Hani Youssef’s Pay Keeps Climbing. Simi Valley’s Reading and Math Scores Remain Low. Is He the Wrong Leader for SVUSD?

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

Four years and more than $30,000 in pay increases later, the district’s 2025-26 scores on the state’s CAASPP tests, released Oct. 15, remain low. About half of the students tested, 49.7 percent, fell short of the state’s English standard, and 62.7 percent fell short in math, according to the state’s results for the district.

That was barely better than last year. The share meeting the English standard, 50.3 percent, rose one-tenth of a percentage point, while the statewide rate rose half a point, according to state testing data. In math, 37.3 percent met the standard, slightly below the statewide rate of 38.4 percent, the California Department of Education reported.

The district’s top official has done far better. 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 roughly 12 percent more than he earned in 2023, his first full year in the job.

A review of state test results, payroll records and district documents shows a district that is falling behind the state, losing students and paying its leaders more.

Falling Behind the State

The state tests measure whether students in grades 3 through 8 and 11 have learned the skills expected for their grade. Over the past two years, scores have risen faster statewide than in Simi Valley in both subjects.

In English, the share of Simi Valley students meeting the standard rose from 48.6 percent in 2024 to 50.3 percent this year, while the state’s climbed from 47 percent to 49.3 percent, according to the district’s state test results and state reports. That shrank the district’s lead from 1.6 points to 1 point. In math, Simi Valley went from 35.4 percent to 37.3 percent, while the state rose from 35.5 percent to 38.4 percent. Two years ago, the district was even with the state in math. Now it trails by more than a point.

The share of students at the bottom has barely budged. In math, 35.1 percent of Simi Valley students scored at the lowest of four levels this year, about the same as the 34.9 percent two years earlier. In English, 26.7 percent did, down from 28 percent in 2024 but up from 25.5 percent last year. Statewide, that share fell this year in every subject, the state reported.

The struggles run deepest among students who need the most help. Among Simi Valley’s English learners, students who are still learning the language, only 7.7 percent met the English standard this year, down from 10.9 percent in 2025, according to caschooltrends.com. English scores for students from low-income families did not move at all, holding at 38.9 percent.

Gaps between groups are wide. Hispanic students, the district’s largest group, met the English standard at a rate of 38.3 percent and the math standard at 24.9 percent, compared with 58 percent and 44.2 percent for white students, according to state results. Simi Valley’s Hispanic students trailed Hispanic students statewide in both subjects, and both Hispanic and white students still score below where they were in 2019, before the pandemic.

Black students have lost ground. The share meeting the math standard fell from 30.8 percent in 2024 to 25.5 percent this year, and English scores fell by a similar amount, even as Black students statewide made larger-than-average gains. Simi Valley’s Black students still outscore Black students statewide. They make up less than 2 percent of the district, according to the ratings site Niche, so their results can swing from year to year.

The district’s dual-language program, which teaches in Spanish and English at Arroyo Elementary, is too new to judge by these scores. It began in 2024 with transitional kindergarten and kindergarten and adds a grade each year, so its first students will not take state tests until spring 2028, according to the district.

Thousands of Students Below Grade Level

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, by contrast, 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 took the tests this spring, according to caschooltrends.com. Based on the state’s percentages, about 3,670 of them scored below the English standard, including about 1,970 at the lowest level, “minimal.” In math, about 4,630 fell short, including about 2,590 at the lowest level. Those counts are estimates, 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 changed from a year earlier.

The state average itself is 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 has 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. Its low-income students scored about the same as low-income students statewide: 38.9 percent met the English standard in both, and 27 percent met the math standard in Simi Valley, compared with 27.4 percent statewide. But its students who are not from low-income families trailed similar students across California by about 7 points in English, 60.9 percent to 68.1 percent, and by 11 points in math, 46.8 percent to 58.1 percent, according to statewide results.

Neighboring Conejo Valley Unified in Thousand Oaks did better with both groups. About 24 percent of its students are from low-income families. Those students outscored Simi Valley’s low-income students by roughly 5 points in each subject, and Conejo Valley’s other students met the English standard at 75.4 percent and the math standard at 65.8 percent, caschooltrends.com’s data shows.

