VALLEY GLEN, Calif.,—For the last week, several parents of students who attend Ulysses S. Grant High School in the Valley Glen neighborhood of North Hollywood have been reaching out to the ANCA-San Fernando Valley East Chapter concerning violence that broke out at the school early last week. Multiple sources indicate that the violence stemmed from an earlier incident whereby an Armenian flag was desecrated at a nearby vicinity. The ANCA-SFVE immediately reached out to the school administration for further clarification on the matter and worked with parents and students affected by the incidents.
At the initiative of the ANCA-SFVE, Grant High School’s Principal Rebecca McMurrin met with ANCA-SFVE Chairman Vicken Sonentz Papazian and board member Teresa Petrosyan, along with Arsineh Hovannisian, Executive Director of the Committee for Armenian Student in Public School on Friday, October 18. The meeting’s purpose was to discuss the disturbing incident that took place at the school involving Armenian American students that ultimately left several of the school’s students injured, and students and their parents shaken and concerned about the outbreak of similar incidents in the future. Principal McMurrin briefed the ANCA-SFVE and CASPS delegation on the facts surrounding the incident, and the counseling and conflict resolution measures undertaken by Grant High School and the Los Angeles Unified School District, as well as the increased security presence on campus.
The ANCA-SFVE and CASPS representatives offered their services in assisting the school with reaching out to the Grant High School students and their parents to ensure that all of the school’s students are able to continue their education, free of fear, intimidation, or distractions. The ANCA-SFVE and CASPS representatives will be meeting with regional Los Angeles Unified School District representatives in the near future and will continue to monitor the situation closely and, working with both the school and parents, explore ways to ease on-campus tensions.
The ANCA San Fernando Valley East Chapter is the voice and advocate of the 100,000 strong Armenian American community that resides in the Eastern San Fernando Valley. The ANCA San Fernando Valley East Chapter is concerned with the wellbeing, safety, and prosperity of the Armenian American and greater community in the eastern San Fernando Valley area. For more information or to contact the ANCA-SFVE, readers may visit their website or send an email to info@ancavalley.org.
While meeting with this school’s principal and the LASUD representatives may look like a positive step, however, the tensions between Armenian and Latino students –especially at this same high school– are nothing new. These tensions, unfortunately, are deeply rooted in those communities. And the sad evidence of that is the fact that Grant High School regularly experiences skirmishes, and in some cases those “personal fights” expand to involve many students from both communities, often causing serious physical injuries to both sides. It often becomes so ridiculous that students of one group fighting students from another group may not even know why they’re fighting… One such grave confrontation happened in 2005, where a dozen students (both Armenian and Latino) were seriously injured.
School confrontations, where there are large concentrations of similar groups, are just unintelligent and uncontrolled manifestations of what those students are exposed to at their homes. And for that, in my opinion, both communities need to come together (parents, civic organizations, clergy, etc…) to create a positive atmosphere first among adults, so that the hot-headed children eventually do not look at each other as threats and focus on their studies rather than attempting to “control” the school grounds through show of force…
Much more than representatives-meeting-representatives needs to be done on the ground.
Problems of the masses.
More Armenians only schools. Our children have nothing to learn from the Odars.
If Armenia’s keep voting for democrats and open border….imagine the results