Pasco Offer

[CougDave]

Cougs have offered OT/DT Davion Pruitt from Pasco. I'm guessing they want him for DL. Only other offer is Central WA.

https://northwestprepreport.com/big-nasty-sleeper-recruit-rising-in-pasco/

 

[kougkurt]

 

[kougkurt]

PWO though? Nice article

 

[COUGinNCW]

Cougs have offered OT/DT Davion Pruitt from Pasco. I'm guessing they want him for DL. Only other offer is Central WA.

https://northwestprepreport.com/big-nasty-sleeper-recruit-rising-in-pasco/

Interesting. Any idea why no offers?

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

Interesting. Any idea why no offers?

Pasco basically became the worst athletic program in the league after Chiawana opened. Every decent athlete in Pasco gets a boundary exception and heads to Chiawana. The coaches all bailed as well. Its been a long hard road for PHS to get back to even basic respectability, but their new coach seems to be making headway.

All that to basically say : there hasn't been much reason to look at the impovrished, migrant school from Pasco when CHS has all you need. The author of the article pretty much said as much - this kid was under the radar until a coach spoke up.

 

[Loyal Coug]

Pasco basically became the worst athletic program in the league after Chiawana opened. Every decent athlete in Pasco gets a boundary exception and heads to Chiawana. The coaches all bailed as well. Its been a long hard road for PHS to get back to even basic respectability, but their new coach seems to be making headway.

All that to basically say : there hasn't been much reason to look at the impovrished, migrant school from Pasco when CHS has all you need. The author of the article pretty much said as much - this kid was under the radar until a coach spoke up.

Just great. We found him, now all kinds of coaches will come 'a running at him. Some with big horse teeth probably. Maybe we should make it a scholarship offer. Like right now. Get him to sign tomorrow. And it never hurts to have a guy from Eastern Washington on the team. Not saying that we should offer schollies just because of geographical location.

 

[Coug90]

Just great. We found him, now all kinds of coaches will come 'a running at him. Some with big horse teeth probably. Maybe we should make it a scholarship offer. Like right now. Get him to sign tomorrow. And it never hurts to have a guy from Eastern Washington on the team. Not saying that we should offer schollies just because of geographical location.

Not thinking sneaky Pete will have much interest in him. He’s too busy contributing to the economy in Hawaii right now.

 

[OrangeGravy]

Pasco basically became the worst athletic program in the league after Chiawana opened. Every decent athlete in Pasco gets a boundary exception and heads to Chiawana. The coaches all bailed as well. Its been a long hard road for PHS to get back to even basic respectability, but their new coach seems to be making headway.

All that to basically say : there hasn't been much reason to look at the impovrished, migrant school from Pasco when CHS has all you need. The author of the article pretty much said as much - this kid was under the radar until a coach spoke up.

This ^^^. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. It was a mass migration of everyone. It turned Pasco into one of the worst athletic high schools in the state overnight. Every single team sport was bottom barrel instantly with the exception of soccer maybe. Baseball has pretty much always been really poor, but they had a really strong history in basketball and football before the exodus.

OT, but I think there's a possibility of the same thing happening to Richland if/when they build another high school in the newer developed areas of the City. It also happened to Kennewick High School when the newer South Ridge school was built to a lesser extent. The new school is built in the more affluent areas and the old school is left to the poor and migrant areas

 

[79COUG]

Been following/played against the Big 9 (they still call it that?) since the 70's. Pasco football was a damn good program back in the day. Always had speed to burn. Gave the powerhouse Wenatchee teams from the early 70's a run for their money. Pretty sad to see what has become of that program...

 

[BiggsCoug]

Once high schools in WA get to 2,000 kids, it’s time to build a new high school.

Personally I think it’s ridiculous. Just build a facility that can grow to 3,000 students.

 

[Coug95man2]

Once high schools in WA get to 2,000 kids, it’s time to build a new high school.

Personally I think it’s ridiculous. Just build a facility that can grow to 3,000 students.

They shy away from getting too big. If you'll recall, the Columbine Shooting back in the day... one of the problems was it was a "sprawling" campus and they had difficulty locking it down. Since then, all new school construction is looked at tactically and how/when they can lock things down and control space. And that means controlling size. They are actually being proactive in this sense.

 

[YakiCoug]

Been following/played against the Big 9 (they still call it that?) since the 70's. Pasco football was a damn good program back in the day. Always had speed to burn. Gave the powerhouse Wenatchee teams from the early 70's a run for their money. Pretty sad to see what has become of that program...

Pasco, even when it fielded competitive teams, consistently had players of questionable academics. I'm not saying Pruitt falls into that category, but there has to be a few better prospects at DT still out there.

