East Valley School Board selects Mandi Rehn, current Valley School District Superintendent, to lead district

From the first rung as a kindergarten teacher to soon-to-be superintendent of East Valley School District, Mandi Rehn has spent 27 years climbing the career ladder in education.

With history as a classroom teacher, principal and district administrator, Rehn is excited that her varied background led her to her latest endeavor, preparing to lead East Valley.

“You think about how all those experiences have led you to this next space,” Rehn said. “Hopefully all that growth will just help me be a better person for this new district.”

Rehn comes to East Valley from Valley School District, a small district enrolling some 1,000 kids near Chewelah. She’s worked there since 2022.

Her teaching career started with the youngest students at Cooper and Indian Trail elementary schools, then moving up to principal at Michael Anderson and Opportunity elementaries. Her position at the latter earned her state accolades. In 2020, she transitioned to district administration at Central Valley School District.

Rehn will formally start her role in July as outgoing Superintendent Brian Talbott makes his departure from the district he’s led for over five years.

After their first attempt in a monthslong search to find Talbott’s successor didn’t turn up a suitable replacement, the school board restarted its hiring process in January. A fresh slate of candidates applied, including Rehn and other finalists Reardan-Edwall Superintendent Eric Sobotta and Larry Quisano, a Spokane Public Schools administrator.

School board member Mike Bly said Rehn was the “right fit” they’d been searching for all along. She impressed the board with her ability to connect with all the groups with whom she met in her 13-hour marathon of an interview.

“She’s an amazing person, well-rounded, levelheaded, thoughtful and a wealth of knowledge from some amazing experience she’s had in life,” Bly said.

“There wasn’t a box that wasn’t checked, and she’s a heck of a nice person.”

Rehn opted not to apply in the first round of hiring because she was satisfied in Valley, proud to aid in the ongoing construction of a new childcare center in the town.

“I feel a huge sense of responsibility wherever I am to make sure that place is, you know, you’ve left it better than you found it, and you’ve made the impact that you want to make,” she said. “Because of all that, I did a whole bunch of research.”

After East Valley’s first attempt at hiring a new superintendent didn’t bear fruit, she reconsidered. She contacted mentors, including Talbott, about her dilemma and was compelled to apply after watching staff confessionals about their time in East Valley.

“I just felt like this was where I was supposed to be,” she said.

Looking ahead to her plans for East Valley, she said she and Talbott are aligned in “how we lead and how we love people.” She’s eager to stay the course established by the district’s long-term strategic plan, which surrounds data-driven academic achievement and future building construction.

“I need to be somewhere where I’m busy and where there’s new objectives and new things on the table,” Rehn said. “I mean, honestly, the idea of building a couple more schools just sounds pretty spectacular, too.”

When she starts officially in July, Rehn will know the fate of the district’s $220 million bond initiative, on ballots in April. The tax measure would fund the replacement of the district’s middle and high school.

Depending on election results, Rehn could inherit an exciting opportunity to build, which she said has been the “coolest” part of her career in administration. She has experience overseeing construction at Valley and Central Valley.

If fewer than 60% of East Valley voters endorse the district’s bond in April, she said that’s another opportunity to learn. She’d work with the school board and Talbott to see what their imagined next steps were and also bring a few new ideas to the table herself.

“I mean, there’s lots of options. None of them getting probably to the same amount of money that they’re currently asking for,” Rehn said. “Then pushing forward with what that might be so that we can get some kind of relief for maybe some of the buildings, but I’m not sure what their plan has been.”