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It’s been nearly 30 years since the Pleasanton Unified School District renovated Alisal Elementary School, a campus that was originally built in the 1950s.
And with several of the city’s planned housing developments falling within the elementary school’s attendance boundaries, PUSD decided a couple years ago that it was time the school was modernized and expanded.
“The district’s responsibility is to plan for and serve students who reside within PUSD,” Susanne Frey, the district’s safety and communications coordinator, told the Pleasanton Weekly in an emailed statement.
“As new housing is developed, our focus is on ensuring we have appropriate school capacity and can safely and cost-effectively accommodate projected enrollment, including making efficient use of existing and planned capacity across the District,” she added.
However, several neighbors and residents who live in the communities surrounding Alisal have expressed concerns over the school’s modernization project.
One neighbor, Emelie Rogers, said she was particularly mad about the lack of community input during the project’s design and on how the school’s new proposed layout will affect traffic in the area.
“When people don’t communicate, you start questioning their ethics … their respect for you and their conduct,” Rogers told the Weekly.
Two years ago, Pleasanton’s school board facility committee reviewed Alisal’s aging facilities and enrollment projections during an October 2024 meeting. In that presentation, staff noted how the school was built in 1955, last renovated in 1998 and how the school’s attendance area is projected to grow “based on future development”.
So, later that same month in 2024, the Board of Trustees decided to authorize the sale of $35 million of Measure I1 bonds and allocate those dollars to a “campus-wide modernization project at Alisal Elementary School”.
Those $35 million were supposed to be used to build a new elementary school, as originally described in the 2016 Measure I1 bond priority list, but were later reallocated to fund renovations at the campus on Santa Rita Road – up the block from Amador Valley High School.
According to the district, the modernization project looks to renovate the existing multipurpose room into a new library; update the lighting for the administration building and classrooms; build new classrooms and a science lab; construct a new multi-purpose room and kitchen; build a new stage and music lab; and add new outdoor play and eating areas, according to past design update presentations.
The project also plans on improving the school’s pickup and drop-off process and increasing parking on campus by adding a new parking and drop-off lane, and adding a new entry plaza for transitional and standard kindergarteners.
Since the board authorized those $35 million to go toward Alisal’s modernization project in 2024, the district entered into an agreement with Roebbelen Construction Management for the design of the project.
The board amended the agreement this past February so that the scope of work also includes “managing the Request for Proposal process and design phase management throughout the completion of programming” – and again on June 11 for “construction management services through the completion of the project” – for a total cost of $1,837,248, according to the June 11 school board meeting agenda report.Â
The school board approved the second amendment with three of the five trustees present, with virtually no discussion or questions, toward the very end of a three-hour-long meeting on June 11.
But as the design process got underway, Rogers said she and many other residents were not aware any of this was even happening. And as they learned more about the proposed project in June, they quickly found several issues that they felt should have been addressed.
“The main concern, I think, for us is traffic engineering,” said Rogers, a resident of the Jensen Tract neighborhood for 11 years. The Jensen Tract, along with Amador Estates, make up most of the neighborhood along Santa Rita Road between Jensen Street and Valley Avenue.
Rogers said she has seen and heard of speeding, double parking and parking in front of neighbors’ driveways. Most of the time she said it’s parents who are either dropping off their kids for school or motorists looking to cut through those neighborhoods to avoid the traffic along Santa Rita Road.
About half a dozen neighbors also spoke up during this past Aug. 27 meeting, including former Pleasanton fire chief George Withers, who voiced concerns about the project design and for PUSD not getting enough community feedback.
According to Frey, PUSD did notify residents “with addresses within the following boundary; Valley Avenue, Santa Rita Road, Kolln Street and Silver Street” about the project and about “opportunities to provide input”. She said PUSD also shared information with the entire Alisal school and staff community.
She pointed to two meetings — one on May 19 and another on June 17 — where 11 people and 16 people attended, respectively, and heard more information about the project’s design.
“The District has also established a neighborhood mailing list for future project updates, and project information and updates are available on the District’s Facilities website,” Frey said.
Rogers, however, pointed out that many neighbors were out on vacation or simply did not receive any sort of notice.
Still, Frey said the district received feedback from those meetings, which led to slight changes to the design.
Those changes included pulling a building further from a property and lowering the roof line; adding bike racks closer to the entrance at Kolln Street; and formalizing the existing pedestrian access from Kolln into a “more welcoming secondary entrance, with a wider sidewalk for improved pedestrian and bicycle access”.
“Neighbors also expressed concern about the proximity of the fence line with the driveway and parking lot, so the design incorporated a landscape buffer,” Frey added.
As for the traffic concerns, Frey said that PUSD understands why community members are worried. That’s why she said staff contracted with a traffic engineer to “evaluate the project and provide recommendations to address traffic and safety concerns”.
“The current design increases on-campus parking and creates a pickup/drop-off area off Kolln, providing an opportunity to move vehicles off the street and onto district property,” Frey said.
She also noted that the district is incorporating additional visibility and traffic safety recommendations. One recent project she pointed to as a successful implementation of these traffic safety strategies was the modernization of Lydiksen Elementary School, which similarly had one drop-off and pickup driveway in front of the school.
Still, Rogers still did not seem confident about the district’s traffic plans, considering all of the new homes and potential students that could come from several planned residential developments in East Pleasanton, which happen to fall under Alisal’s attendance area.
She said she didn’t understand why PUSD is expanding Alisal to accommodate these students, which the district has incorporated into its current seven-year student population forecast, instead of simply constructing a new school, as originally planned under Measure I1.
But, as Frey explained, current district projections continue to not show a need for a new standalone elementary school in East Pleasanton.
She said the current forecast projects approximately 676 transitional kindergarten to fifth grade students in the Alisal attendance area by 2032. She said the school previously served about 650 students in 2019 and the current project shows a proposed capacity of just under 700 students.
The school’s current capacity is 554, according to the district.
“Districtwide elementary enrollment is projected to decline over the next several years, allowing the district to make efficient use of capacity across its elementary school system as enrollment patterns evolve,” Frey said. “The district will continue to update its demographic forecast annually and evaluate facility needs as conditions change.”
Yet despite all of PUSD’s latest conversations regarding the project, Rogers said it’s going to take time to trust the district on anything it promises.Â
For example, even though PUSD has stated that the barricade at Valley Avenue and Kolln Street – which has stood as a “City-managed traffic-calming measure intended to limit cut-through traffic through the neighborhood” – will not be removed, Rogers said it wouldn’t be the first time the district has changed its mind.
“I think they’re being disingenuous about it,” Rogers said regarding PUSD’s statements concerning the barricade.
That’s why she said PUSD needs to continue having discussions with the neighborhoods and improve the way it communicates with residents over these sorts of projects so that future residents are not left out of the loop like she and her neighbors were with Alisal’s project.
As far as the project’s next steps, Frey said PUSD needs to complete the California Environmental Quality Act review, which is anticipated to be done this fall. Findings from that review will then be presented to the school board.
The project design will also continue to go through the board’s facilities committee meetings, which Frey pointed out are open to the public. She said an additional meeting is expected to be scheduled soon.
“The design will be complete and drawings submitted for agency review and approval later this year, with construction scheduled to begin in spring or summer 2027,” Frey said.
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