Office of the Superintendent

Superintendent's Message

As the superintendent of the Apple Valley Unified School District I look forward to welcoming our students, our staff, and our families to the opening of the 2024-2025 school year. Whether you are new or returning to our district, we can’t wait to welcome you.  

Our mission is to serve our community with dignity by meeting the unique academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs of our students so they may thrive in an ever-changing world. 

Something unique about AVUSD is the number of alumni who return to serve in our school district. This inspires me, and while I am not a native Town of Apple Valley resident, my husband and I have lived in the high desert since 1998, moving to Apple Valley in 2002. I cannot imagine raising our sons anywhere else. Both of our boys received their entire Kindergarten through twelfth grade education within the Apple Valley Unified School District, one graduating in 2018 and the other in 2022. The vast majority of our leaders reside here as well, and their children attend or have graduated from our school district. Living within the community I serve grounds my work.

As we gathered our leadership team the third week of July, I shared that I was the kindergartener who hung on the fence crying for the first week of school. Eventually, my teacher Mrs. Bentima convinced me to join the class and somehow she transformed my fear of school to a love of learning. At the end of that year, I cried on the last day of school because I was leaving her for the summer. I began telling everyone I was going to be a teacher at the age of six, and it has been my passion ever since. As I begin my thirty-third year as an educator, I look back on that early experience and want nothing more than to have every child we serve find their Mrs. Bentima!

Welcome to the 2024-2025 school year!