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. 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. 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. 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 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 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 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- Prairie Elementary School paraprofessional 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 to help as a paraprofessional in the elementary school. 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! 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. 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 15th 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 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 Go Pirates! Superintendent | COTTONWOOD
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