The full extent of the horror that unfolded at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, is still being processed almost two weeks later with details still emerging of how a gunman invaded that school compound and fatally shot 19 students and two teachers. Here in T&T, although thousands of miles away, it is easy to relate to the pain and fear that tragedy has caused to residents of that small community as school violence is a clear and present danger here too. For anyone who thinks it cannot happen here, two incidents in the recent past are sobering reminders that local schools are at considerable risk and that the danger can come from within. Two decades ago, T&T had its own experience of a fatal school shooting when Phillip Seerattan, a 17-year-old student at the International School of Port-of-Spain in Westmoorings, was shot and killed after holding fellow students hostage and shooting a security guard. In another fatal incident at a local school, in 2013, Renaldo Dixon, a student at Waterloo Secondary School, was stabbed to death on the school compound. And with Uvalde still very much in the headlines, just this past week there was an incident at the Pentecostal Light and Life Foundation High School, Tobago, where a 17-year-old student threatened to shoot up the school. That is why it is difficult to draw any comfort from the claim by the Ministry of Education that school fights are now “down to almost zero.” Fights are only one aspect of the school violence problem in this country. At a media conference on Friday, ministry officials and a representative of the T&T Police Service (TTPS) said recent measures implemented to curb violence and indiscipline in schools were yielding results. Based on these promising results, Assistant Commissioner of Police Sharon Gomez-Cooper said police patrols will continue to be conducted at specific schools. Chief Education Officer (CEO) Dr Peter Smith announced that a merit/demerit point system was being considered as an additional measure to help combat school indiscipline and violence. Still to be made public are the full recommendations of the multi-sectoral committee that drafted a school discipline matrix and recently handed in that document, which contains solutions to curb incidents of school violence. It is a complex and varied problem and over many years there have been numerous consultations, recommendations, and interventions every time the problem gets serious enough to prompt public outcries. Many moons ago, during the tenure of then education minister Clive Pantin, a respected and experienced educator, there was a National Consultation on Violence and Indiscipline in Schools. That 1989 consultation resulted in the White Paper on Education that guided the planning and education policies of successive administrations. When school violence flared up again in the times when Dr Tim Gopeesingh and then Anthony Garcia held the portfolio, more consultations were held, and recommendations implemented. The problem subsides but never goes away completely, so yet again education officials are searching for fresh solutions to a long-standing problem. It is time to revisit past efforts and review the measures that worked then. The education and national security authorities must get things right to avert the crises that will be inevitable if indiscipline and violence continue to fester in T&T’s schools.