A group of teachers from the #10 special school named after Petros Duryan complain about the bad moral/psychological environment in the school and throw the blame on principal Marine Aghajanyan, stating that the principal is substituting the experienced teachers of the school with new not too smart people from her “circle of friends” and she allows violations in finances and the law.
During summer vacation of this year, the principal obligated the teachers to go on vacation by paying their expenses themselves and reasoned that that was the decision of the minister of education because he wants to cover up the budget gap. Later, three of the teachers who had tried to find out from the minister whether or not that was true (via the “Direct Connection” section of the “Law” newspaper edition), they were fired from work and the reasons were for not complying with class schedules and for being pensioners. Two of the teachers were able to get their jobs back through personal contacts; however, S. Vardanyan did not even try to get the job back, claiming that it is impossible to work under such conditions. “Our principal is trying to free himself from smart teachers and surrounds himself only with unintelligent ones because he is not too smart himself and working with smart teachers is pretty hard for him,” says S. Vardanyan. According to him, Marine Aghajanyan has been “clearing out” smart teachers ever since the first day she was appointed as principal of the school. Only three or four of those teachers have remained. Aghajanyan is fighting against these teachers by not even letting the new teachers from her circle of friends have contact with them. Another teacher from the school, who wished to remain anonymous, told us how the principal had said to one of his colleagues: “I will add more hours for you if you stay away from that group.” The principal is distributing hours with that principle. “She fires someone claiming that there is no hour, while she gives the other half the salary,” complain the teachers. The teachers were amazed to find out that the principal’s monthly salary ranges from 40-100,000 drams and they have seen this in the lists. They were surprised to see how the principal’s salary goes up and down periodically. “Now it is down to 40,000 because there have been some complaints about our school recently,” said the teachers. Aghajanyan is also optimizing the number of students studying at the school with the hope of receiving amounts from sponsors and the government. One of the protesters against the school was teacher Albert Atayan who had been fired based on his being at the age of pension. Albert Atayan’s young son died about two years ago, his handicapped wife on a wheelchair needs him to take care of her, and this is what vice minister of education A. Avetisyan said to him: “If you had not complained in different places, we could have helped you to get your job back. But now it is impossible.” A. Atayan has complained everywhere, starting from the municipality (which helps the school) up to the prime minister and president. A. Atayan has been proposed to work in another school but not in this school where he has lived next to and has worked for many years. According to Atayan, since he lives next to the school, the students sometimes ditch class and come visit him; however, they do get punished for that by the principal. But the students ditch often because they get hungry and cold at the night school. They complain that “as soon as cook Anzhik leaves the school, the other cooks cut the bread so thin that it is not enough for all us.” Recently, 11 students were saved from death by a miracle. According to the mother of one of the children, the children had tried to push the principal’s ordered commercial car during which the car had turned over and fell into the canyon; as a result one of the children got a brain tumor. The principal is doing her best to cover up for what happened by threatening or convincing the children and parents. As for the commercial business of the principal, it is located near the school. “They make bags for cement,” say the teachers according to which the school principal is moving the business to another area since she can’t stand the smell around that area. The parents of the children are the ones working in the business. The check-ups in the school are a formality. The teachers explained that the principal usually calls a couple of parents and teachers to the school check-ups and persuades them to say good things about her in front of the inspectors. “Sometimes she presents some of the parents as teachers and forces them to praise her,” said the teachers and wished to remain anonymous. They are certain that their complaints will not change a thing; on the contrary, they will only make the situation worse.
We were not able to get any comment from the principal of the night school. “I have nothing to say to the journalists because you come here, hear what we say and then write something else,” said Mrs. Aghajanyan during a telephone conversation. “I am the principal of the school and I forbid you to enter my school and talk to anyone.”
“The school principal said to Vache Hovsepyan-one of the teachers that she also fired-that if there are two principals in Armenia that have strong back-up, one of them is her,” said the teachers and pointed out that her “back-up” is her husband-working for the Organized Crimes Department of the Police of the Republic of Armenia Hovik Hovhannisyan for whom we have some details that say a lot. In 1996, while working as a vice for the chief of operations at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Armavir Marz, Hovik Hovhannisyan and some other workers from the criminal department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Armavir Marz got arrested with the accusation of corruption. A criminal case was brought up and H. Hovhannisyan was fired from his job by the order of the minister of internal affairs. As to how and where H. Hovhannisyan paid the 10,000 dollar punishment for taking bribes, it is unclear. The only thing that is clear is that he later worked for the Military Police Department for the Defense Ministry of Armenia as chief investigator; thus, H. Hovhannisyan, who had been accused for corrupt acts, was accepted to work at the police department.