Thread by @trickytaipei

There is drama afoot at the Taipei American School. The “Head of School” has just resigned. If you google her name Dr. Sharon Hennessy you’ll see her involvement in this 2003/2004 scandal at an elite NYC school reported in WSJ and NYT 😳

wsj.com/articles/SB106…

Interesting she was able to climb so high at TAS after that scandal. Parents are signing this petition for more transparency. The comments are interesting, especially the one from Jeffrey R. Williams (screenshots below) with info about the school itself.

ipetitions.com/petition/reque…

All this is happening because kids of local celebrities were expelled for posting racist content to social media. It’s been in the tabloid news.

Sharon Hennessy came to Taipei American School in 2006 immediately after being fired from St Paul’s School in 2005. Info from her background page on the TAS website.

tas.edu.tw/about-us/welco…

Interesting fact about Taipei American School: “TAS legal standing in Taiwan is as a contractor to the USG (AIT). TAS enjoys the use of prime Taiwan government-owned land at subsidized rent. The idea was TAS should be available to serve all American families.”

Very interesting look at the history of the international schools in Taipei from Feb 2011. The makeup of students is 80% local and 20% expats, but all students need a foreign passport.

taiwantoday.tw/news.php?post=…

Very disturbing: TAS employed a male school counselor from 2009-2011 who was accused in 2019 of sexual misconduct by his next school. TAS refused to investigate even though parents shared concerns. This petition was set up by parents in March 2020:

ipetitions.com/petition/inves…

“Alistair Grant was a college counselor at TAS from 2009-2011. Immediately after leaving TAS, Mr. Grant was employed at a fellow NAIS institution and was found to have engaged in predatory sexual misconduct against students.”

Alistair Grant shown below. Image from Google.

“Unfortunately, we now know Mr. Grant also engaged in predatory behaviour during his time at TAS.”

How can TAS have done nothing and continue to do nothing? This comment from an anonymous on the petition is chilling:

Branson, the school Alistair Grant worked at after TAS, did a thorough investigation about sexual misconduct. That’s how the news reached TAS.

News report from April 2019:

marinij.com/2019/04/08/bra…

Trigger warning: these are the passages describing Alistair Grant’s alleged sexual misconduct. If you care to read the full Branson report, the link is within the petition link:

ipetitions.com/petition/inves…

The fact that parents need to resort to an online petition to get the attention of TAS administrators and the board when the issue is *the sexual misconduct of children* is shocking and also profoundly sad for all the victims. What the fuck. Truly.

Adding one more layer, Sharon Hennessy the TAS Head of School who just resigned after 15 years, was Vice Rector at St Paul’s School in NYC during the time they conducted a sexual misconduct investigation in 2000. Details about that investigation here:

nytimes.com/2017/05/22/us/…

So the image of Alistair Grant above is from this deck uploaded to Slideserve. Looks like it’s for a parent orientation introducing the counselors, including. One thing stuck out to me. The words “Lots of sexual energy” to describe the kids. Would make any parent shudder.

Link to presentation here:

slideserve.com/gratia/taipei-…