Rox­ann’s Learn­ing and Child­care Cen­tre will re­main closed for the time be­ing in the wake of a fa­tal shoot­ing out­side its com­pound ear­li­er this week. How­ev­er, own­er Rox­ann King says she is seek­ing al­ter­na­tive venues for a tem­po­rary re­lo­ca­tion.

An­nounc­ing this dur­ing a meet­ing with Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce at the preschool yes­ter­day, King said while they were hop­ing to re­open by Mon­day, it sim­ply would not be pos­si­ble.

The school, which is lo­cat­ed at Base­ment Road, Mal­ick, Barataria, and caters for chil­dren be­tween the ages of one and five, was forced to close on Wednes­day af­ter gun­men killed two cousins out­side its doors on Wednes­day.

The in­ci­dent took place at 8.10 am and left Ger­ard and Ke­mo Cal­liste dead; while a 48-year-old woman and her four-year-old God­son, and a 22-year-old man were in­jured. The in­jured per­sons were in sta­ble con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day.

Vis­it­ing the preschool to of­fer as­sis­tance and com­fort trau­ma­tised staff, Leonce, the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, en­dorsed the pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions it had made in the Mor­vant and Barataria ar­eas.

Leonce said, “We al­so, are or­gan­is­ing to get some tem­po­rary re­lo­ca­tion while the trau­ma is on­go­ing. We have al­ready con­tact­ed two places and we are wait­ing on some feed­back.”

Of­fer­ing moral sup­port as he urged teach­ers to re­main strong and res­olute in their fo­cus, Leonce said just as the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was pro­vid­ing coun­selling for the af­fect­ed staff, stu­dents and par­ents, the min­istry had dis­cussed ad­di­tion­al coun­selling af­ter the first ses­sion.

De­clar­ing the school safe, Leonce said it must be “a space that every­body feels com­fort­able in. It is a space that every­body re­spects and it is a space of pos­i­tiv­i­ty with­in the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Leonce agreed an in­creased pres­ence of mo­bile and foot pa­trols would be a com­fort to res­i­dents and de­ter per­sons in­tent on car­ry­ing out crim­i­nal acts.

He re­ject­ed the claim that war­ring gangs were re­spon­si­ble for the com­mu­ni­ties re­treat­ing in­to them­selves—and con­demned the ac­tions of a few, which he said would not be al­lowed to rip them apart.

He said the preschool was a shin­ing light in the com­mu­ni­ty and had helped to de­vel­op per­sons who were now lawyers, teach­ers and po­lice of­fi­cers among oth­er pro­fes­sions.

“We re­ject gang war­fare. We re­ject any­body en­cour­ag­ing gang war­fare and we want the TTPS to deal with gang war­fare,” he added.

Leonce as­sured King that once an al­ter­na­tive venue has been se­cured for the preschool’s re­lo­ca­tion, they will en­sure the move is smooth and seam­less for staff and stu­dents.

Wel­com­ing re­porters in­to the hap­py and bright space they cre­at­ed for their young charges be­hind the steel door which was pierced by two bul­lets on Wednes­day, an emo­tion­al King said, “It is trau­ma­tis­ing. I am here to­day by the grace of God be­cause yes it hap­pened. It could have been worse, but God has been good. His blood was cov­er­ing us as a school and those who were on the com­pound so thank God first­ly for keep­ing us dur­ing this or­deal.”

Seek­ing to clar­i­fy mis­in­for­ma­tion that the shoot­ing oc­curred on her school’s com­pound, King ex­plained, “The shoot­ing start­ed out­side of the school but the gate was now be­ing closed by a par­ent who was leav­ing, it was easy for one of the guys who died to push his way in and he ran in.”

She added, “No­body died in the school. It just hap­pened in front of the school.”

Say­ing the junc­tion where the school was lo­cat­ed is usu­al­ly busy, with el­der­ly per­sons ven­tur­ing out and par­ents drop­ping off chil­dren to catch the school bus, King said, “It is a dif­fi­cult time but we have the sup­port.”

Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with King, Leonce said, “We would re­quire some ad­di­tion­al po­lice pres­ence and we would even like if some could be sta­tioned close by, both in this Sev­enth Av­enue and Sixth Av­enue area.”

King said this was not the end for her school and promised they would emerge stronger and bet­ter.

Asked about her stu­dents, she said they were all do­ing bet­ter and ea­ger to re­sume class­es.

Per­son­al­ly, she re­vealed, “I am griev­ing right now. Even though I am see­ing them video call­ing, be­cause we have chil­dren com­ing from as far as Ari­ma and Diego Mar­tin, ...see­ing them on video and hear­ing them ask­ing ‘Aun­tie, when we com­ing to school’ ...it is hurt­ing.”

Fight­ing back tears, King looked around de­spon­dent­ly at the emp­ty ta­bles and chairs, as she re­vealed Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials will be vis­it­ing next Wednes­day. “We are get­ting the sup­port,” she said.

King said even though they were a pri­vate en­ti­ty, the in­sti­tu­tion was the heart of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Re­gard­ing the re­lo­ca­tion, she said, “Psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, we have to coun­sel the chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly those who was on the com­pound and the par­ents, and un­til we get their mind­set back in a com­fort­able space, that is the best op­tion.”

Of­fi­cials from the TTPS’ Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit, TTPS ar­rived at 11 am to be­gin coun­selling with the staff.

Guardian Me­dia learned that An­gos­tu­ra has since of­fered a safe place where coun­selling can be­gin. These ses­sions are ex­pect­ed to be­gin on Mon­day. King said there was an ur­gent need to en­sure the chil­dren who were there at the time of the shoot­ing re­ceive coun­selling.