The Pleasanton Virtual Academy: High scores, healthy climate, strong attendance. We looked for a catch — we didn't find one.
The Pleasanton Virtual Academy posts 63.6% exceeding the standard — versus 17.2% statewide — with climate numbers better than most. That doesn't make it perfect. It makes it worth a visit to find what numbers can't measure.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 85 | 64% | 86% | — | 13.9% | 2.1% |
| CA average · Middle School | 39 | 17% | 40% | — | 18.1% | 3.6% |
The Pleasanton Virtual Academy scores 85 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 99th percentile of 2,177 California middle schools (CDE CAASPP 2025).
Measures test performance, attendance, and climate — not arts, community, or your kid. How we score →
⭐ High Ceiling — Ask what happens for a kid who shows up behind — a high ceiling for the top can sit right next to thin support at the bottom, and the score alone won't show you which.
Most rating sites would stop at “86% proficient” and call it done. The Pleasanton Virtual Academy deserves a closer read. It sits at the 99th percentile of 2,177 California middle schools — but the ranking is the least interesting thing on this page.
The headline number: 63.6% of students scored in the top band on the state test. The California average is 17.2%.
The seven-year arc
Has held the 99th-percentile line every tested year since 2023.
| Grade | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 8 | 55% | 91% |
The 4 things our score weighs
California's own answer to the same question
California runs its own growth model — it follows individual children in grades 4 through 8 and compares each one against a prediction from their own prior scores. On that measure this school sits well above the middle of California middle schools in reading and math together. We show it; we don't score it.
— pts vs expected is scale-score points above or below what California's model predicted for these same children from their own prior-year scores. It is not a percentage and not a percent of anything. A typical California middle school lands at −1 in reading, and the middle half of them fall between −8 and +6 — the spread is wide, so read the rank, not the sign. CDE blends two consecutive years into each published figure, so adjacent years share input data and no year-over-year trend can honestly be drawn from them. It covers grades 4-8 only, and it is not part of the Scope Score — we assessed it and left it out: it tracks school demographics roughly three times as strongly as our own growth measure does, and one published year is not enough to test how stable it is.
Ask what the school is working on next. Strong numbers tell you where a school is, not where it's going.
- Ask whether the tour can step into a working classroom — watch how the teacher handles a student who's stuck.
- Ask to tour while school's in session, and notice how hallways and transitions feel — culture shows up between classes, not just in them.
- Ask how the school communicates with families when a child starts to struggle.
- Ask what a typical day looks like for a new student in the first few weeks.
Showing up, and staying in class
Grades 9–12 students miss school at roughly three times the rate of Grades 7–8 students (9.6% vs 3.3%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the upper grades.
Where the path goes
The Pleasanton Virtual Academy serves grades K-12 — students can complete their entire K-12 education here, with no school-to-school transitions.
The people teaching here
Pay is set by the district, not the school.
What gets spent here
$46 per student arrives as federal Title funding — a measure of concentrated need, not school quality.
The district's current expense of education per student, from CDE's annual SACS filing — the freshest district spending figure the state publishes.
District-level, from the district's own SACS general-ledger filing — school-by-school breakdowns aren't published by the state.
Source: NCES F-33 · Full district breakdown →
The neighborhood it serves
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2024) · ZIP-level
At 138 students, this school is much smaller than the typical California middle school (≈860).
On the state's science test (CAST), 62% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 and once in high school, and it never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is The Pleasanton Virtual Academy a good middle school?
What are The Pleasanton Virtual Academy's CAASPP test scores?
How does The Pleasanton Virtual Academy rank in California?
What is the attendance and school culture like at The Pleasanton Virtual Academy?
How does The Pleasanton Virtual Academy compare to other schools in Pleasanton?
Your other options
Nearby Middle Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 73
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 77
Nearby High Schools
2 within ~3 mi · avg 83
Private alternatives nearby
Private schools within ~10 miles. These schools do not participate in state testing and cannot be scored or ranked.
