By Mary O’KEEFE

Recently Greg Krikorian announced he would not run again for the Glendale Unified School District board ending a 21-year chapter serving local students, parents, teachers and staff.

Prior to being elected to the school board, Krikorian worked in government offices including as a field representative for Jim Rogan, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives at the time, and with then-State Senator Jack Scott.

“I was looking at the makeup of the board of education and there was really no parent on the board [with students in school at the time] except for Pam Ellis,” Krikorian said. “I thought, ‘You know, it makes sense to consider a [run].”

Several friends banded with him and he received a lot of community support including from Grace Chase, a Crescenta Valley resident. He added that local CV High School student James Jenkins was one of the first to come to Krikorian and offer to volunteer for him.

James was a well-known basketball player at CVHS who died while on a hike with his father. Krikorian said the loss of James was felt deeply throughout the entire district family.

When Krikorian joined the school board he said he was lucky to have mentors like Chakib Sambar, Lina Harper, Jeanne Bentley and Pam Ellis. But it was Sambar who really took Krikorian under his wing.

Krikorian has worked with superintendents including James Brown, Dr. Michael Escalante, Dr. Richard Sheehan, Dr. Donald Empey [interim], Dr. Joel Shawn, Dr. Marc Winger [interim], Dr. Winfred Roberson, Dr. Kelly King [interim] and Dr. Vivian Ekchian. He served as a board member while working with his father at their company Business Life Magazine, coaching baseball and raising his family.

During his 21 years on the school board, Krikorian oversaw and helped guide several programs, like the piggyback purchase when Glendale Unified School District worked with other local districts to purchase items.

“That saved us a lot of money,” he said. “If our district and another district needed to purchase windows we saved money by joining [together].”

He was in the beginning of his school board tenure when he worked with other members of the board to bring back the Glendale Education Foundation.

In one of his earliest interviews with this reporter in the early 2000s, Krikorian spoke about revising the foundation to bring funding to the district and to celebrate the district with a State of the Schools breakfast.

“Chip Stone, Susan Hunt and Vic Pallos, along with our board, worked to bring the GEF to the district,” he said.

He praised Stone, Hunt and Pallos for their leadership and involvement with the district.

“The GEF has brought in millions to our district,” he added.

There were several other programs and changes he has been a part of during his tenure including supporting Clark Magnet High School. He was able to present the first Clark Magnet graduating class their diplomas, brought the foreign language program to district schools and ushered in the first City of Glendale/GUSD joint use park with Pacific Community Park and Edison Elementary School.

Krikorian is quick to credit the advances of the district with his fellow board members, both past and present, during his time with GUSD.

“We have always worked as a team,” he said.

That doesn’t mean that teamwork has always been easy. Those in Crescenta Valley will remember the issue surrounding a new track and field at CVHS in the mid 2000s. GUSD had planned to spend funds to repair the track and field at Glendale High School. CVHS used the GHS field for its football games, as it does now. Two school board members rejected a suggestion to repair/replace CVHS and Hoover High School’s track and field. Instead, board member Mary Boger suggested that CV parents had the money to pay the $1.4 million themselves for a new field. During this ongoing board debate local parents and community members created CV CAN, an organization to raise funds for the field. In a little over a year CV CAN raised about $200,000, which was impressive, but it still had a long way to go. Krikorian and Sambar had shown their support for the CVHS field from the beginning of the discussions.

The teams, including girls and boys soccer, held games on the CV field and were struggling with more dirt than grass, large and small holes that caused twisted ankles and severe flooding when it rained. With their continuing fundraising and strong community support, CV CAN gained the attention of a philanthropic donor, Susan Osborne, who came through with the majority of the funding for a new CVHS field.

When CV CAN took the donated funds to the school board two members questioned whether it was fair to accept the funds. Krikorian and Sambar were the two loudest voices in support of accepting the funds to move forward with a new field. In a final vote, then-board member Lina Harper voted to accept the money and CVHS had its field.

Krikorian said that even when they disagreed board members still worked together. During the pandemic that working relationship became even more important as the district faced some of the toughest decisions they would have to make.

There were tough times as well including a protest that took Glendale teachers and community members to Krikorian’s home. A candlelight vigil was held in 2010 outside his house opposing proposed teacher layoffs. At the time Krikorian said teachers had inappropriately confronted his children at a board meeting concerning the layoffs.

But the pandemic has brought protests to a whole new level. Krikorian has had to deal with issues surrounding the teachers’ union.

“Look, I reach out to them and we are in communication,” he said as he showed several text messages between teacher leaders and himself.

But the threats have been a bit more personal than the candlelight vigil of the past with vulgar voice messages left for him.

“I’m not stepping down because of that, though. I am not stepping down due to anything due to COVID,” he said. “It’s just time – 21 years. It’s time.”