Dawn Tanner, right, is pictured with her sons Cody and Hunter. The Hagersville Secondary School teacher was killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash Sunday. (Cody French/Facebook)
A special education teacher from the Hamilton area is among the Canadians victims of the deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash, her employer said Tuesday.
The Grand Erie District School Board issued a statement confirming the death of Dawn Tanner, who worked as department head of special education at the Hagersville Secondary School near Hamilton.
“We would like to express our deepest sympathies to Dawn’s family, her friends and everyone connected to this tragic loss,” the statement said. “Dawn will be deeply missed and this sudden loss is being felt across our board.”
Authorities have said 157 people were killed when the Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed moments after takeoff from Addis Ababa on Sunday. Eighteen of those victims were Canadian citizens, although several others were foreign nationals living in Canada.
The Grand Erie board did not share why Tanner, who had worked at the school since 2005, was aboard the jetliner. But its statement detailed a career shaped by her efforts to connect with students.
The board said Tanner was a learning resource teacher, the co-ordinator with an alternative education program and also served as the liaison for a program in which students take their classes on a college campus.
After becoming head of the special education department, the board said Tanner volunteered a couple of nights a week at a homework support centre for Indigenous students. She also taught at a school in an Indigenous community before joining the Grand Erie board, the statement said.
“She had aspirations of becoming an administrator and was currently taking her Principal Qualifications Course,” the statement said.
Other Canadians killed include a nine-month-old infant on her way to meet her grandfather for the first time, a family from Brampton, Ont., and numerous humanitarian workers and environmental advocates.
The Canadian Press
