Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD) Superintendent Dr. Alex Cherniss began his tenure in April. Now, as he looks ahead to his first full year leading the district, his focus, he told the Courier in an exclusive interview, is on student achievement and academic rigor.
“When I got here, one of the things I noticed was that we had a lot of kids that weren’t at grade level … we’re going to close those achievement gaps,” he said, “and that’s going to be the primary focus this year.”
Cherniss’ time at BHUSD began not as superintendent but as a math teacher at Beverly Vista Middle School. He then worked as an administrator in the district before leaving to serve as the superintendent at Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District and, most recently, as superintendent at Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District.
Now, he’s bringing his robust experience to bear in Beverly Hills with an eye towards raising test scores and ensuring that the city’s students are where they need to be.
According to state testing results, approximately 31% of Beverly Hills students in grades three through eight as well as grade 11 did not meet grade-level standards in English Language Arts in 2024, and approximately 42% fell below grade level in math.
The scores are a holdover from the COVID-19 pandemic, Cherniss said, when many children weren’t writing on a regular basis or receiving the same level of feedback from teachers as they normally would have.
“All of these kids came back to school with these huge learning gaps, and that’s really impacted the academic achievement,” he said.
To combat the setback, BHUSD will launch a new program, offering free after-school instruction by district teachers beginning in October. In these nine-week instructional sessions, kindergarten through middle school-aged students who are not performing at or above grade level will receive extra support.
Teachers who facilitate the sessions will be compensated for their time.
“This isn’t homework club, and it’s also not like hiring high school or college kids to tutor,” Cherniss said. “This is hiring our professionals to do real instruction.”
Additionally, BHUSD is providing innovative training to new and veteran teachers. The district has adopted a new mathematics curriculum, Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI), which Cherniss describes as “more rigorous.”
“We’re raising the level of instruction and we’re giving support … and, so what does that do long term? It provides more kids [who are] college ready,” he said. “We start focusing early on getting them up to grade level and above, and then we’ll get more college-ready students by the time they graduate from high school.”
Speaking to the Courier in April, Cherniss said he hoped to increase revenue in the district in order to finance new projects. To that end, he said he may look to naming opportunities as new sports facilities complete construction or renting out Peters Auditorium. But more than that, he’s focused on eliminating spending where possible.
“The easiest way to add to your bottom line on the revenue side is actually not revenue; it’s cutting expenses,” Cherniss said. “Since I got here, we’ve cut $1.3 million in district office management salaries and expenses … and that’s a lot of money that can be spent on kids.”
Since stepping into his role, Cherniss has been tasked with leading a Board of Education that is at times at odds with one another. Most recently, the board was divided over a proposal to display the Israeli flag as part of Jewish American Heritage Month (see story on pg. 1). Cherniss stepped in and made the decision not to display the flag on BHUSD property.
When asked about his thinking on that decision, Cherniss declined to comment, saying only that “my thinking was very much explained in my statement” released at the time of the incident.
As to his strategy for leading a board that does not always see eye to eye, Cherniss said the board consists of “very strong personalities” who are outspoken in their beliefs.
“My job is to continue to be, sort of, the middle of the wheel, and the board can be all those spokes around the wheel,” he said. “I make sure the wheel continues to move around and forward in the right direction.”
In the years ahead, Cherniss said his focus is on long-term gains for the district and its students.
“In order to change culture, it doesn’t happen overnight,” he said. “We’re going to start doing a lot of small wins that will start to add up. I love being here, and I look forward to helping our district achieve success now and into the future.”
