School releases statement
St Michael’s Foundation, the school were Lisa Marie Zahra was a pupil and Erin Tanti a teacher, has released a statement saying that Miss Zahra had been a pupil there since she was 11, that the school administration, teachers, pupils and parents are “in grief at her loss” and that “she will be greatly missed”.
The school said that it “strictly adheres at all times to all procedures, rules and regulations stipulated by law in the engagement of its teachers and ensures that all teachers have the necessary approvals from the authorities”.
It said that it had no indication of “any incidents, on or off the school premises, leading up to this tragedy.”
The school administration said that it had called on all staff members and pupils to “cooperate fully with the authorities” and that “respect for Miss Zahra’s memory requests nothing short of that”.
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The school saying it had no indication of any incidents on or off the school premises, leading up to this tragedy is somewhat strange as Facebook pages have been splashed with photos of this man’s behaviour in our face.
If we knew about this man and his behaviour, is it possible that the teachers, his friends, pupils, never reported anything to the school and is it possible that the school never filtered behaviour of its own teachers from social network sites?
The fees of this school are very high – it’s not like they lack funds to employ someone to do the scanning for them if they can’t manage it.
I’m sorry if it sounds rude …. but If you knew about this behaviour and you considered it improper why didn’t YOU report it?
Hindsight is 100% perfect vision.
I had seen the indecencies on Facebook (because they were there for all to see), some time ago but then I had no idea he got employed by St. Michael’s Foundation some three months ago.
Therefore it was up to the school who employed him and the drama company who used his services to check.
Sorry three months ago should be six months ago. That’s how much I didn’t know that he was employed by the school in question.
He was on Facebook and on other social networks – I didn’t know he was employed by St. Michael’s Foundation three months ago or I definitely would have done what you said.
Let’s hope that many of the pupils will come forward, stand up and be counted. From the comments I read on his Facebook page before it was taken down, some of those same comments came from young girls and presumably they attend the same school were he taught.
My children have attended this school since the tender age of 3. I have been in contact with this school for the past 15 years and I can personally vouch for the school administration’s intense and genuine care and well-being towards the pupils. This is a very sad time for us all.
There is something lacking in the teacher approval and selection system, and in the school’s teacher monitoring system. Tanti had only been at the school for three months.
Six months, not three. He was interviewed on 15.09.2013, and on 22.09.2013 said he was started work at the school within a day or so. It was on his Facebook profile, open to the public.
“I can personally vouch for the school administration’s intense and genuine care and well-being towards the pupils.”
You can *vouch* if you were on the board of the teacher selection process;
You can *vouch* if you knew the school had a *special* audit team employed to filter facebook pages and scan teachers prior to being employed;
You can *vouch* if you knew that teachers employed weren’t substitutes but professionally trained people who know what professional ethics between teacher and pupils are;
You can *vouch* only if you knew with proof that the previous cases involving Vella Gera, weren’t true or didn’t happen – not the case;
In the circumstances, I don’ think it fit to say that you can *vouch*.
Vouching is a heavy word that carries an amount of responsibility which doesn’t apply here since this Tanti case isn’t the first of its kind at the school in question.
Vouch all you like, it’s undeniable that the administration failed this girl twice, firstly by failing to detect the signs and secondly by employing a person who was unfit to teach.
It’s not like he made it difficult to find out. His Facebook had loads of information set on public.
Reasonable people, in reasonable countries, expect a teacher to be of good moral character, just like they expect a surgeon not to be a drug addict. Reasonable people would also expect to see some resignations.
An abstract noun “requires”, not “requests”.
Back to school for whoever wrote the statement.
Any statement from Masquerade
It is not a question of not having an indication of any incidents on or off the school premises, it’s that they are paid well to ensure that safety on their premises is a priority.
If the friendship didn’t start there, it continued from there and anyway he was employed as a substitute. What sort of approval from the authorities did they have to employ Tanti?
Tanti was cleared to work as a teacher. There’s an over emphasis on paper qualifications and zero interest in assessing the personalities of teachers.
I can think of a few people who’d have a clean police conduct sheet. That does not mean I’d feel safe with them teaching my children.
They should have just looked through his Facebook to discover what a creep he is.
So effectively what they’re saying is that they followed the bare minimum procedures required by law so everything is fine.
It’s the typical attitude that as long as one follows the law everything is OK.
Meanwhile, in the Land Of Self Delusion:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140326/local/president-urges-judiciary-to-make-the-code-of-ethics-their-bible.512292
Is Farrugia Sacco still a judge? Is Carol Peralta still a magistrate? Is police Herrera still a magistrate? What on earth is Abela thinking?
