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he Charlie Keyan Armenian Community School (CKACS) announced that it recently received approval from the City of Clovis in Fresno County, California, to increase its student enrollment capacity to 220 students. This milestone comes concurrently to the approval and construction of a new Pre-K Classroom building, Asbarez reports.

This change increases the NAEYC accredited Pre-K program capacity to 60 students and supports CKACS’s growing enrollment needs. Through Principal Curtis Shamlin’s leadership, the student enrollment has grown to 127 students today.

“This approval to raise our student enrollment cap is a major opportunity for our program to begin the growth which has been talked about for the past few years. We have a great program with exceptional kids, and we need growth to achieve our greater goals of becoming one of the premier K-6 schools in the Central Valley! This provides us with capacity for almost 100 more new students” says Principal Curtis Shamlin.

The two newest additions to the school’s dedicated faculty are Haykuhi Hakobyan and Manoush Sarkis. The classroom features open soft seating areas, open areas for movable furniture, writable wall surfaces, a dedicated parent check-in area. There are about 10 open spots and enrollment is open for the Pre-K Potty Training Class.

The school has served the Central Valley for 42 years and is largely supported by an endowment and community contributions. This project has been made possible in part through generous gifts.

Recent gifts include a $300,000 donation made by Grace Kazarian and the Grace Kazarian Family Foundation, in memory of their mother Agavni Kazarian. The new courtyard, outdoor stage and safe drop-off plaza will soon be dedicated as the Agavni Kazarian Memorial Courtyard. Mrs. Kazarian recently visited the CKACS campus to visit with students and tour the campus construction.

Sharing some insight about her mother, Grace said, “Mother was always for the school, always volunteering on and off campus. She wanted to see it succeed and would be very proud of the changes taking place now.”

The CKACS Board of Education and Administration emphasize the importance of growth and welcome students from diverse backgrounds while preserving our core values of Academic Excellence, Armenian Language Immersion, Christian Values, Small Class Sizes and an Arts Education.