Oct 15, 2026 · By @Adam

Test scores have barely moved, enrollment is shrinking and the district’s better-off students trail their peers statewide, even as the superintendent’s pay has passed $300,000.

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — When the Simi Valley school board hired Dr. Hani Youssef as superintendent in 2022, its president said he was the best person to meet the district’s “educational achievement expectations,” The Acorn reported.

Four years later, new state test results show the district has made little progress toward that goal.

Just over half of the district’s students tested, 50.3 percent, met the state’s English standards this spring, according to state testing data. That was up one-tenth of a percentage point from last year, while the statewide rate rose half a point. In math, 37.3 percent of students met the standard, slightly below the statewide rate of 38.4 percent, the California Department of Education reported.

Put another way, large numbers of Simi Valley students continue to perform below grade-level standards. In English, 49.7 percent of students tested scored in the two lowest levels, “minimal” or “developing.” In math, 62.7 percent did, or more than three out of five students, according to the state’s results for the district. A year earlier, the numbers were almost the same.

The district’s top official has seen faster growth. Dr. Youssef was paid $304,444 last year, plus nearly $60,000 in benefits, according to public payroll records compiled by Transparent California. That is about $33,700 more than he earned in 2023, his first full year in the job — a raise of roughly 12 percent.

The contrast comes at a hard moment for the district’s roughly 15,000 students and the taxpayers who support them. Simi Valley Unified is spending more than it takes in, cutting teaching jobs and putting off a request for a new construction bond that property owners would repay.

A review of state test results, payroll records and district documents shows how the district has fared on Dr. Youssef’s watch: in the classroom, in enrollment, in pay for its top leaders and in its budget.

Little to Show in the Classroom

The state tests, known as the CAASPP, are given each spring to students in grades 3 through 8 and 11. They show whether students have learned the skills expected for their grade. This year, Simi Valley gained one-tenth of a point in English and six-tenths of a point in math. Statewide, scores rose half a point in English and more than a full point in math.

[embed: node/6b8d8fce-bc48]

Some groups of students fared worse. Among Simi Valley’s English learners, students who are still learning the language, only 7.7 percent met the reading standard this year, down from 10.9 percent in 2025, according to caschooltrends.com, which tracks state results. Reading scores for students from low-income families did not move at all, holding at 38.9 percent. Across California, low-income students made larger-than-average gains, the state reported.

Math remains the district’s weakest subject. More than one in three Simi Valley students, 35.1 percent, scored at the lowest of four levels, now labeled “minimal,” state data shows. That share is smaller than the state’s 38.2 percent. Still, it means about 2,600 of the roughly 7,400 students tested showed little grasp of grade-level math.

Results also vary widely from school to school. At Vista Elementary, nearly 80 percent of students met the reading standard; at Berylwood Elementary, about 26 percent did. Some campuses posted big gains: math scores at Simi Valley High rose almost 16 points over two years. Others slid, including Madera Elementary, where reading scores fell 16 points over the same period, the school-level data shows.

The district also has not fully recovered from the pandemic. Its two largest groups of students, Hispanic and white, still score lower in both English and math than they did in 2019, before schools closed, according to EdSource’s tracking of state results. That gap remains four years after Dr. Youssef took over. Many districts across California are still working to make up the same lost ground.

In the state’s announcement, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said the statewide numbers showed progress, but added that “the pace of academic improvement reminds us that our work is far from finished.”

No Grading on a Curve

Comparing Simi Valley to the state average is a little like grading on a curve: a district can look fine simply because others are struggling too. The state standard works differently. It is a fixed bar that shows whether a student has learned what his or her grade requires.

Measured against that bar, thousands of Simi Valley students fall short. About 7,400 students in grades 3 through 8 and 11 took the tests this spring, according to caschooltrends.com. Applying the state’s percentages to those numbers gives this picture:

Student counts are estimates, calculated from the state’s percentages and the number of students tested, and rounded to the nearest 10.

In a typical class of 25 students, that works out to about 12 who are below grade level in English and about 16 in math.

Those numbers barely moved from a year earlier, when about 3,760 students fell short in English and about 4,780 in math. Most of that small drop came from about 160 fewer students taking the tests, not from more students reaching the standard.

Being as good as the state average is also a low bar. Statewide, fewer than half of students met the English standard this year, and fewer than 4 in 10 met the math standard.

The average also hides a bigger problem. Simi Valley serves a smaller share of low-income students than California as a whole: about 46 percent, compared with roughly 60 percent statewide, according to caschooltrends.com and state enrollment data. When Simi Valley’s students are compared with similar students elsewhere, the district falls behind. Its low-income students scored about the same as low-income students statewide. But its students who are not from low-income families did worse than similar students across California. They trailed by about 7 points in English and 11 points in math, according to statewide results compiled by EdSource.

