SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing a lock­down at San Fer­nan­do West Sec­ondary School on Wednes­day to pre­vent a vi­o­lent af­ter-school clash, con­cerned par­ents are now call­ing for po­lice of­fi­cers to be sta­tioned at the school.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion con­firmed that the school prin­ci­pal ac­ti­vat­ed emer­gency pro­to­cols af­ter a group of sus­pi­cious in­di­vid­u­als was seen loi­ter­ing near the premis­es. Po­lice re­spond­ed swift­ly, and one per­son was tak­en in­to cus­tody. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that a knife was seized dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

The sit­u­a­tion is be­lieved to be linked to a se­ries of vi­o­lent fights on Tues­day, dur­ing which teach­ers and se­cu­ri­ty guards were as­sault­ed while try­ing to in­ter­vene. As a re­sult, stu­dent at­ten­dance was re­port­ed­ly low yes­ter­day.

Sev­er­al par­ents who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty de­scribed the pan­ic and fear that gripped them and their chil­dren. Stu­dents were in­struct­ed to re­main in class­rooms af­ter the fi­nal bell rang at 2.30 pmo n Wednes­day.

One par­ent said she wait­ed near­ly 40 min­utes be­fore be­ing al­lowed to take her daugh­ter home.

“I’m very an­gry. She said they al­ways search them in the morn­ing, so I was con­fused about what was go­ing on. I al­ways feel wor­ried for mine be­cause I see so many school fights on­line—es­pe­cial­ly among girls.”

She added that an­oth­er par­ent post­ed on­line that her child suf­fered a se­vere pan­ic at­tack and had to stay home.

An­oth­er par­ent said that while there had been vi­o­lence in the past, this was the worst in­ci­dent yet. She called for po­lice to be as­signed to the school, as has been done at oth­er high-risk schools this term.

“I would feel safer know­ing she is un­der po­lice guard. I’m putting my child at risk just send­ing her to school here. She’s sup­posed to be pro­tect­ed, but at the end of the day, you could get a call say­ing your child got shot or stabbed. Look at yes­ter­day—there were par­ents out here. If some­one had pulled a gun, it’s in­no­cent par­ents who could have been shot.”

Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber presid­fent and a busi­ness own­er near the school, Ki­ran Singh, de­scribed the in­ci­dent as un­for­tu­nate. He urged Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath to con­sid­er as­sign­ing of­fi­cers to San Fer­nan­do West Sec­ondary or at least im­ple­ment­ing po­lice pa­trols out­side the school.

He al­so raised con­cerns about gang in­flu­ence.

“Some in­ves­ti­ga­tion has to be done to pro­tect our youths from gang el­e­ments that are, un­for­tu­nate­ly, in­fil­trat­ing the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem in this coun­try.”

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), Mar­tin Lum Kin, echoed con­cerns but con­firmed that no teach­ers were in­jured dur­ing Tues­day’s al­ter­ca­tions.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dowlath, who al­so serves as the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for the area, has not yet is­sued a per­son­al state­ment. How­ev­er, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said it will con­tin­ue work­ing close­ly with school ad­min­is­tra­tors, par­ents, and law en­force­ment to en­sure a safe and sup­port­ive en­vi­ron­ment for all stu­dents.