001All right, good evening you guys. We're going to go ahead and get started. Good evening everyone and thank you for being here tonight. It is my great honor to introduce a leader who is deeply committed to our students, family, and staff. Dr. Simon brings with her a wealth of experience, a heart for service, and a vision rooted in collaboration, equity, and excellence. From her very first day, she has made it clear that she is listening to our community and putting students first will guide every decision she makes. Tonight, Dr. Simon will share with us her 100 day plan, a roadmap that reflects both her leadership and our collective priorities. This plan is more than the first few months. It is about setting the foundation for long-term success. It emphasizes open communication, building strong relationships, and
002ensuring that every student in Belfflower Unified has the opportunity to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. We are excited to walk along Dr. Simon as she engages with our schools, our families, and our community partners in meaningful ways. Her plan will help us grow stronger together and keep our district moving forward with purpose. So, please join me in welcoming our superintendent, Dr. Dr. Erin Simon. So, they have to start making these podiums for tall people, huh? Hope you all can hear me well. First of all, welcome everyone. Welcome. How are you? >> Did you guys get coffee in the back? >> How are you this evening? >> Thank you. Thank you to this uh that's you Mr. Turner. Thank you. But good evening um Belfflower Unified School District family. As our board president stated, board president
003Stewart, I am Aaron Simon and I'm your proud superintendent. It is a profound honor to welcome you today to our inaugural evening of unity town hall. Thank you for the warm welcome first coming into Belf Unified School District and your belief in the possibilities that lie ahead. To our board of education, thank you for hosting this event, which will allow us to learn more from our BFlower Unified community. Greetings to all of our esteemed elected officials and special guests joining us today. Your presence means a great deal to us and we appreciate your unwavering support. I also want to say thank you to my to my family, to my husband, to my kids, right? My mother who's going to give me a earful tonight. Going to criticize probably every part of my speech. No, just
004playing. But to my entire family watching um this via YouTube, hello to you as well. Not sure where the camera is, but hello family. Mom loves you. Thank you for being here. I would also like to express my gratitude to my amazing cabinet to my left and somewhere up top. Um our deputy superintendent, Dr. Ryan Smith, Renee Arcus, chief business officer, Bonnie Carter, our assistant superintendent of educational services, and Amma UA, our assistant superintendent of school support services as well. Let me go back to my right because it's very important that I show appreciation and thank you to to my wonderful bosses who are here as well. Give it up for our board president Amy Stewart again who did our a wonderful welcome. Our clerk, Mr. Bradfield, please give a round of applause [Applause] to
005our board member Reita Armstrong. Please give her a round of applause. to our other amazing board member, uh, board member Marina Centron. [Applause] And if you don't know, we have a student board member, our student board member, Chapke. Please raise your hand. [Applause] I also want to thank those who organized who've helped organize and support this event. We also have Mr. Patrick Turner who's here, Mr. Kevin Mays, our entire IT department, right? Couldn't do this without you. I appreciate you. Please give them a round of applause. I call her the queen of this house because she is the principal of Mayfair High School, Dr. Jennifer Morgan, who's in the back. Her amazing assistant principles and staff who are in the back as well. I need y'all to come up front. I need to see your
006smiling faces. And then my front office team, Miss Elaine Putoco, Miss Carrie Garcia, Miss Ismar Cisneros, who is our her our PIO, our communications person who takes care of me. Thank you so much. And Miss Melissa Llamas. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication. Please give those folks a round of applause. It takes a lot to get events like this together. So this event, an evening of unity. I didn't want to say town hall, but I want you all to know it is similar to a town hall, but it's an evening of unity just for us. It's an opportunity for us to come together as a community, families, students, staff, and partners to reflect on what is working well in our schools and to discuss where we need to make meaningful investments for
007the future. So, your voices matter and this is why you are here today. Your voices matter. The success of our schools relies on strong partnerships between the district and the community we serve. In my first 78 days as your superintendent, 78 days. You're looking like, okay, that's 78. That's just a little bit. 78 days as your superintendent. I have already held over a hundred meetings to hear the perspectives of community members within the Belfar Unified School District. And this evening, after I share a few components of my 100 day plan, I want to hear from you. We want to hear from you. We acknowledge that the needs of our community are diverse. And this conversation, this start of more conversations to come will help inform our priorities, shape our decisions, and ensure that our investments
008align with what with what matters most to the people we serve. So, thank you again for being here. I appreciate learning more of your perspectives and for helping us build stronger schools. So, let's get started. Now before I hear from you, I would like to provide some context about myself. At my core, I am a systems leader grounded in two foundational truths. Students must always be at the center of decisions and excellence must always be the standard. So moving forward, yes, this wonderful picture are pictures and I want to share a little bit more about what this picture means to me. Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, I was inspired by a courageous and resilient single mother who pursued her education as well as grandparents who journeyed from the Jim Crow South in Mississippi
