There’s a phrase Jenny Cox uses when she talks about her hometown that says everything: “Two degrees of Reardan.” Say the name almost anywhere in the Inland Northwest, and someone in the room has a connection, a cousin who married in, a sister who grew up there, or a business partner whose family roots run deep through generations. That gravitational pull isn’t an accident. It’s the result of a community that has long understood something Reardan-Edwall School District Superintendent Eric Sobotta states simply: “Schools are the lifeblood of small communities.”
In Reardan, that’s not a metaphor. It’s a description.
The School as Community Hub
Ask anyone from Reardan what makes the district special, and the answer is the same: the school doesn’t just serve the community. It is the community.
There’s no Parks and Recreation Department in Reardan. The school campus fills that role: coordinating facilities and schedules for Hooptown basketball, Babe Ruth baseball, wrestling, and grid kids football through the Youth Advisory Committee and local clubs. “There’s no other place to go,” Sobotta said. “This is it.”
Parents organize through a Partners in Education group known locally as “PIE,” and a network of volunteers extends support well beyond the classroom. The WeCare group runs the local food pantry and coordinates Bite2Go weekend food support for students, work that recently earned a regional award. Local businesses like Kickin’ Coffee quietly donate meaningful funds to support student recognition programs. The support isn’t coordinated from above; it wells up from people who grew up here, raised their kids here, and can’t imagine it any other way.
Cox embodies that spirit. A third-generation Reardan native, she has spent nearly 27 years at MMEC Architecture, a Spokane-based firm known for civic and educational design. And not surprisingly, one of its founders is from Reardan. It isn’t an accident that a majority of the firm’s projects are education-focused; MMEC’s founding partners came from education-focused practices and carried that mission forward. “Schools are the lifeblood of small communities,” Jenny says. “They’re the largest employer. A lot of small towns would not exist if those schools did not exist.”
Serving the Community She Loves
Cox has just started her second four-year term on the Reardan-Edwall School Board, volunteering for the district that educated her, her mother, and now her own daughters. Her older daughter graduated last year; her younger daughter, a junior, aspires to become an FCCLA teacher and hopes to return to Reardan someday. There’s something quietly meaningful in that hope for the next generation.
What motivates her to serve isn’t obligation; it’s a sense of belonging. In Reardan, school board members aren’t distant officials; they’re your neighbors at the grocery store and your friends at the basketball games. There is a connection rooted in sharing the experience of growing up in Reardan.
A Small Town With a Wide Educational Reach
Reardan is officially a small town, but the school district it serves covers over 400 square miles and stretches across two counties (Spokane and Lincoln). More students attend the school than actually live within the town limits. Of the roughly 750 students enrolled in the district, about 150 have choiced in to Reardan from outside district boundaries, drawn by something they can’t find elsewhere. “If you look at our enrollment trend, you’re like, ‘Oh, that district’s growing, a bunch of people are moving in,'” Sobotta said. “That’s not actually the full picture.”
That growth is both a source of pride and a source of complexity. The district also serves more than 100 students who are members or descendants of tribes and operates a 120-student “Options” program, a school-at-home model born of pandemic-era remote learning. State funding follows students, but local levy dollars don’t; they contribute only about $2 million a year to the operating budget, even as a growing share of students come from outside the tax base.
“There’s no tax base we’re drawing from for any kid that’s chosen in,” Sobotta noted.
Known, Loved, and Learning
At the center of everything is the Reardan Promise that every student will be known, loved, and learning. Sobotta introduced the phrase, but the community made it their own. When 35 community members, staff, and students recently gathered to revisit the district’s mission and vision, they had the chance to rewrite it entirely. They chose to keep it. “It’s bigger than any one person now,” Sobotta said.
The promise is practiced, not just posted. The district maps relationships, surveying students about which adults they feel connected to and asking staff how well they know specific kids by name and story. “All it takes is one adult,” Sobotta said, recalling his own high school coach who saw past his mistakes. “We just try to make sure everybody has someone they’re deeply connected to.”
That same commitment extends to Reardan’s expanding partnership with local tribes. The district now offers two Salish language classes, conducts staff professional development on tribal lands, and observes Orange Shirt Day to honestly confront the legacy of nearby boarding schools. “I think in a few years we’ll be a model nationwide for partnering with the tribe,” Sobotta said.
In old photographs, Cox can see the same school site her grandfather attended. The historic Smith gymnasium has stood for generations. The faces change, the challenges evolve, and the funding debates continue, but in Reardan, the mission has never wavered.