Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing re­ports that nine gangs are op­er­at­ing with­in the Pleas­antville Sec­ondary School, with two new­ly formed gangs, the Camo and Gua­va, caus­ing in­creased con­cern at the in­sti­tu­tion.

A par­ent who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said her son and his friend, who are in Form One, were at­tacked in their class­room last Wednes­day when they re­fused to join the Camo gang.

“The Camo stu­dents have threat­ened to beat them up af­ter school. I am very fright­ened for my son be­cause we live close by and every day he walks home af­ter school,” she said.

She not­ed that last week Fri­day, a fight broke out be­tween the gangs and stu­dents start­ed pelt­ing stones at each oth­er, dam­ag­ing a pass­ing car.

On Thurs­day, two par­ents whose chil­dren were threat­ened met with the school prin­ci­pal but there was no men­tion of what would be done about the gang ri­val­ry.

“We want the po­lice to get more in­volved. My son is al­ready talk­ing about bul­ly­ing and how noth­ing hap­pens un­til some­one ends up dead,” the wor­ried par­ent added.

Mean­while, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in charge of South and Cen­tral Di­vi­sions, Wayne Mys­tar, said he will be meet­ing with con­cerned par­ents on Sat­ur­day via a Zoom meet­ing, fol­low­ing which he will vis­it the school on Mon­day to ad­dress stu­dents on gangs.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, trea­sur­er of the school’s Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Clarence Men­doza, con­firmed the gangs’ ex­is­tence in the school, say­ing stu­dents in Form One are be­ing pres­sured, taxed, and beat­en if they refuse to join the gangs. He said the stu­dents face reg­u­lar threats, lead­ing some par­ents to take their chil­dren out of the school for fear of their safe­ty.

“Par­ents whose chil­dren are in gangs need to be aware of what’s hap­pen­ing. The crit­i­cal is­sue is that these gangs are car­ry­ing weapons—guns, knives, and span­ners—in­side the school. This is hap­pen­ing af­ter school hours, par­tic­u­lar­ly around Pleas­antville Plaza and out­side St Madeleine Sec­ondary School. We need the po­lice to step up pa­trols and do their best,” Men­doza said.

He not­ed that stu­dents who were not at­tend­ing class­es had al­so been seen loi­ter­ing around the school af­ter hours.

“Tru­an­cy is wors­en­ing. We are not say­ing all stu­dents are bad but around 60 stu­dents are af­fil­i­at­ed with these gangs. They are rob­bing oth­er stu­dents of mon­ey and forc­ing them to pay for pro­tec­tion,” Men­doza added.

He said while ef­forts to ad­dress the is­sue have been on­go­ing, with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion im­ple­ment­ing poli­cies to com­bat bul­ly­ing, the gangs have de­vel­oped new meth­ods of sig­nalling af­fil­i­a­tion.

“We’ve ad­vised prin­ci­pals and teach­ers on what to look for. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has poli­cies on bul­ly­ing, but the gangs are us­ing hair clips and oth­er items to mark who be­longs to them. They are us­ing hair­styles and spe­cif­ic items such as hair clips. Weapons are be­ing brought in­to the school,” he claimed.

Videos of stu­dents be­ing jacked up against the wall and re­lieved of mon­ey were al­so brought to the at­ten­tion of school of­fi­cials.

Men­doza said the is­sue has be­come so se­vere that some fam­i­lies are re­sort­ing to leav­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go as a last re­sort.

In an in­ter­view on Tues­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said bul­ly­ing is in­clud­ed in the Na­tion­al Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix, a tool that guides schools, stu­dents, and par­ents on han­dling in­frac­tions through pro­gres­sive dis­ci­pline, coun­selling and restora­tive prac­tices.

“In cas­es of se­ri­ous mis­con­duct, im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion or ex­pul­sion may be nec­es­sary,” she added.

She said stu­dents must un­der­stand that ac­tions have con­se­quences.

Ef­forts to con­tact T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin for a com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.