Christian Smalls is widely regarded as the new face of today’s labor movement.
Our amazing schools always have a lot going on! Please check back often for our school highlights!
Six of our Saugus Union schools have been selected for the prestigious 2025 California Distinguished Schools Program by the California Department of Education (CDE)!
Please join us on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, at 6:40 p.m. for the regular meeting of the Governing Board.
Welcome to the Saugus Union School District (SUSD). The district is located in the Santa Clarita Valley which is part of Northern Los Angeles County, California. The 14 elementary schools and one early learning academy that comprise our school district provide safe, empowering learning environments for over 9,200 prekindergarten through sixth-grade students.
Thank you for taking the time to visit our website. We are happy to provide you with information about our district, our schools, and the excellent programs and services we offer our students every day.
The Saugus Union School District (SUSD) strives to reach Excellence in Elementary Education with each of the programs and services we provide our students. To achieve excellence for all students we focus on ensuring every student understands and is committed to living the core values of respect, integrity, life-long learning, teamwork, and enthusiasm. Creating a school and district environment that emphasizes the “whole child” is critical to our meeting our promise of excellence.
In SUSD, we have combined the areas of academic learning, social-emotional learning, and behavioral learning to ensure that the needs of the “whole child” are addressed each day. Our programs and curriculum demonstrate a balance between each child’s social-emotional and academic needs by providing for those social-emotional needs as a foundation, then integrating those needs and the developed skills into general academics – literacy, mathematics, social-sciences, science, technology, physical activity, and the arts.
Currently SUSD has all of its schools identified as part of America’s Healthiest Schools by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and thirteen of its sites recognized as All-Star Schools for receiving recognition in all nine of the areas. In addition, each site school in SUSD has been recognized by California’s Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) for their site-specific work to ensure that behavioral needs of students are properly addressed (two platinum, eleven gold, and one silver).
SUSD’s academic achievement is supported by its commitment to social-emotional learning, but is furthered by the work of each school site team in their dedication to a cycle of continuous improvement within their Professional Learning Community (PLC) structures. By using data and standards to drive and refine instruction, SUSD is seeing more students achieve at grade level and above. Both Charles Helmers Elementary and West Creek Academy were recognized in 2023–2024 as model PLC schools.
But it is the commitment to creating positive learning environments that are aligned to the individual needs of our students that makes SUSD a fantastic place for students to learn and grown. While each school is connected to supporting the “whole child” each school is connected and reflective of their individual school community. Our team (classified staff, teachers, and administrators) believe that SUSD is a family. We welcome our students and their parents to become part of that family. We support each other throughout our learning, and we try to make the process meaningful and fun!
In SUSD, we live the phrase “Together we achieve more!” We look forward to having people join us in that work and realizing that work together.
Sincerely,
Colleen Hawkins
Colleen Hawkins, Ed.D
