Election results: Vote on 3rd Pasco high school and career academy down to the wire

The Pasco School District bond was just short of passing with the votes counted Tuesday night.

The measure needed 60% of the vote to pass, and Tuesday night the tally stood at 5,560 votes, or just over 59.5% in favor, and 3,779, or just under 40.5% opposed.

More ballots will be counted by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Pasco Votes for Schools, the group campaigning for the measure, said the count was 108 votes short of passing Tuesday night.

It wasn’t the decisive victory the group was hoping for, but hundreds of ballots are left to be tabulated, including ballots that were recently mailed or that were dropped off Tuesday, the group posted to social media.

“The strong upward trajectory observed over the past several days is likely to continue, which means we may still be able to win by a very thin margin,” it said.

If the bond passes, it would add an additional 31 cents per $1,000 of assessed value to tax bills to construct a third comprehensive high school and a small innovative high school, plus some other improvements.

The school district asked for a 21-year, $195.5-million bond starting in 2024, to respond to the growing population of Pasco.

One of the state of Washington’s fastest-growing communities, Pasco will likely grow by another 50,000 people over the next 20 years.

Already since 2000, student enrollment has more than doubled in Pasco schools.

And Chiawana High School — the state’s largest public high school — is bursting at the seams.

Last summer, the district added six portables to the campus. About 1,800 high schoolers are being taught this school year in portables between both Chiawana and Pasco High School, the state’s sixth-largest high school.

The proposed measure would pay for:

• Building a third comprehensive high school near Burns Road and Road 60.
• Construction a small career and college academy in East Pasco.
• Improving athletic fields and facilities, including construction of a new fastpitch field at Pasco High School.
• Modernizing career and technical education classrooms at Chiawana and Pasco high school.
• Buying land for future schools.

Owners of a home valued at $300,000 would pay about $93 a year.

If the bond passes, Pasco plans to open the new high school to serve 2,000 students in fall 2025.

The career and college academy for 600 high school students would also open that year.

Pasco Votes for Schools took a new approach to winning support, trading traditional yard signs and phone calling for smartphone technology in its all-digital canvassing.

Hundreds of personalized messages were sent out by volunteers this week to urge their friends, relatives and co-workers to get their ballots turned in for the Feb. 14 special election.

The campaign identified nearly 7,500 likely supporters and about 1,600 confirmed supporters by looking at their publicly posted Facebook “likes” and responses to school district events.

This story was originally published February 14, 2023 at 8:49 PM.