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The Pleasanton school board will get an update tonight on how the district is meeting its federally imposed mandate to boost grades for some students.

The district is required to improve scores for disabled students and students from poor families; two schools have been targeted: Valley View Elementary and Pleasanton Middle School.

Pleasanton schools, like many schools across the state, fell into what known as program improvement because it didn't meet increasingly tough standards imposed under No Child Left Behind.

To get out of program improvement, the district must show that the targeted students are improving in their test scores. The district must also create benchmarks to measure how it's doing.

The district, in documents to be submitted as part of its program improvement plan, notes that it didn't meet five out of 38 goals imposed as part of NCLB.

Those five are math and English language skills for socio-economically disadvantaged -- poor -- students, and math, English language skills and the graduation rate for students with disabilities.

Superintendent Parvin Ahmadi has said noted the district is still among the top performing districts in the state, and that many other high performing districts, including the San Ramon Valley, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Fremont and Livermore don't meet No Child Left Behind guidelines. More schools are expected to join the list as requirements to meet the federal AYP standards continue to rise.

The meeting will be held in the board Room at 4665 Bernal Avenue, beginning at 7 p.m.

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