What was sup­posed to be an am­i­ca­ble school in­ter­ven­tion be­tween two moth­ers to deal with a bul­ly­ing is­sue de­scend­ed in­to vi­o­lence and blood­shed out­side a sec­ondary school.

Po­lice say crim­i­nal charges are ex­pect­ed to be laid soon against the par­ents.

Videos of the fight be­tween the two moth­ers in front the Ce­dros Sec­ondary School on Mon­day have gone vi­ral, evok­ing con­dem­na­tion from var­i­ous stake­hold­ers.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the women went to the school to ad­dress a bul­ly­ing is­sue in­volv­ing their chil­dren. One of the par­ents be­came ag­gres­sive and was told to leave the com­pound by school of­fi­cials. When the oth­er par­ent ex­it­ed the school, the women had an ex­change of words that quick­ly es­ca­lat­ed in­to vi­o­lence in the pres­ence of stu­dents. The brawl was record­ed and videos were shared on so­cial me­dia.

In two clips, one 14 min­utes long and the oth­er 13 min­utes long, both women were seen bare­foot, pulling each oth­er’s hair. One of them was on the ground. The oth­er used a cut­lass to as­sault the oth­er woman, who be­gan to bleed. The woman with the cut­lass al­so had a glass bot­tle that even­tu­al­ly fell on the ground and broke. A fe­male stu­dent tried to join the fight but was stopped by a man who was try­ing to part the women.

The man al­so had to phys­i­cal­ly stop an­oth­er man from at­tack­ing one of the women with a car­jack.

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Wal­ter Stew­art said what was even more rep­re­hen­si­ble, was that the daugh­ter of one of the women was present and heard scream­ing, “Mum­my, mum­my.”

He called on the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent ur­gent­ly and lay charges.

“This is to­tal­ly, to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able. We de­nounce it in the strongest terms and we want our par­ents to en­sure that they see them­selves as ex­em­plars, as role mod­els to their chil­dren, to their charges and at all times to con­duct them­selves in the man­ner be­fit­ting of prop­er and ac­cept­able par­ent­ing,” Stew­art said.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin joined Stew­art in con­demn­ing the in­ci­dent.

Stew­art and Lum Kin said the be­hav­iour of par­ents was one rea­son for in­dis­ci­pline and vi­o­lence among stu­dents in schools.

Not­ing that TTUTA is out­raged and dis­gust­ed by the par­ents’ con­duct, Lum Kin said par­ents should be set­ting bet­ter ex­am­ples for their chil­dren and for the na­tion’s youth.

“Based up­on some of the videos be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed we can un­der­stand why some of our stu­dents be­have in the man­ner in which they do. We em­ploy all par­ents who set pos­i­tive ex­am­ples for their chil­dren to do so and for those who are de­fi­cient in that area we hope that your be­hav­iour will im­prove and as such will set bet­ter ex­am­ples for your chil­dren,” he said.

Al­so join­ing in on the con­dem­na­tion was ACP South/Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar. He de­scribed the par­ents’ be­hav­iour and ac­tions as to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able and said it would not be tol­er­at­ed.

Mys­tar said of­fi­cers from the Ce­dros Po­lice Sta­tion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent and charges are ex­pect­ed to be laid soon.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that one of the par­ents sought med­ical treat­ment at the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.