Excuse me, but anyone who shows images of sick children in TV adverts to collect funds and then suggests some of the funds are used for a relative to travel in comfort AND train for a project as yet to be launched (at the time), should look at HIS own code of ethics.
That’s exactly what I meant.
I never thought you’d be a junkie because heroin is so passe.”
― The Dandy Warhols
Erin Stuart Palmier, Éire Stuart jew Erin Stewart Tanti – skond kif tafu int, jbiddel ismu mill-inqas darba kulljum. Xi drabi direttur, aktar forsi attur (izda ma toghgbux wisq l-idea), kittieb; izda qatt ma ppubblika xejn as such; persuna tat-tejatru?, jwarrabhom l’dawk, ma jahmilhomx, specjalment l-atturi; politikant, izda warrab dan il-hsieb ukoll meta ltaqa ma min kien se jivvutalu. He could do better for himself.
Il–krediti li jghoddu ghalieh sa issa jinkludu l-addattamenti tejatrali ta’ kitbiet letterarji Maltin ghall-palk, u il-waqtiet fejn qam fil-ghodu sabiex jara li wiccu kien stampat fuq il-faccata tat-Times mimli tadam.
Erin Stuart Palmier, dak li fl-ahhar play reading tal-~Poezijaplus zvojta post bit-“tendenzi infantili” tieghu, se jkun qed jiftah ghall-ewwel darba l-ewwel draft ta’ “L-GHARAQ U L-GHAQAL/ PERSPIRATION AND GOOD BEHAVIOUR”, ktejjeb poeziji li ghad jrid jiddeciedi jippubblikax jew jarmihx – miktubin bi stil bilingwali, bisesswali, jithabbeb, jofroq u joghbod u ddeddikati lil kull persuna li l-awtur qatt hexa.
“saline slip shod
sloht dahri b’imhabbitha
her nails engrave a name
onto the curvature of my back”
– extract from “l-gharaq u l-ghaqal” ta’ Erin Stuart Palmier
http://eventot.com/l-gharaq-u-l-ghaqal-perspiration-and-good-behaviour/595812
“zvojta post bit-”tendenzi infantili” tieghu, se jkun qed jiftah ghall-ewwel darba l-ewwel draft ta’ “L-GHARAQ U L-GHAQAL/ PERSPIRATION AND GOOD BEHAVIOUR”, ktejjeb poeziji li ghad jrid jiddeciedi jippubblikax jew jarmihx – miktubin bi stil bilingwali, bisesswali, jithabbeb, jofroq u joghbod u ddeddikati lil kull persuna li l-awtur qatt hexa.”
——————————————————————————–
You forgot the punch line “Above description and details of the event – as kindly provided by the speaker of the event himself.”
The man is a parody of himself. Is it possible that no one ever noticed he is totally unsuitable teacher material, whatever his academic certificates say?
I must confess I’m jealous. I could write stuff and do madness that would make this Stewart Tanti and his “gritty” literature look like Gorg Zammit and l-Ghanja tas-Seba’ Nicec.
But I never got a penny in government funds.
So no one saw or suspected that this teacher was involved with his 15 year old pupil?
It seems many of her contemporaries noticed this wasn’t the usual teacher-pupil relationship.
Tanti appears to have ingratiated himself enough for them to defend him even though their friend is dead.
When Mark Vella Gera made passes at some of his pupils, other pupils were outraged enough to report this to their parents. Vella Gera was sacked, but he shouldn’t have been employed there in the first place.
The school failed miserably in the selection process. This person was all over the internet before he applied to be a teacher at the school.
If this school really, really is very cautious in its selection process, then it has to seriously revise it. It should have somebody who makes a background check on any person applying for a teaching post or any other position that means contact with schoolchildren.
This includes their Facebook profiles, because it is amazing how many indicators on a person’s personality one finds there.
If no pupils or teachers reported anything “strange” happenings going on within school premises involving this man, then surely there is no adequate invigilation within the school boundaries.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? There is no structure in place in our schools whereby teachers’ private lives are monitored. If you are qualified, in possession of a permanent or a temporary warrant, and you pass the interview, then you are employed.
Having said that, the school’s administrative team are quick to react if the children or parents report inappropriate behaviour.
In this case the children appear to have been besotted with Mr Tanti and beguiled by his classroom manner so I don’t see how the school authorities could have been alerted.
Another thing that you need to be aware of is that the teaching profession tends to attract rather quiet, bookish types who are capable of keeping order in a classroom and teaching their subject.
