It is a sign of the times that any project or mission in the diaspora tasked to preserve the Armenian heritage gradually will face harder challenges, the school mission being perhaps the most taxing one among them.
In 1981, encouraged by the leadership and the generosity of the late benefactor Arshag Dickranian, the Tekeyan Cultural Association (TCA) embarked on an educational mission by laying the foundations of the Arshag Dickranian School in Hollywood, Calif. Over time, the school expanded to become a K-12 educational institution, eminently serving generations of students by offering a solid academic program along with a core curriculum of Armenian Studies. Today, over 500 graduates look back with pride to the instruction, care and inspiration which the school provided to them. It also helped them to become responsible and productive citizens and members of our community.
The combination of the efforts of the farsighted school board and the dedicated professional faculty and administration, compounded with the care and love of the families, turned the saga of the school into a successful educational mission.
However, during recent years, demographic changes in the area where the school is located, combined with the increasingly alarming scarcity of funding resources, negatively impacted the mission of the school. Community-wide appeals by the school’s Board of Trustees and good faith efforts by the TCA Central Board proved to be insufficient to continue the operation of the school at the level of academic performance which the parents had come to expect from the school.
In consultation with the School Board and prominent community leaders, the TCA Central Board realized that it had no other choice but to terminate the operation of the school. On June 30, 2015, the TCA closed the school with a heavy heart. The closure of the Dickranian School is not a unique phenomenon under diasporan conditions, which have imposed the same fate on several other schools already.
With the utmost sense of its fiduciary responsibility, the Central Board was duty-bound to judiciously preserve its decades-long investment. Consequently, with the advice and the participation of competent real estate experts, the property on 1200 Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood, California was disposed of at the highest possible market value.