Every number on this page
Score factors, grade-level breakdowns, subgroup proficiency, and nearest schools.
| ELA | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 4 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 4 | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 6 | 10 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 7 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 8 | 11 | 55% | 36% | 9% | 0% | 91% | +45 |
| Grade 11 | 18 | 39% | 33% | 11% | 17% | 72% | +24 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 4 | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 6 | 9 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 7 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 8 | 11 | 73% | 9% | 18% | 0% | 82% | +50 |
| Grade 11 | 18 | 33% | 11% | 28% | 28% | 44% | +21 |
We show the grade rows CDE publishes for this school. A missing grade or dash can mean the school does not serve that grade, no valid result was published, or the tested group was too small to report. It does not mean zero.
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schoolwide | 39 | 18% | 44% | 36% | 3% |
CAST is tested in grades 5 and 8, then once in grade 10, 11, or 12. This row is the school's all-student aggregate. Not part of the Scope Score.
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Grade gap | Cohort growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Pleasanton Virtual Academy ← | — | 85 | 63.6% | 86.4% | — | — | 2.1% |
| Harvest Park Middle | 1.4 mi | 86 | 57.5% | 83.5% | +0.3pp | — | 1.2% |
| Thomas S. Hart Middle | 2.3 mi | 81 | 55.2% | 79.6% | −0.6pp | — | 1.3% |
| Pleasanton Middle | 0.3 mi | 53 | 38.7% | 66.7% | −7.2pp | — | 2.7% |
| California average | — | 39 | 17.2% | 40.0% | +1.5pp | — | 3.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Grade gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 72 | 95 | #112 | 51.9% | 62.1% | 19.3% | 2.3% | — |
| 2024 | 49 | 78 | #482 | 27.3% | 54.5% | 18.8% | 2.9% | — |
| 2025 | 85 | 99 | #28 | 63.6% | 86.4% | 13.9% | 2.1% | — |
- — Growth data isn't available — the state needs matched grades across years to compute it.
- — No subgroup comparison could be shown for this school this year — either its group sizes fall under CDE's 15-student reporting floor, or district/state comparison data wasn't available for its groups.
- — Scored here as a middle school — other grade spans appear in the data appendix.
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | — | 6.3% | — |
| Male | — | 8.2% | — |
| Asian | — | 7.9% | — |
| Hispanic/Latino | — | 4.0% | — |
| Two or More Races | — | 11.8% | — |
| Students with Disabilities | — | 8.3% | — |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | — | 8.7% | — |
| All Students | — | 7.2% | — |
| Group | Reading | n | CDE band | Math | n | CDE band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Students | +14 | 35 | Accelerated | +33 | 34 | Exceptional |
| English Only | +14 | 20 | not categorised | +34 | 20 | not categorised |
| White | +3 | 11 | Average | +14 | 11 | Accelerated |
Whole scale-score points above or below what CDE's model predicted for these same children from their own prior-year scores — not a percentage, not a percentile. Statewide a typical school lands near +1 with a spread of about 13 points either side, so read a figure against its group's own typical value, not against zero. Muted rows have fewer than 30 students with a growth score — published by CDE, held back from the narrative sections above because at that size the figure swings about 17 points on its own. “Not categorised” is CDE assigning no band — English Only, Recently Reclassified, and English Learners Only receive a value and no band, for every school in the state. It is not a missing number. Most figures blend two consecutive years, so adjacent published years share input data and no trend line can honestly be drawn across them. A group absent from this table had fewer than 11 students with a growth score and was never published. Grades 4-8 only. None of this enters the Scope Score — it is more strongly correlated with school demographics than our own growth measure, and one published year is not enough to test its reliability.
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SchoolScope scores and verdicts are our interpretation of public California Department of Education data — independent analysis, not an official rating. How we analyze · Request a correction