The Orange County Board of Education voted unanimously at its June 18 meeting to appoint Dr. Stefan Bean as Orange County Superintendent of Schools, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of former Superintendent Al Mijares, who on April 28 announced his intention to resign, effective June 30.
Bean, who has made a career in education for the past 20 years, will officially take office on July 1. Bean had been executive director of Irvine International Academy, a public charter school, for the previous two years. Prior to that, Bean served as a senior administrator for Aspire Public Schools for more than a decade – the last three years as superintendent. Aspire is a network of 36 community-based schools serving over 15,000 students in California.
County superintendent of schools is an elected post, and Mijares was re-elected to his final term in 2022 – an election in which he defeated Bean.
READ: OC Superintendent of Schools Al Mijares Battling Cancer, Announces Retirement
Bean will complete the balance of that term, which runs until January of 2027. He can run for a full term in 2026, if he chooses. He is Orange County’s first Asian-American county superintendent.
“First of all, I have to praise God and just give all glory to Him,” Bean said following Tuesday’s vote. “I also want to take the time to really thank Dr. Mijares for his long tenure with the Orange County Department of Education.”
“I know that the department has a lot of great bright spots, and I cannot wait to work with the people at OCDE,” he added. “Then, of course, I want to dearly thank the Orange County Board of Education and the five trustees who have put their trust in me. I look forward to collaborating with them and doing this great work together.”
“I honestly felt like we had a terrific pool of applicants, so I want to acknowledge that I, in my heart, could have easily supported any number of them,” Orange County Board of Education President Tim Shaw said. “Dr. Bean brings the experience and credentials we need to lead the department at this time. He obviously had significant support from the community and our board, and we’re excited to have him hit the ground running on July 1.”
Bean enjoyed strong support from the parents who have opted for charter schools and home schooling to educate their children, as well as citizen activists who want public schools to emphasis traditional academics and eschew ideological educational fads such Critical Race Theory.
As superintendent, Bean will manage the Orange County Department of Education, which serves the “most vulnerable student populations and provides support and mandated fiscal oversight to 28 school districts serving more than 600 schools and approximately 450,000 students,” according to the OCDE website.
Bean was born Nam Le Thanh in Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, in the early 1970s. He contracted polio and was abandoned by his parents. He came to the United States as part of Operation Babylift, a humanitarian mission during the Vietnam War to evacuate orphans to safety. He entered the U.S. foster care system when he was 4 and was later adopted by the Bean family.
Bean was married to Janet Soares for 21 years, and together they was raised four children. Janet passed away in 2021 after a battle with cancer.
Bean has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California, a master’s degree in educational leadership from Loyola Marymount University and a doctorate in educational administration from California State University, Fullerton.