009to California in search of better opportunities. I was raised to know that excellence is always the standard. It's the standard that honors our journey. And the board of education and I believe wholeheartedly that together we can co-create a future of excellence in the Baleflower Unified School District. Our guiding guiding vision for this year is is simple but yet it's profound. BUSD together united in purpose. For me, what does that mean? Every student known, every voice valued, every school ready. So across our district, we are united by a shared commitment. Every student will be known. This means that each student regardless of their background story or starting point will feel seen, heard, and valued academically, emotionally, and culturally. But this commitment be begins with relationships. It begins with understanding who our students are. So there's a
010saying even the program that we're using this year to help us more with social emotional learning and also with forging strong relationships with our students and that is if you capture the heart of students you capture the mind every voice valued who will ensure that every student family and staff member has a voice that shapes our decisions and also guides our actions. every school ready. We will guarantee that all schools receive the resources and support necessary for every student to thrive. Now, what I've seen so far in my early visits to our campuses, I've witnessed joyful learning, classrooms brimming with enthusiasm and an eagerness to learn, which is a testament to the hard work of our administrators and also our teachers. I was just here today from 10:30 to 11:30 with Dr. Jennifer Morgan walking
011through classrooms, especially classes in this building. And what excited me and inspired me the most was seeing our kids who were so engaged in the lesson and even from courses such as esports. I mean, I wish I like video games. Nobody here likes video games. Super Mario Brothers. If I were able to code and play Super Mario Brothers or Mike Tyson Punchout back in the day in the classroom, I would have been super thrilled and excited. But these students are coding and making video games of their own, walking through ceramics, walking through math classes, walking through history classes, walking through a mandaring class where I was greeted in that native language and was also taught some of that language as well. I can't say it for you right now because I have to go back.
012Dr. Morgan, remember anything? All right, I'm going to work on that. The retainment of information and knowledge, but I was excited about walking through and having conversations with students and being met with enthusiasm. To me, that's amazing. It's exciting when I go to elementary schools and I run into a TK classroom and a student runs into me almost breaking my knee. But to hug me to show appreciation of being in that classroom, even from our littlest students, that what excites me every single day about being on this show. Every school ready or excuse me, going above and beyond. So staff who are committed to nurturing mental health and fostering a sense of belonging among students. There's moments of excellence. Our district is filled with significant moments that reflect the heart and soul of our mission.
013And there are amazing programs if you did not know such as autoshop, performing arts. We have an aviation course, our independent studies program and dual immersion which has been right the bedrock of this amazing district. Our board has articulated our core values and they are equity, achievement and community. Now what does equity mean? It's a principle guiding us to create systems where every child receives what they need to succeed. And it also means that many of our students may need a little bit more, right? Because they need to catch up to be successful. Achievement. We hold ourselves and our students to high expectations. Celebrating progress, no matter how small that progress is in our community. We are family, not just a collection of schools. Together, we rise collectively. Now, embarking on this 100 day plan
014since July 14th, if you have your cameras, you're more than welcome to scan the QR code. I have embarked on a journey centered around a 100 day plan which centers on four key priorities. listening. It's what tonight is for as well. Evaluating, communicating, and acting. But this work, especially when you come in as a new superintendent, it all starts with deep listening. And this is why I have spent an extraordinary amount of time in schools, at events, meeting with students, meeting with families, meeting with educators. our classified staff members, our principles, our union leaders and community members, which has paved the way for tonight's conversation. I've been asking questions and more importantly listening to understand your hopes, challenges, and your vision for what the Bellflower Unified School District can become. But to build an effective
015strategy after having such conversations, it is important for us to understand our current position. And that's why we are currently evaluating seven key areas. Academic achievement across all demographics to identify gaps and lift up what's working. And next month, you'll hear more. We have made some good gains in some areas while in other areas there's still much work to do. And we'll have that conversation even more so in depth next month. Instructional practices to ensure access to advanced courses, dual enrollment, and also career pathways that prepare our students for college and careers. financial health to ensure every dollar is used to support student success. Our special programs including special education, our mental health services, our supports for English learners. Again, we want to ensure that every student's need is met. Departmental collaboration. Want to improve
016the operational effectiveness of our work. Facilities. We're going to be embarking on a updated master plan ensuring that our classrooms are safe, modern, and inspiring. And our workforce stability to assess staff retention and support professional well-being of our employees. But with all that we know that communication which is our next priority builds trust and that trust is a foundation of transformation. So I don't know if I should apologize but I know that we have been using our communication our platform much more and that's because I believe in the power of communication and parents understanding the work that we're doing. um the help that we need from you all especially with things that are happening with our societ within our society and within our schools as well. So, I must apologize if you all feel that
