School records are missing

Burbank public education officials are reporting that about 40 students lack academic records from a private Armenian school that filed for bankruptcy last year.

An unknown number of students who left Scholars Armenian School and Arts Center for elementary, middle and high schools in Burbank Unified lack their records, forcing administrators to consider starting them off with clean slates, said Cathy Krailo, an assistant guidance counselor at John Muir Middle School.

“We can’t find them,” she said. “We need the educational history so we can place the kids.”

Some parents were soured when the school closed, Krailo said.

John Muir officials have not been able to track down the student transcripts since Scholars closed its Grandview Avenue location in January after a dispute with the landlord, Alex Kuiumdjian.

After declaring bankruptcy in May, the school’s owner and president, Anahit Grigoryan, said she was confident her school would continue, but Burbank Unified officials have been unable to find her.

Grigoryan did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.

Sources close to the bankruptcy trial and Grigoryan had speculated that she reopened Scholars under another name and under a new patron organization operating at 3800 Foothill Blvd. The building, which has no signs, is the Scholars Academic Foundation, according to a man who identified himself as Arthur Danielyan and a board member for the school.

“This is a totally different school,” he said outside the building Thursday. “I don’t know what happened to Scholars.”

But in a voluntary audit, Scholars officials submitted to the California Department of Education on Oct. 19 — roughly four months after Grigoryan declared bankruptcy — listed Danielyan as director or principal of the school.

But the man who identified himself as Danielyan said Grigoryan had no connection to the Foothill Boulevard school and the nonprofit organization associated with it. He also said the school had moved from place to place in the last year, including West Hollywood, before opening the foothills campus.

“We’re considering hiring Anahit,” he said. “It’d take meetings and minutes. A process.”

A woman contacted at a phone number that Danielyan gave for the school said it was a wrong listing.