I am not sure why you believe you get to choose. They will put you where there is space. All of the elementary are good. I think it is important for a child to go to school with the children in their neighborhood.

Parents can apply during the open enrollment process and express a preference for their child's school placement.

Here's info about open enrollment: Web Link

I agree with Momof4 -- most kids attend their neighborhood school. It does make it easier to set up playdates and sometimes parents of kids from nearby streets will informally set up pickup and dropoff arrangements, so kids can walk to school together with one parent. For a variety of reasons, though, up to about 30% of students in each elementary school may live outside the school's designated attendance area. For instance, if a family moves from one neighborhood to another within Pleasanton, they may choose to keep their child at their original elementary school.

When we moved to Pleasanton over the summer a couple of years ago, we were surprised that there was no space for her in our neighborhood school, so our daughter was placed at Alisal. We love it, and when we were later offered a chance to move her to Mohr (our neighborhood school) we declined, because she had already made friends at Alisal. There are after-school classes in Spanish offered by a private organization, but on school grounds, once a week -- that might be an option to consider for your son.

If you want to talk with parents at Mohr or Valley View, you might try contacting their PTA representatives.

Here's the Mohr PTA officers list: Web Link

Valley View has a Parent Faculty Club; here are their officers: Web Link

Good luck with getting your child settled into school next fall!

We are very happy with Mohr. The teachers are dedicated and work with the students and parents to create a balance. My kids have a great group of friends, and my older son was more than ready to transition to middle school.
I know that open enrollment is an option, but why change when you have a great school close by!!!

I had children at both Mohr and Donlon. All the schools are awesome, as the PUSD has a "equality" rule to keep funds even at all schools. Parents in Pleasanton and parent clubs are incredibly active, helping all schools to be great. You can apply for schools under open enrollment, but many are impacted and usually priority is given for siblings and "home school" residents. As another poster indicated, you may not have a choice with your child having to go to a different school because of space. Several schools have "special" classes, which if signing your child up for that, will get them into that school.

Valley View - dual immersion
Walnut Grove - used to have a k/1 2/3 and 4/5 class structure (not sure if it is still there)
Donlon & Lydikson - have integrated special day classes for children with developmental disabilities

All schools have at least one special day class. Speech and reading specialists and GATE programs. There are also many afterschool (for pay) classes offered in Spanish, (Saturday classes) Chinese, etc. I have found that Fairland, Alisal and Mohr are more ethnically diverse (in general). Mohr definately has a high ESL ratio - where it is in relation the other schools, I'm not sure. It was a great school for my GATE child, as most of the students where listed as GATE, so the class scholastic levels were pretty high. I believe all the other schools are pretty similar though.

I haven't looked at the stats recently, but there may be some difference in diversity at the schools. I know a Mohr is a very diverse school (in terms of race) with no majority the last time I looked. If that's important to you there are a couple websites you can use.

As others have said, I don't think you can go wrong.