Will Chiawana still be WA’s largest high school after Sageview opens?
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- Opening of Sageview High will reduce enrollment at Chiawana and Pasco High.
- Chiawana is forecasted to drop to Washington’s 10th largest public high school after years as 1st.
- First official enrollment data will arrive after September’s fourth school day.
Chiawana High School in Pasco will most likely lose its crown.
It’s expected to shed its title as Washington state’s largest public high school when Sageview High School opens four miles away in a couple weeks. Last year Chiawana had about 3,150 students.
Pasco School District is opening the $127 million school at 6091 Burns Road to students on Aug. 27.
Sageview will draw nearly 1,200 incoming freshmen, sophomores and juniors away from neighboring Chiawana and Pasco High School.
Pasco has been one of Washington’s largest high schools for many years. Last year, it was the third-largest in-person high school in the state.
A year ago, the school board adopted new high school boundaries that heavily favor students attending the high school in the closest proximity to where they live.
While enrollment at Chiawana and Pasco High will shrink, they’ll still remain among the largest public high schools in the state.
Chiawana is projected to have 2,270 students, a drop of about 890, and Pasco will have 2,100, a decrease of about 500.
That means Chiawana would slump to the state’s 10th biggest school and Pasco High to the 19th, based on adjustments to 2024-25 school year enrollment.
Tahoma Sr. High School in Maple Valley would steal the crown as the state’s largest.
But school district officials stress that they won’t know the true “ranking” of the state’s largest public high schools until after the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction publishes enrollment data later this year.
The first headcounts of public school students as required by state law will take place on the fourth school day in September.
But even those immediate post-Labor Day numbers are squishy, since families continue to move and change enrollment well into the fall semester, say school officials.
Subsequent counts take place on the first school day of each month during the school year, from October to June.
School crowding relief
Still, the opening of Sageview is expected to give immediate relief to the Tri-Cities’ largest high schools.
Chiawana is tentatively expecting to no longer need 16 portable buildings – with about 32 classrooms – on its campus. It is unclear if those portables will be moved.
But the school’s enrollment will still likely remain a tad over its main building capacity of 2,200.
Pasco High will still need to use most of its portable classrooms — 21 of the 29 — that were used last year. Four portable buildings, or roughly eight classrooms, will be used at Captain Gray STEM Elementary.
Chiawana opened to Pasco students in 2009 to help relieve bustling enrollment at Pasco High School.
Top 10 WA public high schools in 2024-25
- Chiawana High School (Pasco): 3,152
- Tahoma Senior High School (Maple Valley): 2,947
- Pasco High School (Pasco): 2,607
- Issaquah High School (Issaquah): 2,494
- Eastlake High School (Sammamish): 2,493
- South Kitsap High School (Port Orchard): 2,459
- Kamiak High School (Mukilteo): 2,388
- Davis High School (Yakima): 2,373
- Redmond High School (Redmond): 2,315
- Eisenhower High School (Yakima): 2,273
Other large Tri-Cities area schools:
- Richland High: 2,241
- Hanford High: 1,975
- Kamiakin High: 1,969
- Kennewick High: 1,925
- Southridge High: 1,622
This story was originally published August 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