Consequently the mood in your average staffroom tends to be cheerful but well within the bounds of propriety. It wouldn’t cross anyone’s mind that one of them was preying on the students.
“If you are qualified, in possession of a permanent or a temporary warrant, and you pass the interview, then you are employed.”
Pat, this guy has no warrant – permanent or otherwise – yet the school employed him regardless.
He had absolutely NO teacher training – the school seems to think that all a teacher needs is subject knowledge.
But teacher training goes WAY beyond knowing one’s subject – the pedagogy, subject methodology, knowledge of the professional and ethical issues which go with the responsibilities entrusted to teachers, knowledge of social contexts, child and youth psychology… t
This guy had nothing, yet the school administration only considered that he was going to fill a few slots in their timetable and that was good enough for them. Shame.
The Minister is on record telling Malta Today that the Teachers’ Council “is “obliged” to investigate Tanti over any alleged breach of ethics over his relationship with the 15-year-old pupil.”
No, they are not – the Council’s jurisdiction only extends to warranted teachers, which Tanti is not. Maybe they should look into the school administration’s breach of due diligence in employing someone who clearly was not fit for purpose and endangering the life – in a very real sense – of their wards.
The only people who knew what was going on were the schoolchildren who were so quick to come on here and defend him because, according to them, thanks to him, apparently, Lisa had never been happier.
I have yet to see such culpable stupidity. Their relative youth and innocence are no excuse.
They ought to have known that a teacher may not become intimate with one of his pupils. And if they knew and kept silent or covered for him, worse still approved, then shame on them.
And then, after one of them paid with her life they STILL defended him: a thousand times, shame!
“Sit, be still, and listen,
because you’re drunk
and we’re at
the edge of the roof.”
― Rumi
http://eventot.com/l-gharaq-u-l-ghaqal-perspiration-and-good-behaviour/595812
Proof that he wanted to star in his own dark script.
Shocking
Waiting for Masquerade’s statement.
So the school “ensures that all teachers have the necessary approvals from the authorities”.
Put simply, the school has f*cked up so atrociously that all it can do is pass the buck to the authorities.
Short of calling it a day and closing down, that is.
I know some people who teach and work in schools and have had a number of discussions about accountability with them (one in particular). I’m not sure there’s ever a solid mechanism in place to report incidents. When St Michael’s Foundation says it had no indication of “any incidents, on or off the school premises, leading up to this tragedy,” it doesn’t surprise me at all. How could it?
How would someone raise an issue? A chat with the head? Would it be documented? Probably not – and if not, how would you keep track of these issues? If there is no formal mechanism for raising incidents, then when something like this happens, how exactly do you verify that the school has not had any warnings? Worse still, from informal chats I’ve had, it seems that staff feel discouraged from formalising these concerns.
Where I work, I can tell you what I need to do if I have a concern, spot a near miss, or see any problem (there’s obviously a form to fill in) and have a clear idea of where these forms end up and who deals with them and how. The process is not perfect, but if means employees can ensure the administration is able to spot on going problems. If it doesn’t, then at least there’s a trail of documentation.
It seems that in private/church schools (at least) teachers would need to write a letter if they want to document a complaint. In itself that makes it feel like “a big deal” and deters staff. If there is no formal system to review complaints, then you can’t ensure they are dealt with effectively and seriously.
I personally believe that, if the school has no formal systems for reporting and dealing with concerns, then it must take some of the blame. It is to blame because it has ensured that it cannot see danger to vulnerable children whose care it is entrusted with.
There is very little value in commiserating with the girl’s family unless St Michael’ Foundation proves itself to be incapable of monitoring its own staff. Haven’t Mr and Mrs Carabott been engaged in the teacher’s recruitment interview?
The Foundation’s communication reflects lack of its prompt action to protect its students from fools.
I blame Lisa’s fellow students, Erin Tanti’s friends, and most of all Erin Tanti. That man is a pervert, and a disgusting human being for what he has done.
I feel overwhelmed with sadness for Lisa’s father, and family.
Lisa was a victim, and ANYONE who knew of this relationship FAILED Lisa. Anyone coming forward to defend a man who is forming friendships with and supplying alcohol to a 15 year old girl is a disgrace.
There is NO argument for this being OK. The mental and emotional differences between anyone below the age of 16 and anyone above the age of 20 are huge.
I think people are trying to justify this age difference, but there is NO justifying it.
Forget his position as a teacher. Would you think it normal if your 23 year old son was hanging about 15 year olds?
This isn’t a 17 year old going out with a 15 year old. There is NO justifying this.
