RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As armed po­lice took up posts in high-risk schools yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar vowed to tack­le school vi­o­lence, say­ing enough was enough and call­ing the ini­tia­tive the be­gin­ning of the end for bul­ly­ing and class­room vi­o­lence.

Her com­ments came hours af­ter the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro toured sev­er­al high-risk schools and warned par­ents to keep their chil­dren in check or else they will be im­pris­oned.

In a state­ment hours af­ter school was dis­missed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar lament­ed the fear stu­dents and teach­ers felt be­cause of vi­o­lence.

“Our teach­ers have be­come vic­tims of as­sault and abuse by some stu­dents and par­ents. That will not con­tin­ue. Any stu­dent or par­ent who abus­es or as­saults a mem­ber of the teach­ing staff will be re­moved from school by the TTPS,” she said.

She al­so high­light­ed the im­pact on stu­dents.

“Too many stu­dents are bul­lied, robbed and beat­en at schools. To some chil­dren, it is a ter­ror to at­tend school. We have chil­dren fail­ing be­cause they are too afraid to at­tend school, as they are bul­lied every day. It’s a dai­ly tor­ture for them,” she said.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of armed of­fi­cers in the high-risk schools to ad­dress se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, she stat­ed: “No mat­ter what some com­men­ta­tors say, the law re­mains the law and TTPS of­fi­cers are free to car­ry their firearms in­side or out­side of schools if it is deemed nec­es­sary. Po­lice of­fi­cers re­port to their TTPS se­niors and not the school prin­ci­pals. There­fore, acts of vi­o­lence will be re­port­ed ac­cord­ing to TTPS pro­to­col and dealt with ac­cord­ing to the law.”

She added, “Par­ents must un­der­stand that they have to raise their chil­dren re­spon­si­bly and cor­rect their con­duct. TTPS of­fi­cers are there to pro­tect the in­no­cent and will do so with the full sup­port of my Gov­ern­ment.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so un­der­scored her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s broad­er pol­i­cy.

“Schools are sa­cred spaces for learn­ing, not bat­tle­grounds for fight­ing and bul­ly­ing. Dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, I pledged that my Gov­ern­ment would con­front the scourge of school vi­o­lence head-on. For too long, we have wit­nessed the de­cay of our so­ci­ety — our beloved na­tion awash in blood, plagued by record mur­der rates, and our schools taint­ed by vi­o­lence, drugs, and fear,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“That is why my Gov­ern­ment act­ed de­ci­sive­ly. We made it clear that any­one who en­gages in vi­o­lence, threats, in­tim­i­da­tion, drug deal­ing, ex­tor­tion, or bul­ly­ing will face the full force of the law. I promised that we would purge our schools of this de­struc­tive be­hav­iour by every le­gal means avail­able. The peo­ple of this coun­try have had enough — enough of school brawls, enough of wicked­ness in our class­rooms, enough of fear in our com­mu­ni­ties. Law and or­der is be­ing re­stored.”

She com­mend­ed the CoP, say­ing the move to have po­lice in schools was part of a holis­tic, in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to tack­ling vi­o­lence across the na­tion.

Fol­low­ing tours to the La Ro­maine Sec­ondary, Ste Madeleine Sec­ondary, Mara­bel­la North and Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary, San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary, Gas­par­il­lo Sec­ondary yes­ter­day, CoP Gue­var­ro al­so made it clear that par­ents must work with their chil­dren to curb delin­quen­cy.

“If par­ents can­not con­trol their chil­dren, the TTPS will con­fine them,” Gue­var­ro warned.

Say­ing of­fi­cers in schools were spe­cial­ly trained and ready to re­spond to im­me­di­ate threats, he said: “Well-be­haved chil­dren have noth­ing to fear. It’s those er­rant ones who want to bring dis­rup­tion to the sys­tem that will have to wor­ry.”

He said two of­fi­cers have been as­signed to each of the 50 des­ig­nat­ed high-risk schools. Gue­var­ro ex­plained that they will be sta­tioned on com­pounds for the full school day, but will keep in­ter­ac­tions with stu­dents min­i­mal.

“They are not here to take over or be part of the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. They are part of law en­force­ment,” he said

The CoP said the ini­tia­tive will be re­viewed af­ter six months.

“We’ll be tak­ing feed­back so we can redi­rect how this ini­tia­tive goes,” he not­ed.

“We can’t be in all places at all times, so we are de­ploy­ing re­sources in the smartest, most ef­fec­tive way pos­si­ble.”

Con­cerns have been raised about armed of­fi­cers on school grounds, but Gue­var­ro de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion.

“Put your­self in the place of a par­ent get­ting that call that your child is in the hos­pi­tal with bro­ken bones and lac­er­a­tions,” he said.

“This has hap­pened be­fore. If of­fi­cers have to re­spond to threats, they must be able to pro­tect them­selves, staff, and stu­dents. That is why some of­fi­cers will be armed.”

At Ste Madeleine Sec­ondary yes­ter­day, act­ing prin­ci­pal and staff showed Gue­var­ro hotspot ar­eas where stu­dents of­ten gath­ered to smoke. In­ter­im PTA pres­i­dent Jamie Pe­ters said the pres­ence of of­fi­cers could make a dif­fer­ence.

“We all know the vi­o­lence that is preva­lent in schools,” Pe­ters said.

“The best peo­ple to deal with it are the po­lice. If they show a lev­el of love and un­der­stand­ing while be­ing firm, we can strike a bal­ance that re­duces the vi­o­lence.”

Pe­ters added that gangs re­main a prob­lem but wel­comed re­cent in­fra­struc­ture re­pairs at the school, done with the in­ter­ven­tion of Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath and lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Mean­while, a school safe­ty of­fi­cer who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty de­scribed just how se­vere the prob­lem had be­come.

“The fights were so bad they blocked traf­fic on the main road. Stu­dents came armed, and in one sweep, 13 penknives were seized,” the safe­ty of­fi­cer re­vealed.

A par­ent, whose daugh­ter was bru­tal­ly beat­en out­side a school in Cou­va ear­li­er this year, praised the ini­tia­tive to have po­lice in schools. She said her daugh­ter was phys­i­cal­ly healed but the trau­ma was still ev­i­dent.

“She was scared to go to school to­day (yes­ter­day) and she is try­ing to for­get that in­ci­dent, so I don’t want to re­trau­ma­tise her by speak­ing of the in­ci­dent,” the par­ent said.

She not­ed that armed of­fi­cers were nec­es­sary be­cause of the threats that ex­ist both in­side and out­side of the schools.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and the Na­tion­al Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) have both ex­pressed reser­va­tions about of­fi­cers car­ry­ing firearms in schools.

How­ev­er, in an ear­li­er in­ter­view, Dr Dowlath clar­i­fied that of­fi­cers will re­main out­side class­rooms un­less need­ed in emer­gen­cies and that most will be equipped with non-lethal tools. Armed de­ploy­ments, he stressed, will de­pend strict­ly on risk as­sess­ments.