 

[roses04]

Cut the kid some slack, he plays football, wrestles, and does weights in track, at least he's motivated to keep him self busy, and trying to improve himself. And if he's good at all three, he has good quick footwork, that's half battle on the lines. We had walkons starting this year that didn't have his measurable coming out of HS.

 

[95coug]

This ^^^. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. It was a mass migration of everyone. It turned Pasco into one of the worst athletic high schools in the state overnight. Every single team sport was bottom barrel instantly with the exception of soccer maybe. Baseball has pretty much always been really poor, but they had a really strong history in basketball and football before the exodus.

OT, but I think there's a possibility of the same thing happening to Richland if/when they build another high school in the newer developed areas of the City. It also happened to Kennewick High School when the newer South Ridge school was built to a lesser extent. The new school is built in the more affluent areas and the old school is left to the poor and migrant areas

I think a big part of the Pasco/Chiawana switch was coaching. Chiawana got an excellent and stable staff from day 1, Pasco was suddenly back to zero. There's obviously also a talent discrepancy, as Pasco football has been down for as long as Chiawana has been up...but at the same time Pasco soccer has become outstanding while Chiawana is mediocre at best.

The bigger heartburn locally was over the way the two schools were populated. The board put a much higher value on "maintaining diversity" than anything else. They created a districting plan where kids from the east end of Pasco were bussed across town to Chiawana, and kids from West Pasco were bussed the other way to Pasco, with the sole intention of avoiding having a east side school dominated by Hispanic kids and a west side school of non-Hispanic kids. They completely ignored the neighborhood demographics, and tried to have two balanced schools in a community with a Hispanic majority. Really hoping they wise up for the soon-to-open elementary schools, and just zone them based on geography. There's no good reason to bus kids past 3 schools just to make sure the right mix of skin tones is achieved everywhere.

As for Kennewick/Southridge, you're leaving out a major player. Kennewick's heyday was really over well before Southridge even started construction. Kamiakin started to rise in the early 90s in both football and basketball, and has been pretty consistently successful. Southridge has had a couple of pretty good runs, but they've been up & down. Kennewick has declined fairly steadily. In both towns, as growth has moved away from the older neighborhoods around the original schools, those schools have become less relevant. But, in another parallel to Pasco, Kennewick is much better than Kamiakin or Southridge in soccer.

Richland is a bit different community, so I'm not sure the same circumstances would really apply there. The clear directional gradients of ethnicity and affluence that exist in Kennewick and Pasco aren't really there in Richland - there are scattered pockets instead of being relatively linear - so redistricting for another school is still probably going to maintain a reasonable mix.

 

[kougkurt]

How has the kid not committed yet.
Maybe Central wins out.

 

[COUGinNCW]

Pasco, even when it fielded competitive teams, consistently had players of questionable academics. I'm not saying Pruitt falls into that category, but there has to be a few better prospects at DT still out there.

The article said he had a 3.2 gpa at the time it was written.

 

[95coug]

Once high schools in WA get to 2,000 kids, it’s time to build a new high school.

Personally I think it’s ridiculous. Just build a facility that can grow to 3,000 students.

Here's the real problem with school design in Washington: they're required to build for what they have, not for what they're going to have when the school opens.

Say you have a school with a design capacity of 1,500. They place portables and get capacity to 2,000. The community continues to grow, and now they have 2,500 students. Now they start planning to build a new school to relieve crowding. The current district enrollment is what must be used to drive the design. It doesn't matter if the community is adding 5% per year. So they plan the school to accommodate 1,500 kids, it takes 2 years to get funded and 2 more to get built, so the day the doors open there are 1,800 enrolled. That's how we end up with portables outside schools 18 months after they open.

It would be much more sensible to project growth for 5-10 years, and build a school that can keep up with that...at least.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

I think a big part of the Pasco/Chiawana switch was coaching. Chiawana got an excellent and stable staff from day 1, Pasco was suddenly back to zero. There's obviously also a talent discrepancy, as Pasco football has been down for as long as Chiawana has been up...but at the same time Pasco soccer has become outstanding while Chiawana is mediocre at best.

The bigger heartburn locally was over the way the two schools were populated. The board put a much higher value on "maintaining diversity" than anything else. They created a districting plan where kids from the east end of Pasco were bussed across town to Chiawana, and kids from West Pasco were bussed the other way to Pasco, with the sole intention of avoiding having a east side school dominated by Hispanic kids and a west side school of non-Hispanic kids. They completely ignored the neighborhood demographics, and tried to have two balanced schools in a community with a Hispanic majority. Really hoping they wise up for the soon-to-open elementary schools, and just zone them based on geography. There's no good reason to bus kids past 3 schools just to make sure the right mix of skin tones is achieved everywhere.

