The TSIS Accountability Project series, by Joe & Sharon Byerly. Posts every 1–2 days.
What you'll find here is a structured account of: what we experienced, what was reported, how those reports were handled, and what it cost to speak up. Each post focuses on a specific aspect and can be read independently or in order. For the primary testimony, see the full community letter.
We kept speaking. We kept advocating. But trauma kept us from telling this story…until now.
We left Tien Shan International School in January 2025 after a teacher engaged in grooming behaviors, staff reports were suppressed, and the administration altered documented findings. This is why we left.
Continue reading Part One →Fear, trauma, and the system that enforces silence.
Speaking up inside Tien Shan is costly — immediately. What happens to those who raise concerns, and why staff who witness harm stay quiet.
Continue reading Part Two →Not students. Not staff. It protects itself.
TSIS operates like many institutions: its primary priority is its own survival. The pattern of dismissed prevention, missing safeguards, and closing ranks when leadership is challenged.
Continue reading Part Three →A chronological timeline of what happened and when — Part 1 of the timeline series.
Early warnings, self-identification during safeguarding training, corroborating reports from students and teachers, and the child-safety team's 11-page formal documentation. August to September 2024.
Continue reading Part Four →Modification of findings, denial, leadership response, and escalation.
The administration altered the 11-page findings report. Cecily denied the concerns. Hans Fung resisted escalation. The situation escalated to a coordinated plan. October to December 2024.
Continue reading →Suspension, board escalation, external review, NDA, and divergence in findings.
Suspension recommended then negotiated. Board members opposed without reading documentation. CRU thought it was resolved. External review confirmed concerns. Board diverged from findings. December 2024 to January 2025.
Continue reading →From pattern to particulars — how a response can feel like engagement while quietly changing the question.
After concerns are raised publicly, the conversation can move — quickly and subtly — into specifics: clarifications, definitions, individual points of dispute. At first glance it can feel like progress. But it also does something important. It changes the frame.
Continue reading Part Five →A behavior-based comparison — the school's own chart, placed next to the school's own documented reports.
Along with Christine's email to TSIS staff and families, a chart was shared distinguishing mentoring behaviors from grooming behaviors. So a natural question follows: what happens when that same framework is applied to the documented reports already collected by the school?
Continue reading Part Six →A child, sitting alone on the pavement, looked up at the school building and said quietly: “This school is not a safe place.”
I heard screaming and sobbing on the basketball court. A young student — no older than seven — was curled into himself. I sat with him. After a few minutes, he whispered what stayed with me long after the meeting that followed: this school is not a safe place.
Continue reading Part Seven →Not a moment. Not a misunderstanding. Not a difference in interpretation. A pattern.
Documents have been shared. Timelines have been established. Statements have been compared. None of that changes what this has always been about. At this point, the question is no longer what happened — the documentation exists, the timeline is clear. The question is what will be done in response.
Continue reading Part Eight →New posts every 1–2 days. If you would like to share your own experience with Tien Shan International School, you can submit a report confidentially.