The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is deny­ing there are gangs at the Siparia West Sec­ondary but will be in­creas­ing po­lice pres­ence at the in­sti­tu­tion.

The de­nial comes as the moth­er of two boys who were beat­en by their school­mates con­tem­plates le­gal ac­tion. In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, the moth­er was still up­set.

“I am send­ing my chil­dren to a school and they are in the care of the teach­ers, prin­ci­pal, all that is in au­thor­i­ty at the school. So, my chil­dren should be pro­tect­ed, es­pe­cial­ly since the teach­ers are aware that there are gangs in the school,” she said.

Her sons have not re­turned to school since an in­ci­dent last Tues­day.

“I am not send­ing them back there be­cause I fear for my chil­dren’s life and they are fear­ful for their life too,” she lament­ed.

The moth­er is al­so seek­ing a trans­fer for her chil­dren, who are 15 and 17. “My (old­er) son is in Form Five, he has sub­mit­ted most of his SBAs al­ready and he is wor­ried be­cause if he has to go to a new school, then we have to find a school that is do­ing the same sub­jects he is do­ing or he will have to stay back a year or two.”

She claimed the as­sault on her sons last Tues­day took place be­cause her younger son went to the as­sis­tance of a fe­male stu­dent who was be­ing man­han­dled by a male stu­dent.

The po­lice told Guardian Me­dia they have re­ceived at least 75 re­ports re­lat­ing to vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline from that school for the year.

In a press re­lease yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion de­nied claims gangs are op­er­at­ing at the school.

“With re­spect to the re­port of gangs op­er­at­ing at Siparia West Sec­ondary, the prin­ci­pal, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion TTUTA rep­re­sen­ta­tive and school su­per­vi­sor have all, in writ­ing, de­nied knowl­edge of gang ac­tiv­i­ty at the school,” the re­lease stat­ed.

Al­so deny­ing the ex­is­tence of gangs in the school, Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) pres­i­dent Clive Au­guste said he is aware there are groups of stu­dents, “one or two, who in­dulge in this kind of be­hav­iour, but there is no gangs.”

While the moth­er claimed the as­sault was trig­gered af­ter her younger son went to the aid of a fe­male stu­dent, Au­guste said, “The girl told the in­ves­ti­ga­tor that the boy was not bul­ly­ing her, but that they are friends and he was teas­ing her or what­ev­er it was.”

Au­guste al­leged the woman’s younger son ini­ti­at­ed the fight when he al­leged­ly slapped the male stu­dent. He said the in­ci­dent in the class­room in­volved the two broth­ers and two oth­er male stu­dents.

“So, it was not a gang where boys were block­ing the doors etc—noth­ing like that came out of the in­ves­tiga­tive re­port, which was done by the prin­ci­pal, deans and two safe­ty of­fi­cers. They ques­tioned the chil­dren, they ques­tioned at least ten wit­ness­es.”

He said the woman’s son, aside from some bruis­es and swelling, did not ap­pear to have any se­ri­ous phys­i­cal in­juries.

Mean­while, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice are in­volved in the in­ci­dent and there will be an in­creased pres­ence at the school.

“There is a com­mu­ni­ty el­e­ment to the dis­putes among the stu­dents, which is spilling over to the school. Ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice will be spend­ing an in­creased amount of time at this par­tic­u­lar school in an ef­fort to quell dis­rup­tions. The stu­dents who are re­peat­ed­ly caus­ing such dis­rup­tions have been iden­ti­fied, and while they are re­ceiv­ing the at­ten­tion of the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices, their be­hav­iour is be­ing care­ful­ly mon­i­tored,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She added that crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in schools is a mat­ter for the po­lice, hence the re­ports are be­ing made for their in­ter­ven­tion.

“Where stu­dents are not re­spond­ing to the ef­forts of the School So­cial Work­er, Guid­ance Coun­sel­lor and the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice, they will be re­moved from the school en­vi­ron­ment. This is why the part­ner­ship be­tween the MOE and the MYDNS( MI­LAT) has been ap­proved by Cab­i­net, so that where ap­plic­a­ble, the of­fend­ers- most of whom are male- can be trans­ferred to an en­vi­ron­ment that has proven trans­for­ma­tive and will of­fer them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to turn around their be­hav­iour and fo­cus on their aca­d­e­m­ic and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment.”