Lind-Ritzville Cooperative Schools Calendar 2026-2027

Lind-Ritzville Cooperative Schools joins two eastern Washington districts without dissolving either one. Lind and Ritzville retain separate boards, local finances and preschool-through-fifth-grade elementary schools. The cooperative begins when the two communities combine their secondary students, allowing them to share a broader program than either district could sustain alone.

Grades six through eight attend Lind-Ritzville Middle School in Lind. Grades nine through twelve attend Lind-Ritzville High School in Ritzville. A Lind student stays in town through middle school and begins traveling for high school; a Ritzville student makes the opposite trip during the middle grades and returns home in ninth grade. The arrangement turns transportation between the two towns into part of the educational structure.

The shared secondary schools create larger peer groups, more course choices and stronger activity programs while the elementary years remain rooted in each community. Agriculture and FFA are natural anchors in an area shaped by wheat farming, and career courses, athletics, music and student organizations draw participants from both districts. For 2026–27, the cooperative also moves to a Monday–Thursday week, with selected all-student and academic-intervention Fridays. Staff and administrators work across the cooperative even as local boards continue to make decisions for their own legal systems.

Students experience Lind-Ritzville as one secondary pathway, while taxpayers and families still belong to two districts. That dual identity explains why elementary events, board meetings and some local services remain separate, then middle-school and high-school life becomes shared. The cooperative is a long-term operating model built around age, town and travel; Lind and Ritzville remain separate districts.