Erin Tanti manipulated and abused of Lisa’s vulnerability. He was her teacher and she was obviously excited by the attention she was getting from an older man, being young and naive.
He’s disgusting and has her blood on his hands. Lisa’s father will never ever ever truly smile again. No parent should have to attend their child’s funeral.
I also want to say that any pupil who knows anything needs to go forward to the police.
It is very easy for many of you to hide behind your computer screens and judge and blame the school. I can be sure that if the school had any inkling at to what was happening, they would have dealt with it in the proper manner.
A recommendation from Masquerade, a clear police conduct and a clearance for a temporary warrant (due to his first degree) was granted my the Malta Council for Teachers. It is sometimes not even possible to explore somebody’s Facebook profile due to privacy settings, and if this is the case, one would have to rely on the “old fashioned” way of employment.
All parties involved in this terrible incident are going through an extremely tough time, and I feel people should be more thoughtful when submitting their thoughts on the subject.
Look at it another way. This is cause for all schools to review their teacher recruitment and assessment methodology and to set up formal processes for reporting suspected misconduct.
‘It is very easy for many of you to hide behind your computer screens and judge and blame the school. I can be sure that if the school had any inkling at to what was happening, they would have dealt with it in the proper manner. ‘
You’re joking right?
Your saying that the school didn’t have an inkling at to what was happening is just like saying you don’t know your own children who are living in your house.
This is the typical scenario in a child’s life in 2014…
7.15 – child is on the bus stop waiting for the van
7.45 – child arrives at school
7.45 – assembly time
8.00 – lessons start
Break time is somewhere in between
2.00 – school day ends
2.15 – child is on the van
2.30 – child gets home
4.00 – mummy gets home from work
6.00 – daddy arrives
9.00 – bed time / kids on computer but have already said good night
Children nowadays are spending more time at school than they spend at home.
Something’s not right – if they are spending more time at school, then the school should know them inside out. Besides, according to what I hear, the classes at St. Michael’s are not as full as classes used to be in my time – we were about 33 in a class.
And Masquerade is the ultimate body in recommendations,would you trust your child on a recommendation by a bunch of prancing prats in tights who think that they are artists ?
Did the school bother to check past scripts and writing?
The subject is drama after all.
Often people take decisions on the condensed information available in a cover letter without taking the TIME for in-depth consideration of material that should be at hand.
Detail is tiring.
Effort is consuming.
Joining the dots “too subjective” a responsibility.
Not enough confidence in one’s conclusions, or not perspicacious enough to arrive at the proper ones?
Was there any follow-up?
Was there any supervision of teacher delivery and conduct by the Head of that school into any lesson over the months of employ but especially the initial ones?
Why is it that the facebook content is available in a jiffy on this blog and not to a school or to other authorities?
Why should any child have to suffer first? Look at the mess that class is in. That’s what’s tough. An investigation and public enquiry and healthy concern isn’t tough, it’s proper. What’s improper, is the lack of it.
The system, no matter how you look at it, has abysmally failed the one child and placed those in immediate vicinity in such a vulnerable state that they have reacted in the manner we have all witnessed here. Life is not meant to be a theatre of the absurd, but some reactions, still hypnagogic of the worse order, are just that. Worst, is when one refuses to look at reality in the face.
Better that all concerns are aired here and now, in case the authorities later miss a point or fail to deem it necessary, by the same token as happened before.
At the end of the day all the necessary paperwork and investigation boils down to the safe-keeping and healthy development of all of our children.
Schools are not just another money-making machine. At least they shouldn’t be. This is their worst risk. It is worth spending more time, thought and effort on this point.
The ramifications of this one tragic result extend well beyond the immediate families in current time real life.
Parents get reported by schools to Appogg for far, far less.
(An example of the ridiculous, but nonetheless manifested concern, would be: why does this child have salad in the lunch box instead of sandwiches? Conclusion and reason for report: the child is not eating properly. Reason for salad: the child is used to eating healthy balanced meals and refuses an over-dependence on bread.)
It’s tough on the school, yes. So it should be.
It looks like he was employed in a rush, barely a week before school started last September.
Well in this case it WAS possible to explore the person’s FB page. And all those involved SHOULD be going through a rough time because this was a classic Swiss cheese case where failures aligned and a girl is dead.
There is no pitying those who are sorry for their mistakes of omission. If no adults noted anything off in a twenty-three year old who had such fuzzy lines where his behaviour is concerned, they should remember that bad things happen when a good (wo)man does nothing.
