First published in the Nov. 12 print issue of the Burbank Leader.
The Burbank Unified School District has found its new principal at Luther Burbank Middle School, hiring from within and handing the reins over to longtime educator and administrator Steven Hubbell.
John Paramo, assistant superintendent of educational services, went before the Board of Education during a meeting Thursday and presented Hubbell as the successor to Oscar Macias, who left his position to serve as the director of equity, access and family engagement for the Glendale Unified School District.
Hubbell, a BUSD product, has worked in education for 26 years as a teacher instructing chemistry and physics and later climbed the administrator ladder. He was born and raised in Burbank and attended William McKinley Elementary, David Starr Jordan Middle School (now named Dolores Huerta Middle School ) and John Burroughs High School, where he most recently served as assistant principal of curriculum and instruction. Hubbell’s mother worked with Burbank Unified and the youngest of his two sons is currently a junior at Burroughs.
He has some history with Luther having been a Title I coordinator at the school.
“I’d like to thank all the administrators that I’ve worked with, from Luther to Burbank High to Burroughs. I’m going to miss a lot of people at Burroughs. It’s family,” Hubbell said. “But I’m very happy and very proud to go over to Luther. In the short time that I was at Luther, there were tons of great people, great staff, great teachers and a great group of kids. I’m very happy to go back.”
Ever Huerta, Burroughs’ student representative who attends each school board meeting, lauded Hubbell for his congeniality and approachability.
“It’s been truly such a pleasure and honor to see you work with us in ASB,” Huerta said. “You really deserve this position, and we can’t wait to see you soar and be so successful at Luther. We’ll miss you at Burroughs.”
Hubbell is one of several new administrators to take on the role of principal at a Burbank school as the BUSD has dealt with educators leaving the district.
The board was supportive of the hire and congratulated the new Luther principal. Steve Ferguson, board vice president, was glad to see someone from within the district rise to the occasion and is hopeful Hubbell will provide much-needed stability to the Luther community.
“It’s been really great [to see] you differentiate yourself from [your mother’s] service and really build your own work ethic, your own reputation,” Ferguson said. “And now to see that deployed at a campus that needs a lot of help, needs a lot of support, and is going to need the kind of flexible leadership that I think you are innately prepared for as somebody who grew up here. You know what you’re up against in this community when it comes to really taking care of and making hard leadership choices to keep institutions strong.”
