Every year PSD kindergarteners hop on school buses and travel to Country Mercantile for hayrides, a tower of hay to climb on, and to pick out a pumpkin for the fall season. They use these experiences to develop their language and writing skills. Please click to see a photo gallery.

Students color in states on the electoral college map in Monica Soto's eighth grade classroom at Ochoa Middle School on Nov. 6. Please click the photo to see a slideshow.

Students from Pasco schools joined thousands of their peers from across the state and the country who participated in student mock elections in the weeks leading up to Nov. 6. Students voted online as well as with paper ballots. Students in grades 6-12 voted on the measures and candidates that appear on the actual ballot voters use, while younger students cast their votes for president, governor and Initiative 1240, Charter Schools.

"When I voted I felt proud of myself," says Gloria Hernandez, a student in Maggie Sander's fifth grade class at Chess Elementary. Sander's students analyzed projected electoral vote poles on a daily basis noting changes and hypothesizing about why the projected votes change. The class also watched the TV debates, discussed campaign posters and ads, and learned how particular laws relate to the branches of government. "We talk about how the elections directly affect each of us in the classroom and about the importance of being an informed and involved citizen," says Sander. "On Nov. 2, they cast their votes online. We love the elections!"

At Robinson Elementary, Maria Lee hopes her fifth grade students will be more prepared to vote when they turn 18. "It ties in directly with our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) curriculum," she says of the mock election activities they did. "It gives them a starting point." They focused on the different branches of government; casting their votes was the culminating act. There were wide smiles-and a few disappointed frowns-as the class tallied the results on the whiteboard. 

CHS students hold up more than 500 signatures of students pledging to be drug free.

STAND teams (Students Taking Action Not Drugs) at Pasco High School, Chiawana High School, New Horizons High School, McLoughlin Middle School, and Stevens Middle School organized drug-free pledge campaigns for their peers, while also visiting elementary school classrooms to inform and encourage students to make healthy choices and to be drug free. Several seniors used the Red Ribbon Week activities to fulfill their senior projects.  

"Over 500 kids at Chiawana pledged to be drug free," says Sparks, Prevention Intervention Specialist at CHS.

"We're very progressive," adds Hernandez. "We're already doing so much to connect with kids at risk this year, and we have lots of activities to come."