Can teachers and schools afford not to know about the typical grooming and abuse strategies of messed-up people like Erin Tanti? Can they afford not to know about victims, bullies and manipulators?
F’kelma ohra, qas jafu x’laqathom
There’s another scenario. In the teacher’s staff room, is it possible that nobody noticed something with the child’s behaviour or the teacher in question?
It’s not like these schools have classes which amount to more than 30 pupils per class.
These schools have very small classes so it’s even easier for problems to show, if a child is going through issues or if things aren’t right. The smaller the class, the more chance there is for the children to receive individual attention.
I very much believe that people were aware of the situation surrounding the girl and her teacher.
Whereas the situation is rather serious, and although there may be some mitigating factors in favour of the school (which under no circumstance absolve it of any of the consequences that should be associated with deficient recruitment, selection and supervisory procedures as well as failure to ensure that the code of ethics was being fully respected), what I find most worrying is the fact that this is the second time (that we know of) that there has been an issue with their choice of teachers.
First time round it was Mark Vella Gera who received a suspended sentence for “sexually propositioning primary-school boys” at the primary school.
This time round its is Erin Tanti who was in blatant breach of his responsibilities as a teacher by being with a pupil (let alone an underage one) in circumstances that were outside those of a normal teacher-pupil relationship.
The actions of these teachers is not even a case of teacher negligence. It is a case of criminal behaviour by the same of the teachers who spend their day with our children.
With all due respect to the management of St. Micheal’s Foundation, you have clearly not addressed the weak link in the armour that should be protecting our children from exposure to the likes of Vella Gera and Tanti.
I am glad that my children do NOT go to that school but unfortunately my friends’ kids do and children do talk.
Lisa, God bless her soul, was often seen in the drama lessons of other classes not her own. She would have been there to spend more time with her ‘teacher’.
How can the school have failed to notice that she wasn’t in the classroom she was supposed to be in, but was going to Erin Tanti’s drama lessons for other classes instead? If other pupils noticed, then the school should have noticed.
The school released a statement to hide their faults but that poor girl is dead.
Note to Ministry of Education:
Register to be taken by each different teacher/ different class NOT allow a situation where a child can “cover for another” by marking a missing friend in.
A friend is going to feel guilty either way: if he /she covers or if he/she doesn’t.
The responsibility lies with the school and therefore with the teacher of the class: a child is a child and the onus remains with the teacher. A child should never be exposed to that choice.
If the school doesn’t know its teachers and pupils, then it must be in the wrong line of business.
All professional establishments especially those who give a service, should know their people well because technically, it’s their people – the teachers – who are running the show.
Wow, what is going on here?
‘The Council for the Teaching Profession in a separate statement said Mr Tanti did not hold a temporary warrant and never applied for one.
St Michael’s School Foundation said yesterday that the teacher, Erin Tanti, 23, a supply teacher, was recruited in terms of the law and normal procedure.’
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140327/local/updated-council-says-drama-teacher-in-cliffs-incident-had-no-teaching-warrant.512450
I don’t know what’s worse – no statement at all or this bland statement that essentially states that the school has no idea what was going on? We have all been 15 and we can all remember that we couldn’t stop talking if something exciting (or illicit) was going on in our lives. We usually told our best friend, who then told her (or our mutual) friends and in no time the information would have been public knowledge…and reached the ears of a teacher and eventually the headteacher.
We know, because many friends, one in particular, wrote in here that Lisa, God bless her soul, ‘survived because of him. And came alive because of him’. I am sure that whoever wrote that didn’t say this for the very first time here.
This statement is a mea culpa – a mea culpa for not being vigilant, especially after the Vella Gera episode, for failing to pick up the signs, or worse, for detecting the signs and letting them slide.
If I were her father, I would sue their a$$ till kingdom come for dereliction of duty.
Issa nispera li jinvestigaw lil kull ghalliem/a ghat-teaching warrant, mil-kinder school sas-senior school! Mhux tal-qalba jibqaw hemm biss!
Il-pedamenti tat-taghlim ta’ uliedna jibdew min eta zghira u l-kinder school ghandhom bzonn mhux teaching warrant biss imma anke first aid courses.
Nispera li jieqfu l-abbuzzi ghax f’dik l-iskola kien hemm mhux ftit, kemm ghalliema kif ukoll bullying eccesiv.
Issa naraw kemm jinvestigaw il-warrants St. Michael Foundation jew jghidux li l-ghalliema ghandom meta fil-verita ma jkollomx. Kaz car bhal kristal rajna hawn.
Grazzi, Daphne, talli tajtna l-opportunita biex nitkellmu.