LA CRESCENTA—Western Prelate Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian, the Executive Council and the Board of Regents of Prelacy Armenian Schools announced that the Lincy Foundation has yet again made a generous donation of one million dollars to Prelacy Schools.
The contribution was allocated to the following schools:
Armenian Mesrobian School
Rose and Alex Pilibos HighSchool
Ferrahian High School
Vahan and Anoush Chamlian School
Ari Guiragos Minassian School
Krouzian-Zekarian-Vasbouragan School
Levon and Hasmig Tavlian Pre-School
Richard Tufenkian Pre-School
The Prelate, Executive Council, and the Board of Regents expressed their gratitude to the Lincy Foundation for this latest allocation, which will greatly contribute to the advancement of our Prelacy Schools. “We are grateful to the Lincy Foundation for their past donations and for this most recent contribution made on the threshold of the New Year and Christmas.
The Lincy Foundation has had and continues to have an invaluable role in the progress of our schools, and we are ever thankful for their support,” said the Prelate.
And with this donation, these schools will become even more grand and “updated” and most likely there will be more glitz and glamour to flaunt in order to justify even more exuberant tuition for a “private Armenian education”.
What about the Armenian children of families who cannot afford to send their kids to private Armenian schools? Are they not economically elite enough to have an opportunity to attend Armenian schools?
These schools do not need the money, this donation and the millions donated before this one would have served a much greater purpose if they had been put into a scholarly trust in order to subsidize tuition to allow low income families to also send their children to these schools instead of just the upper middle class and upper class elitists that swing by in their European cars to pick up their kids in the afternoons with their Fendi handbags and empty materialistic minds.
But then again I suppose Ferrarian, Alex Pilibos, etc. do need a new set of bleachers, new lockers, and even more overpaid and undereducated teachers, so forget about the low income Armenian kids, they do not meet the elitism requirements. Sovorek heryaneritz himarner, sovorek. . . .
the Armenian children of families who can’t afford to send
their kids to private Armenian schools, do actually send them for a
deeply discounted rate. they need only to ask the school for the
rate. it’s how it is in OC. As for the European cars and Fendi
handbags, that’s another issue.
All the prelacy high schools have financial aid programs, based on need. Tax returns for both parents are necessary. Each school has more than 20% of their students receiving some sort of assistance.
Your comments about prelacy teachers are not fair or justified. Ferrahian, Mesrobian, and Pilibos all have proud histories. The schools are accredited, and are known to send a high percentage of students to UC and CSU.
Hye, thanks to the Lincy Foundation for the handsome donation to educate our youth… these monies shall make a difference in the lives of all students, and too, our Armenian cause. Manooshag
The statement above is actually a VERY fair assessment. Why is there any need for the existence of a “financial aid” system for Armenian schools if the said school system can simply be made more affordable through subsidization via the millions it receives through grants? More importantly, if the so called “financial aid” system was in any way effective, why are the demographics of such schools nearly completely made up of Armenian children that come from middle-class to upper class families?
To take California as an example, the majority of Armenian children attend public schools of questionable quality. Only a small group of Armenian families can afford to actually send their kids to “Armenian school” due to the cost and bourgeoisie elitist mentality associated with attending these so called “Armenian schools”. If we take the total number of Armenian kids in grades K-12 in actual attendance of Armenian schools and compare that number to the total number of Armenian kids present in CA, it will be painfully obvious just how inaccessible these so called “Armenians schools” have become to the common Armenian family. Let’s not be naive and ignore the pink elephant in the room.
The reality of it is, the current situation is the way that it is because of the elitist and greedy mentality that exists amidst the governing bodies of these schools today. It is not enough that these schools ruthlessly chase after turning a profit, but the whole system is structured in the form of a business model designed to maximize profits rather than a educational institution for the good of our cultural heritage preservation. On top it all, exuberant amounts of funds are regularly donated like this latest 1 million dollar grant and still the schools fail to become affordable for the common blue collar Armenian family.
More importantly, let us assume for a second that given all the money paid to attend such schools that in turn these schools provide a top notch education which as one commenter so self-righteously put it regularly sends a “high percentage of its students to UC and CSU” universities. The fact of inaccessibility of these schools for Armenian families of lower income denominations coupled with the success of the same said schools of successfully placing its students in institutes of higher education leads to an even more disturbing moral dilemma.
By making such “success nurturing” Armenian schools only affordable for the upper middle class/upper class families, these schools succeed in effectively marginalizing the far greater number of lower income zero generation Armenian immigrant children that cannot afford to attend. If the goal of these schools is to provide a solid foundation of education for ALL Armenian children, why should only those kids of well to do families be better prepared or have a higher chance of attending a UC or CSU institution? There are certainly Armenian children of low income families that just as capable if not a lot more capable than kids of wealthier families that also deserve the best chance possible to gain a higher education.
Rather than creating an institution that is innately subsidized to be affordable for even the most humble Armenian family without the need to “qualify for financial aid”, these “schools” have become a perversion of capitalizing on the Armenian families desires to have their children benefit from an Armenian education. If these schools were as grandiosely accessible to ALL Armenians as some of the other commenters are so diligently championing, then why does their student body represent such a small, elite, and well to do demographic of our community as a whole? And the answer to that is simple, there exists “benevolent” Armenian education only for those wealthy enough to cover the fees. Class dismissed.