As for Kennewick/Southridge, you're leaving out a major player. Kennewick's heyday was really over well before Southridge even started construction. Kamiakin started to rise in the early 90s in both football and basketball, and has been pretty consistently successful. Southridge has had a couple of pretty good runs, but they've been up & down. Kennewick has declined fairly steadily. In both towns, as growth has moved away from the older neighborhoods around the original schools, those schools have become less relevant. But, in another parallel to Pasco, Kennewick is much better than Kamiakin or Southridge in soccer.

Richland is a bit different community, so I'm not sure the same circumstances would really apply there. The clear directional gradients of ethnicity and affluence that exist in Kennewick and Pasco aren't really there in Richland - there are scattered pockets instead of being relatively linear - so redistricting for another school is still probably going to maintain a reasonable mix.

They've been bussing kids across the city for 30+ years now. Grew up on the east side, went ot McGee and McLoughlin. Nothing like having to walk past whorehouses and drug dens at night because the activity bus will only get within half a mile of your house. But hey, the brown poor kids got to see how the other half lived, so at least we had that going for us.

Live in Clark Co WA now and the newest equity politics is that ALL teachers need to be representative of their student demographics, ie if you're a white teacher in Clark Co/ the state of WA you might want to consider relocation because the local state senator needs exact representation of kids ethnicity in the teacher population. So in Pasco, for example, she is wanting to REQUIRE 80% hispanic teachers be employed.

 

[Observer11]

Here's the real problem with school design in Washington: they're required to build for what they have, not for what they're going to have when the school opens.

Say you have a school with a design capacity of 1,500. They place portables and get capacity to 2,000. The community continues to grow, and now they have 2,500 students. Now they start planning to build a new school to relieve crowding. The current district enrollment is what must be used to drive the design. It doesn't matter if the community is adding 5% per year. So they plan the school to accommodate 1,500 kids, it takes 2 years to get funded and 2 more to get built, so the day the doors open there are 1,800 enrolled. That's how we end up with portables outside schools 18 months after they open.

It would be much more sensible to project growth for 5-10 years, and build a school that can keep up with that...at least.

Nobody ever said school district administrators are the sharpest tools in the shed.

Go back and read some of my rants on the Albi Stadium debacle.

 

[BraindeadCoug]

Once high schools in WA get to 2,000 kids, it’s time to build a new high school.

Personally I think it’s ridiculous. Just build a facility that can grow to 3,000 students.

South Kitsap has nearly 3,000 students and is the biggest high school in the state. SK also has one of the worst, if not the very worst football program in the state.

Their program has gone downhill ever since Roderick Fisher’s grandpa retired. Ed Fisher had one great program for about 30 years starting in the mid ‘70s.

 

[Coug1990]

South Kitsap has nearly 3,000 students and is the biggest high school in the state. SK also has one of the worst, if not the very worst football program in the state.

Their program has gone downhill ever since Roderick Fisher’s grandpa retired. Ed Fisher had one great program for about 30 years starting in the mid ‘70s.

It has a lot to do with not investing in the program. Many bonds have failed over the years during elections.

Regarding the high school, land was donated to build a second high school many years ago. But, the same problem has occurred time after time, bonds to build the school continue to fail, including this past election.

 

[Coug95man2]

It has a lot to do with not investing in the program. Many bonds have failed over the years during elections.

Regarding the high school, land was donated to build a second high school many years ago. But, the same problem has occurred time after time, bonds to build the school continue to fail, including this past election.

I don't know anything specific about the 3-cities politics but it sounds a lot like my hometown. I know a whole lot of retiree's are down there. My home town is similar. When a bunch of retiree's become a larger voting demographic, schools suffer. Don't get it. It's not like they don't have grandchildren but they don't vote like it's their grandkids schools. It turns into, "When I was a kid, gas was .75 a gallon. It shouldn't be this expensive to build a new school" or whatever the bond might be for.

A demographic that is largely ignored.

 

[Loyal Coug]

I don't know anything specific about the 3-cities politics but it sounds a lot like my hometown. I know a whole lot of retiree's are down there. My home town is similar. When a bunch of retiree's become a larger voting demographic, schools suffer. Don't get it. It's not like they don't have grandchildren but they don't vote like it's their grandkids schools. It turns into, "When I was a kid, gas was .75 a gallon. It shouldn't be this expensive to build a new school" or whatever the bond might be for.

A demographic that is largely ignored.

Excellent points. However, I will say that they are not necessarily wrong. Building schools is as much of a racket as with any taxpayer-funded construction. I have some knowledge of this from my own hometown.

The architects and school-hired (PR) consultants make money when more is spent. Not to rehash Albi, but $35 million? Really? The money gets made by tearing down and building from the ground up.

So, you have to show the taxpayers that you are spending their money wisely. Not that tough, if in fact, you are...…..

 

[COUGinNCW]

Excellent points. However, I will say that they are not necessarily wrong. Building schools is as much of a racket as with any taxpayer-funded construction. I have some knowledge of this from my own hometown.