Fewer Students, and a Stronger Neighbor

Simi Valley Unified is getting smaller. It enrolled 15,081 students last school year, according to the California Department of Education, and started this fall with almost 15,000. Its kindergarten class of 860 is down from just over 900 a year ago, according to figures reported in August.

Nearby Oak Park Unified competes for students. It is one of the few California districts in the state’s District of Choice program, which lets districts open their doors to students from elsewhere. It is also among the program’s biggest draws, according to a 2024 analysis. In the 2018-19 school year, 1,424 of Oak Park’s 4,579 students, about 31 percent, came through the program, according to a 2021 report by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. Oak Park enrolled 4,434 students last school year, according to the state.

Oak Park’s results are far higher. This spring, 79 percent of its students met the English standard and 72 percent met the math standard, according to state testing data. Oak Park is wealthier than Simi Valley, with about 13 percent of its students from low-income families. But the gap holds even among similar students: 57 percent of Oak Park’s low-income students met the math standard, compared with 27 percent in Simi Valley, according to caschooltrends.com. Families who go to the trouble of transferring may also be especially motivated, which can lift a district’s scores.

Birth Rates or Test Scores?

Dr. Youssef has blamed the decline on forces beyond the district’s control, such as falling birth rates and families moving out of state. “We’re graduating more seniors than we’re enrolling in kindergarten,” he said in August, The Acorn reported.

Those trends are real and likely part of the picture. Simi Valley’s population fell about 1 percent from 2020 to 2025, according to the Census Bureau, and enrollment across California has dropped 8 percent over the past decade, the state reported.

But test scores also shape where families choose to live. In one U.S. study, low-income families shown school ratings while searching for housing picked neighborhoods with higher-scoring schools, according to the research center J-PAL. For a district where most students fall short in math, that could make it harder to attract new families.

Scores are not the whole story. Dr. Youssef has noted that Simi Valley’s enrollment fell 3.3 percent from 2018 to 2023, a smaller drop than the county’s or the state’s. Conejo Valley Unified, which outscores Simi Valley, lost 11.2 percent over the same period, according to the figures he presented.

$304,444 and Rising

Dr. Youssef’s pay has risen every year since he took over, payroll records show. He was paid $270,761 in 2023, his first full year as superintendent, $292,773 in 2024 and $304,444 in 2025. In 2021, his last full year as an assistant superintendent, he earned $186,392. Those figures do not include benefits.

He now earns more than the man he replaced, at least on paper. Jason Peplinski, who retired in 2022, was paid $276,585 in 2021, according to the same payroll records. Those figures are not adjusted for inflation.

Oak Park pays its superintendent less. Jeff Davis, who led that district until mid-2024, was paid $257,508 in 2023, about $13,000 less than Dr. Youssef that year, according to Transparent California. His successor, Anais Wenn, took over in July 2024 and was paid $132,500 for the rest of that year, payroll records show, a pace of about $265,000 a year. Dr. Youssef made $292,773 in 2024. Oak Park serves fewer than a third as many students as Simi Valley Unified.

Others at the top have also seen sizable pay increases. Ron Todo, the associate superintendent for business, was paid $286,574 in 2025, up from $259,656 in 2023. 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 district salary schedules 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.

Higher Pay, Stalled Scores

Four years into Dr. Youssef’s tenure, the district’s own numbers tell a consistent story. His pay has climbed about 12 percent in two years, to more than $300,000. Over the past two years, the share of students meeting the state’s English standard, which covers reading and writing, rose less than 2 points, to 50.3 percent. In math, the share also rose less than 2 points, to 37.3 percent. The state improved faster in both. The district’s Hispanic students trail Hispanic students statewide, its Black students have lost ground, and enrollment keeps shrinking.

Being close to the state average may be the district’s strongest defense. But the average is not the goal. The state standard measures whether a child can read and do math at grade level, and by that measure nearly half of Simi Valley’s students fall short in reading and writing, and more than three in five in math. Matching other struggling districts does not change that.

The school board that hired Dr. Youssef sets his pay through his contract. In 2022, the board’s president said he was in the best position to meet the district’s “educational achievement expectations.” Four years later, Simi Valley is paying its superintendent more each year, while its reading and math scores have barely moved. That leaves a question for the Simi Valley Unified Board of Education: Did it choose the wrong person to lead Simi Valley Unified School District?

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