The top reported proficiency rate is 43% in English language arts. The lowest is 24% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Pacific Crest Online Academy
Pacific Crest Online Academy serves students from kindergarten through twelfth grade as a full-time, public online school operated by the Richland School District. The school draws its student body from across the district, which covers West Richland and the surrounding Tri-Cities area of southeastern Washington. West Richland itself has grown rapidly in recent years, with a sprawling, low-density layout and a mix of residential neighborhoods, agricultural land, and a developing wine industry along the Red Mountain AVA. The city lacks a traditional downtown, and its schools are spread across separate campuses. Pacific Crest Online is a different kind of option: it is not a campus at all in the conventional sense, but a virtual school that students attend from home.
The school’s enrollment runs from sixth through twelfth grades, with the largest numbers in the upper high school years. There is a substantial share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The student body is predominantly white, with a sizable Hispanic population and smaller representations of students who are Asian, Black, Native American, or of two or more races.
Because this is an online school that serves a full K-12 range, state testing data was only available for the grades that are assessed in Washington. For the 2024-25 school year, the school reported proficiency results in math, English language arts, and science for grade levels seven and eight. In math, roughly one in four seventh graders and a similar share of eighth graders met the state’s proficiency standard. In English language arts, the rate was higher: about two in five seventh graders and closer to half of eighth graders scored at the proficient level or above. In eighth-grade science, roughly three in ten students were proficient. When the results are combined across all tested subjects and grades, Pacific Crest Online Academy’s overall proficiency index places it below the midpoint relative to the six school districts in Benton County. The data does not include testing results for sixth grade, as those figures were suppressed, and no high school level state assessment results appear in the available records. Parents considering this school may want to ask the school directly how it handles state testing for high school students, particularly if graduation pathway requirements are a concern.
The school has only one year of assessment data in the record, so no trend is available to show whether performance is improving or declining over time. A graduation rate was not included in the data, which may be because the school’s reporting profile does not yet capture that metric, or because the school’s structure as an online academy makes that data less straightforward to report. A parent would want to confirm directly with the school what its four-year graduation rate is and how it tracks students toward a diploma.
No information was available about course access, advanced placement or dual-credit offerings, career and technical education programs, or extracurricular activities. This is a significant gap for a family trying to understand what pathways a high school student would have. The school’s website may provide this detail, but it was not part of the supplied data. The same is true for discipline data, chronic absenteeism, staffing ratios, and special education or English learner population counts; those fields were missing, so the picture of student support and school climate is incomplete.
The housing market in the area shows that the typical home value in the zip code is a bit below the statewide median for Washington, but the cost of renting is a factor families should weigh in their budget. The national economic context shows a moderate unemployment rate and a recent history of rising rents, which may matter for families considering a move to the district for an online program.
Pacific Crest Online Academy is a straightforward virtual public school option within a growing suburban and agricultural region. Its academic results are mixed, with English language arts performance approaching the state average in some grades and math performance clearly lower. The available data is thin, especially around high school outcomes and program opportunities. A family interested in this school should press for details on graduation rates, course offerings, and how the school supports students who are not meeting benchmarks, particularly in mathematics. For a student who thrives in a home-based, self-paced learning environment, this school may be a good fit. For a family that wants a full picture of academic outcomes and pathways before enrolling, there are several open questions worth answering first.
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