The architects and school-hired (PR) consultants make money when more is spent. Not to rehash Albi, but $35 million? Really? The money gets made by tearing down and building from the ground up.

So, you have to show the taxpayers that you are spending their money wisely. Not that tough, if in fact, you are...…..

Mead schools are building a stadium for 3500 that’s going to cost over $20M. Spokane Public schools estimate of $35M is pretty close, especially when you Project out a year or 2.

 

[Coug95man2]

Excellent points. However, I will say that they are not necessarily wrong. Building schools is as much of a racket as with any taxpayer-funded construction. I have some knowledge of this from my own hometown.

The architects and school-hired (PR) consultants make money when more is spent. Not to rehash Albi, but $35 million? Really? The money gets made by tearing down and building from the ground up.

So, you have to show the taxpayers that you are spending their money wisely. Not that tough, if in fact, you are...…..

Meh. It's the world we live in. It's called government work, prevailing and making sure anyone/everyone that is involved in the job gets paid well. Like it or not, that's called government work. And tax payers pay for it. I don't think it's that far off, especially when you consider the demo. Asbestos removal, concrete removal (can't just dump that into the hole, you know). remember those pictures you posted with all that concrete? That has to be disposed of properly, ya know.

Regarding schools as a racket... maybe and lets go with that concept for a moment. What else do you do? It's called being blackmailed. Because who suffers? The kids. No matter what side you're on.

If you're a budget hawk, "Is our future really where you want to go CHEAP?!?!? What kind of filthy animal are you?! The kids! The KIIIIIIIDS!!!!!"

But on the flip side of that, my home town hasn't passed a bond in over a half a century. The middle school has a building that is literally closed off because it's too dangerous to go in. When I went to school there, only 2 of the 4 floors were available. Now, it's completely locked up. And no bond passed. They are bringing in double wide mobile home shells (open span) for classrooms because they are running out of room. It's today's world. Everything is expensive. Yet the kids, literally, are the ones to deal with it. The sad thing is, how it is affecting the town. It's becoming a "old person town", no offense to anyone. No one with kids wants to go there. No one with kids wants to stay there. No kids like it there. So the town is slowly but surely (and quite literally) dying. This was my analogy to the tri-cities. Unless the influx of retiree's equates or exceeds those passing, it's a dangerous demographic for any city to flourish with. And when the voting starts to reflect such things, it's a very serious red flag, IMHO.

 

[Observer11]

It's taken a Supreme Court ruling to get schools funded -

And what do the local districts do....give their teachers raises that are 115% of their current budgeted spending and then a big fat raise for themselves.

Racket is right. Right up there with AD buddy hiring basketball coaches and hanging the state-funded institution with a multi-year buy out.

 

[OrangeGravy]

Meh. It's the world we live in. It's called government work, prevailing and making sure anyone/everyone that is involved in the job gets paid well. Like it or not, that's called government work. And tax payers pay for it. I don't think it's that far off, especially when you consider the demo. Asbestos removal, concrete removal (can't just dump that into the hole, you know). remember those pictures you posted with all that concrete? That has to be disposed of properly, ya know.

Regarding schools as a racket... maybe and lets go with that concept for a moment. What else do you do? It's called being blackmailed. Because who suffers? The kids. No matter what side you're on.

If you're a budget hawk, "Is our future really where you want to go CHEAP?!?!? What kind of filthy animal are you?! The kids! The KIIIIIIIDS!!!!!"

But on the flip side of that, my home town hasn't passed a bond in over a half a century. The middle school has a building that is literally closed off because it's too dangerous to go in. When I went to school there, only 2 of the 4 floors were available. Now, it's completely locked up. And no bond passed. They are bringing in double wide mobile home shells (open span) for classrooms because they are running out of room. It's today's world. Everything is expensive. Yet the kids, literally, are the ones to deal with it. The sad thing is, how it is affecting the town. It's becoming a "old person town", no offense to anyone. No one with kids wants to go there. No one with kids wants to stay there. No kids like it there. So the town is slowly but surely (and quite literally) dying. This was my analogy to the tri-cities. Unless the influx of retiree's equates or exceeds those passing, it's a dangerous demographic for any city to flourish with. And when the voting starts to reflect such things, it's a very serious red flag, IMHO.

I grew up in Richland and in the 45 years I've been alive, I don't think 1 school bond has failed. I'm not 100% positive, but I'm pretty sure they always pass. I don't think Pasco/Kennewick have been as successful, but I wouldn't know. I do know that all of the elementary schools have been rebuilt with new completely new buildings in Richland and Kennewick in the last couple of years. A handful of new junior high schools have been built between the 2. I'd hate to see the bill for all of those schools. It's all happened in the last 5 years or so.