[embed: node/caf717cd-af35]

Neighboring Conejo Valley Unified, which serves about the same number of students in Thousand Oaks, did better with both groups. Conejo Valley has a smaller share of low-income students, about 24 percent. Even so, its low-income students outscored Simi Valley’s by roughly 5 points in each subject, caschooltrends.com’s data shows.

Fewer Families Choosing Simi Valley

Simi Valley Unified is getting smaller. The district enrolled 15,081 students last school year, according to the California Department of Education, and started this fall with almost 15,000. This year’s kindergarten class has 860 students, down from just over 900 a year ago. The district once enrolled more than 1,000 kindergartners in a single year, The Acorn reported in August.

Dr. Youssef has blamed trends beyond the district’s control, including falling birth rates and families moving out of state. “We’re graduating more seniors than we’re enrolling in kindergarten,” he said. At the same meeting, Trustee Mike James urged the district to look for ways to win back families who have switched to home schooling.

Like most California districts, Simi Valley requires students who live in other districts to get permission from their home district before they can enroll, according to the district’s website. Some neighbors compete harder for students. Oak Park Unified, in eastern Ventura County, takes part in California’s District of Choice program, which lets districts open their doors to students from elsewhere. It is among the program’s biggest draws for transfer students, EdSource reported in 2024.

A Growing Paycheck

Dr. Youssef’s pay has gone up every year since he took over. His total pay rose from $270,761 in 2023 to $292,773 in 2024 and then to $304,444 in 2025, payroll records show. With health and retirement benefits included, his total compensation reached $364,206 last year.

[embed: node/a218c777-270e]

He now earns more than the man he replaced, at least on paper. Jason Peplinski, who retired in 2022 after seven years as superintendent, was paid $276,585 in 2021, his last full year in the job, according to the same database. Those figures are not adjusted for inflation, which has driven up prices and paychecks across the economy since then.

The raises reach beyond the superintendent’s office. Ron Todo, the associate superintendent who runs the district’s business side, was paid $286,574 in 2025, up from $259,656 two years earlier. Counting benefits, his total package of $371,282 topped even Dr. Youssef’s. The three best-paid employees in the district last year were all members of the superintendent’s leadership team, the 2025 records show.

In January, the school board approved a 2 percent raise for teachers and for the administrators who run schools and programs. The raises were backdated to July 1, 2025, according to salary schedules posted on the district’s website for teachers and managers. A new teacher with a bachelor’s degree now starts at $58,025 a year, and the most experienced teachers can earn about $118,000.

The management schedule lists the superintendent and four assistant superintendents as “contracted” positions, meaning the board sets their pay through individual contracts. Those leaders can also collect a $1,000 yearly stipend for holding a doctorate, plus extra pay that grows with years of service.

A Tight Budget and a Shelved Bond

In June, the school board unanimously approved a $255 million budget for the 2026-27 school year. The district expects to take in about $250 million, leaving a gap of roughly $4.4 million to be covered from savings. Its reserves are projected to shrink from $48 million to nearly $44 million, The Acorn reported.

The budget eliminates 15 teaching positions, mostly through retirements and temporary contracts that are ending. District officials named falling enrollment, lower attendance and changes in state funding as challenges ahead.

Taxpayers already help pay for school buildings. Property owners pay about $70 a year for every $100,000 of assessed value to repay two earlier bonds, Measure C4 from 2004 and Measure X from 2016. A new bond would add to or extend that bill.

For the second time under Dr. Youssef, the board has backed away from asking voters for one. In 2024, trustees held off because of economic uncertainty. This year, they let the filing deadline pass without putting a measure on the November ballot. A survey paid for by the district found enough support to pass. But Trustee Ron Resnick pointed to an independent survey in which more than two-thirds of respondents did not want a bond right now.

Improving the district, Dr. Resnick said, “does not always require new debt but rather thoughtful focus and accountability.” Dr. Youssef warned that skipping the bond would create “very difficult financial challenges” for maintaining the district’s buildings and technology.

The District’s Case

Dr. Youssef began his career as a teacher at a Los Angeles high school. He worked as an administrator in the Los Angeles, Conejo Valley and Burbank districts before joining Simi Valley Unified in 2015, and he holds a doctorate in educational leadership from California State University, Northridge. The board chose him unanimously in January 2022, The Acorn reported at the time.

The district has real strengths to point to. It still tops the state average in English. Three of its high schools, Simi Valley, Royal and Santa Susana, posted double-digit gains in math over the past two years.

Dr. Youssef has also argued that the district holds on to families better than its neighbors. In a 2024 speech, he noted that Simi Valley’s enrollment fell 3.3 percent from 2018 to 2023, a smaller drop than in Ventura County or the state. He credited the district’s work and the community’s confidence. He also highlighted new programs, including a dual-language program and universal transitional kindergarten, which the district started three years before the state required it, The Acorn reported.

The superintendent answers to the district’s five-member elected Board of Education, which negotiates his contract. Four years into his tenure, Thursday’s scores give the board its clearest measure yet of whether he has met the expectations it set when it hired him.