Pleasant Valley is Novato's westernmost elementary school, serving families that live in an area of the same name plus Marin Highlands and Wildhorse Valley as well as subdivisions off Center Road and Vineyard Road. Kids generally move onto Sinaloa Middle School and San Marin High School.

The school is one of eight neighborhood elementary schools in the Novato Unified School District. Built in 1965 on a 12-acre property, Pleasant Valley has a multipurpose room, a library, a staff lounge, a computer lab and three playgrounds.

The school has 18 teachers, a resource specialist, a speech and language specialist, a part-time library media specialist, music teacher and a physical education teacher.

Pleasant Valley's API index for the 2009-2010 academic year was 880, second in the district behind Rancho's 947. The state has set 800 as the score schools should strive to meet.

As of the 2009-2010 school year, the ethnic breakdown of the student body included 79.6 percent whites, 11.3 percent Hispanics, 5.7 percent Asian Americans and 2.7 percent African Americans. Five percent of the students are considered English language learners, well under the 21 percent district average.

The socioeconomic status of the families in the Pleasant Valley area is the second highest in Novato, just behind Rancho, according to district statistics (socioeconomically disadvantaged students are those receiving free or reduced lunch or when neither parent is a high school graduate). Only nine percent of the kids are categorized as socioeconomically disadvantaged, with 32.9 percent being the district average. In addition, 74 percent of the parents surveyed had college degrees, well above the district average of 53 percent.