The Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD) has hired new principals for both El Rodeo Elementary School and Horace Mann Elementary School.
The administrators, Dr. Steven J. Suttle at Horace Mann and Kim D’Aloisio at El Rodeo, are being brought on after the former principals at both schools were removed from their positions earlier this year.
Both Suttle’s and D’Aloisio’s appointments were announced by the district on May 9 and formally approved at the BHUSD Board’s May 13 meeting.
According to a statement from BHUSD, Suttle has served as a principal in multiple California school districts, earning honors for those districts such as the Gold Ribbon Award and the PBIS Platinum and Silver Awards.
In a separate statement, the district said that D’Aloisio most recently served as principal in a Los Angeles middle school which earned recognition as a California Distinguished School under her leadership and was a Magnet Schools of America Merit of Excellence recipient in 2024 and 2025.
Speaking to the Courier, Dr. Dustin Seemann, the district’s assistant superintendent, education services, said that a nationwide search was conducted for both roles, and that the district received a slew of excellent candidates.
“It was a very competitive process with a lot of people with a lot of great experience applying for these positions,” he said.
Both Suttle and D’Aloisio stood out for their expertise, knowledge and training, Seemann said, as well as their past successes.
“There’s so many things that they bring to the table about moving student data, closing educational gaps for students to ensure that all students can move towards meeting or exceeding state standards,” he said.
Speaking at the May 13 board meeting, Suttle and D’Aloisio expressed their enthusiasm to join the district.
“Elementary education is my calling,” said Suttle. “Both my parents were teachers. My brother’s an educator. My sister’s an educator. And I’m so thrilled that my journey as an educator now leads me to the beautiful community of Horace Mann and Beverly Hills.”
D’Aloisio voiced a similar sentiment.
“El Rodeo is performing really well, I’d love to take it to the next level, and I’m just super excited to join the team here,” said D’Aloisio.
In other business, the board voted 3-0, with Board President Rachelle Marcus and Board Member Amanda Stern abstaining, to approve a five-year agreement with BSN Sports to outfit student athletes in Nike-branded clothing and equipment, beginning on July 1.
The agreement is the result of an effort spearheaded by Board Member Russell Stuart, who spoke recently about what he perceived as the poor quality of BHUSD sports teams’ apparel.
Disagreement broke out among board members when the item came up at the May 13 meeting, in large part because of its placement on the agenda. The item was slated for a vote without discussion, to which Marcus and Stern objected.
“If educational excellence is really what we’re after, we want to unpack this … these are huge corporations,” said Stern. “I don’t know if I want to start a chapter where we have Nike in our world for the rest of our lives.”
Stuart retorted, “If we started educational excellence while you’ve been on the board for five years, you would have done something like this yourself. For five years you’ve been here, and we have no outfits for anybody, and our kids are wearing pathetic clothing.”
Responding to a suggestion that the agreement was based on Nike’s brand popularity, Board Member Sigalie Sabag noted, without going into detail, that the deal came about because Stuart has “a connection.”
“It’s not for the popularity, it’s because we have the connection,” she said. “If [Russell] Stuart had the connection with Adidas, we’d have Adidas. He has a connection, and I think we should take advantage of it.”
The board also discussed at its May 13 meeting the possibility of establishing a group with members of the community that would serve as a way to increase communication between the board and stakeholders.
Parents have long criticized the board for a lack of transparency in their decision-making process.
The proposal, which would form a group called Building Relationships in District Governance and Education (BRIDGE), was brought forth by Stuart, who said the idea came partly as a response to community concerns.
“We’ve had countless people who have said transparency is an issue for us and that communication is an issue for us,” he said.
The idea was met with cautious optimism by other board members, and will be brought back for continued discussion at a later meeting.
