Dear students, parents, and staff of the International School of Almaty,
Over the past six months, the entire ISA community has experienced a challenging period, finding ourselves in a situation completely unfamiliar to us. We were subjected to serious accusations from a parent, faced negative and biased treatment from some media outlets, and received numerous inappropriate comments with accusations and threats on social network. All of this happened when nothing had yet been proven.
We were all confident that this could not happen within the school, because it has long been a tradition for our parents to educate multiple generations of their children at the ISA. Here, everyone knows each other, and the school operates as one big family! This is evidenced by the fact that none of you took your children out of school.
We all understood that what the mother was talking about was horrific, and together with the whole country, we were concerned about the child's well-being.
From the very first days, the school cooperated with law enforcement agencies, providing all necessary materials for the investigation immediately upon request. Additionally, as soon as the school became aware of the accusations, representatives of the parent community meticulously reviewed all CCTV footage within three days to ensure that no illegal actions had occurred in the school premises. A specialized organization conducted a technical audit of the school's CCTV system, confirming its proper functioning and the absence of technical capabilities to delete individual fragments from video recordings.
As the school was not a participant in the process, we had no information about the progress of the investigation during these months, and we were unable to comment or issue statements in the country's information space. All this time, we patiently awaited the conclusion of the investigation and the announcement of the results.
We accidentally learned about the conclusion of the investigation on 27.02.2024, receiving a response to our request to the police department regarding the return of employees' personal files, servers, and hard drives. As it turned out, some media had published information on 09.02.2024 that the case was closed on January 8, 2024, due to the lack of a criminal event.
We sincerely hope that the trials faced by the child have come to an end.
You know that taking care of the health, life, and safety of students is a priority for our school. We faced a real challenge but managed to ensure the continuity and safety of the educational process for all school students.
The International School of Almaty expresses its deep gratitude and respect to parents and students for their incredible patience and resilience, trust, and delicacy shown in this incredibly difficult situation.
Sincerely,
Administration of the International School of Almaty
