Meet the Former Class President Who Keeps Aiming Higher: Judith Manouchehri?

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Meet the Former Class President Who Keeps Aiming Higher

Judith Manouchehri

 

When I first learned that Judith Manouchehri (née Kermani) is running for a seat on the Board of Governors of the Beverly Hills Unified School District (BHUSD), otherwise known as the Board of Education, I smiled. And I thought about 1994.

That was the year that “Judy,” as we called her, served as eighth grade class president at our elementary and middle school, Horace Mann, in Beverly Hills. I was a fifth grader then, but Judy and my older sister were in the same grade, and they were close friends. When I read the election results and saw the words, “Judy Kermani, President,” I felt redemptive pride that an Iranian American Jew like myself was elected to such a high position. Yes, it was merely an eighth-grade class election, but at the time, it meant so much.

Four years later, as a senior, she was elected Associated Student Body (ASB) president at Beverly Hills High School. That too, was quite a feat. But by then, I wasn’t surprised that Judy had assumed so much responsibility.

In truth, before I met Judy, I didn’t believe that Iranian students, who were truly underdogs back then, were permitted to be assertive leaders. And whereas others (including myself) merely tried to survive among throngs of students, Judy seemed unabashedly invested in building relationships.

That probably explains why, after completing her undergraduate studies at UCLA and law school at USC, she became a real estate and construction attorney; she was still drawn to building, whether metaphorical or literal. I couldn’t have imagined her pursuing any other field.

Judy was only two years old when her family escaped post-revolutionary Iran. Back in Tehran, her father had served alcohol (forbidden in the nascent Islamic theocracy) at a home gathering and was arrested by the feared paramilitary police. Upon his release, the family, including Judy and her three-year-old brother, Jonathan, escaped the country in the middle of the night and traveled on horse-drawn carriage through Pakistan. They spent several weeks in Spain before arriving as protected refugees in the United States in 1982. A younger sister, Jasmine, was born in the U.S.

The family chose to join their relatives and resettled in Beverly Hills, home to what was then a new Iranian Jewish community. “We helped each other and created a community with shared values,” Judy told me. “We helped one another move forward and build new lives together.”

Growing up in Beverly Hills, community became ingrained in Judy, but there was something else. She quickly understood that community was a living, breathing organism; it needed to be nurtured and sometimes, even developed from the ground up. But Judy was different from most of her peers: She actually felt responsible for her community, which quickly grew to include her own friends and neighbors in Beverly Hills.

I asked Judy what was special about growing up in Beverly Hills in the 1990s: “It was the level of connection, support, trust and excellence,” she said. “At that time, we had 4,000-5,000 kids in the district, and we really excelled across the board: Academics, athletics…we were the apple of the city’s eye.”

Today, BHUSD’s student enrollment is roughly 3,300. “It’s a challenge to pinpoint exactly why enrollment has declined, because our district has endured many changes and challenges the last several years,” she said. That includes a middle school reconfiguration and a global pandemic that completely upended classrooms around the world. Currently, Judy’s three children, a preschooler, an elementary student and a middle school student, are enrolled in BHUSD.

The notion of a community can be vague and ever-changing; some associate it with geographically-close friends and neighbors; others with faith-based communities and houses of worship; and still others with virtual communities. Judy primarily associates community with schools, and good schools “are the foundation of a solid community,” she said. And she connects the dots between her Jewishness and desire to lead, describing her Jewish identity as three-dimensional: “You remember your past, and it very much relates to your present and future.” And that also seems to be her approach to the BHUSD: recognizing the past, present and future.

But running a campaign isn’t easy (the election is November 8). While campaigning, Judy’s heard from hundreds of parents, but the initial concerns were expressed by her own children, who conveyed a lack of enthusiasm over attending Beverly Hills High School (BHHS) in the future. Speaking from my own experience trying to visit the school in the last decade, the famous front end of the campus has turned into a seemingly never-ending construction site.

“One of the biggest challenges is that there’s been over $700 million in construction bond money since 2008,” said Judy. “The entire BHHS front lawn, where so many of us ate lunch, played sports and relaxed with friends, has been a construction staging area for years. We’re reaching a point where it’s been that way for so long that the students themselves don’t know anything different, and that’s sad.”

But ever the optimist (at Horace Mann, she was even a member of the elite Optimist International club), Judy sees a vibrantly bright future for BHUSD. And she recognizes that in running for a coveted seat on the school board nearly 30 years after assuming her first role as a student leader, she’s aiming to complete a circle of gratitude and service.

Article by :Tabby Refael

Jewish Journal

https://jewishjournal.com/community/352018/meet-the-former-class-president-who-keeps-aiming-higher/

Manouchehri-Info-Sheet

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