Pacific Crest Online Academy

Pacific Crest Online Academy is a K–12 alternative school in West Richland, Washington, serving 325 students in the Tri-Cities area as part of the Richland School District.

The school serves a substantially higher-need student population than nearby alternative programs: 52% of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch in 2024–2025, compared with 21.56% at Three Rivers Home Link and 28.43% at Mid-Columbia Parent Partnership. Pacific Crest’s reported student-teacher ratio was also much lower, at 17.1 to 1, compared with more than 38 to 1 at both comparison schools. However, academic results were considerably weaker. In 2025–2026, 38.46% of students were proficient in English language arts, 11.70% in math, and 29.79% in science. These results trailed both nearby schools and districtwide figures, with math standing out as the most serious and persistent weakness.

Pacific Crest’s math proficiency remained below 17% in every reported year, and no published grade-level math result exceeded 25%; 6th- and 8th-grade math results were suppressed and should be treated as unknown, not zero. Science performance was also notably behind Three Rivers Home Link, which reported 78.22% all-grade science proficiency compared with Pacific Crest’s 29.79%. Graduation outcomes have been unstable, reaching 86.0% in 2022–2023 before falling to 72.2% in 2024–2025, below the district’s 86.2% and Washington’s 82.6%. A positive indicator is the 3.3% dropout rate, well below the state’s 9.8%, suggesting that the school generally keeps students connected even while academic progress and graduation consistency remain important concerns.