Curtis, and children Ava, Matt, Adam, and Abby. They all enjoy camping, hiking, fishing, gardening, canning, baking, archery, and relaxing out on our deck! She can’t wait to work with everyone!  Welcome Amber!

Student Teachers for the new school

We will have 3 student teachers in the district this year.  

Madison Shears is completing her studies through WGU and will be dual certified with a K-8 endorsement as well as a Special Education endorsement.  She will be completing her K-8 experience in Kindergarten with Megan Frei and will split her special education experience between both building with Tori Decaria, Vikki Riener, and Michelle Bledsoe

Katie (Goeckner) Munger is completing her studies through LCSC and will be dual certified with a K-8 endorsement as well as a Special Education endorsement.  She will be completing her K-8 endorsement with Julie Schumacher in 3rd grade this Fall.  She will complete her special education endorsement at the elementary school with Vikki Riener and Michelle Bledsoe.  Katie graduated from Highland HS in Craigmont.  She married Wes Munger on July 27th this summer.

Amelia Uhlenkott is completing her studies through LCSC and will be K-8 certified at the end of the school year.  She will be completing her student teaching at the elementary school in Spring ‘26, the teacher and grade level has not been determined yet.

We are excited to have all three of these ladies complete their experiences in our district.    

 Summer Camp

The elementary school offered a summer “camp” program for elementary students in June and July.   3 days a week for 3 weeks.  This was facilitated by Becky Higgins and her summer school help consisted of Cami Shears (Vikki Riener filled in for 3 days for Cami while Cami completed a course at LCSC the first week), Brittany Stewart, Erin Shears, Megan Frei, and Madison Shears.  There were 54 students enrolled (49 students attended) with a 85% attendance rate.   Attendance always fluctuates due to other summer activities scheduled at the same time for families.  All the students did well in the program.  Thank you to these ladies for their hard work and taking time out of their summer to assist these students.    

Projects throughout the summer. 

A couple major projects that were completed this summer was the painting of the entire high school and the replacement of 92 windows at the high school.  Rick Forsmann and Sydney Shears completed the painting the week of June 9th and June 16th.  They did a fantastic job.  

A Touch of Glass from Lewiston completed the window project.  It should be completely finished by Friday, August 22nd if everything goes as planned.  They had to wait for a couple weeks to get the glass for the large windows on the east and west side of the building.  The trim and windows are looking great

The City of Cottonwood and all the area highway districts joined forces on Thursday, July 31st to put BST down on the elementary school front parking lot, entrance to the football field and the road on the back of the elementary used by the buses.  It was impressive to see all hands on deck from start to finish in 2 hours.  The district would like to thank them all for their hard work and attention to detail!   

The high school, elementary, and auxiliary gym floors were refinished this summer and are ready for the upcoming sport seasons.  They turned out great.    

More info

If you are interested in becoming a substitute in the district, please contact Jennifer Riener rienerj@sd242.org at the elementary school and she can get you started with the process.  We are always looking to add people to our substitute pool  

If any community members are interested in being on an email list for the schools, please contact Jennifer Riener at the elementary school rienerj@sd242.org or Matt Elven at the Jr/Sr High School elven@sd242.org

We plan to use the SchoolMessenger notification system again this year.  This is a mass email, text, phone call if there is a district emergency, school closure and any other pertinent information that we may need to get out to a large group of people in a quick manner.  With all technology, there are kinks, but we hope that we can work with families to update the proper contact information so they are receiving these messages.  

We are looking forward to another great year.  We hope you all have a fantastic 2025-26 school year!  

Go Pirates!

Jon Rehder

Superintendent 

---

---