017it's too much, but we also feel that it's important, thank you for shaking your heads, that it's important that we communicate and sometimes overcommunicate things that are happening within our community. And so, you see that from our PIO office, which comes from me, we have our super superintendent updates that are sent weekly every Friday to keep our families informed and that's via the BUSD news. Thank you, Mrs. Moralda, we're having workshops which offer an opportunity for our staff to share innovations and offer feedback as well. We have redesigned our website to make it more accessible and to be more inclusive and we're still working on aspects of that because we want you all to ensure that you have access to things much more effectively and efficiently. We also have a bellflower bright spots campaign to
018celebrate students and staff their success stories across our schools. And then multilingual culturally responsive communication tools to ensure everyone in our diverse community feels seen, valued, heard, and included. And that is essential for us moving forward. Let's talk about action. As we move from planning to action, we'll work with urgency and intentionality. So, I'm excited that we've relaunched the superintendent's parent and student advisory councils, creating space for meaningful input and co-leership. And we just had our first meeting with our student advisory council actually yesterday. and our students provided meaningful information around an enrollment campaign. What most people don't know about Belfower Unified School District, the amazing things that are happening here, as I mentioned before with aviation, who knew that we had aviation in the Belf Unified School District, auto shop, which is a course
019that many high schools have moved away from our esports, which is first in this class, right? and and having right such a class on campus or just nationwide or you can say within the state but there are many things that our community is not aware of and our students who are so brilliant provide us with new innovative ways right to reach out to our community um to express the work that we're doing. We also had a beautiful conversation around safety and other as aspects around instruction and things of that nature to really elevate the work that we're doing at Belf Unified School District. And I want to thank our student advisory council for their work and for being at a meeting at 8:15 in the morning, especially for many of our students who are on
020break right now for being there at 8:15 in the morning to express our ideas. I thank you so much. Please give our students a round of applause. one of which who is our student board member, Chabik. Thank you so much, Chabik. But as we prepare future budgets, we'll do so with a laser focus on equity and access. Again, ensuring that every child, regardless of zip code or background, has the opportunity and support they need to thrive. to strengthen our workforce. I'm looking at our HR folks. We're working to launch a national recruitment strategy and provide ongoing training and cultural competency because our teams should reflect the rich the richness and diversity of the students that we serve. That is important as well. Our findings from this 100 day plan will produce a transparent year one
021action roadmap which will be shared at next month's state of the district event where we'll reflect on our early wins and we'll also look ahead to what's next. But let me be clear. The work that we're talking about today and the work that is needed is not just about addressing today's needs. It's about preparing for tomorrow's opportunities for our students. We understand that we must lead with vision and that means moving the board's vision forward by way of the following goals. academics. We want to empower our students to thrive in a changing world by fostering academic growth, expanding our career and technical education pathways for high domain industries, and integrating artificial intelligence literacy into the curriculum. Parents, I'm here to tell you, we're behind with AI. And that means me as a parent as well.
022My children who are 20 and 12 show me some amazing things almost every week and we have to be able to catch up to that. Again, we have work to do. This initiative promotes equitable access and essential soft skills, ensuring that all graduates are wellprepared for their post secondary opportunities. Safety. By fostering a culture of safety and belonging, we aim to ensure that all of our students feel secure both physically and psychologically, developing people, creating a high-erforming leadership pipeline pipeline, excuse me, and empowering all staff through tiered professional development programs aligned with the district's vision of equitable, innovative student centered education. This initiative fosters continuous growth, retention, and leadership excellence to enhance student outcomes. Future forward thinking means we anticipate change and co-create a district where innovation, creativity, and excellence are the norm, not the
023exception. However, this vision is a collective endeavor. It is our shared responsibility. The success of our district depends on each of us working together as a unified team. So, in closing, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to our staff. Thank you for your love, thank you for your energy, and thank you for your expertise. to our families. Thank you for trusting your children. Let me say that again. Thank you for trusting us with your children. And just know that we do not take this responsibility lightly. As a parent myself, right? I know the thoughts and even the prayers that I go through as I take my child to school every single day and the trust that I have in my child's teachers, her principal, right, to ensure that she learns more importantly comes home
024to me safely. To our students who are here, I see some young ones here. We see you. We believe in you and we are committed to helping you soar. Thank you very much. [Applause] So tonight we want to hear from you.