Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les 

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent 

To­ba­go po­lice have launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a fight in­volv­ing stu­dents and two adults out­side the Ma­son Hall Sec­ondary School yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s To­ba­go Di­vi­sion, Snr Supt Earl Elie, con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that of­fi­cers were re­view­ing a video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia which cap­tured the in­ci­dent.

The vi­ral footage shows a fe­male adult, be­lieved to be the moth­er of a stu­dent, in a heat­ed ver­bal al­ter­ca­tion with a male stu­dent just out­side the school gate.

The sit­u­a­tion turned vi­o­lent when the boy be­gan to cuff and kick the woman ag­gres­sive­ly. A man who was seen next to the woman was al­so beat­en af­ter a group of stu­dents joined in, at­tack­ing both adults while they were on the ground.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion To­ba­go of­fi­cer Bradon Roberts de­scribed the in­ci­dent as deeply con­cern­ing and dis­ap­point­ing.

“I don’t know what the cir­cum­stances are. The video shows the par­ent ap­proach­ing the child. I won’t com­ment on the ac­tion be­cause I don’t know the cir­cum­stances, but some par­ents are fed up of their chil­dren be­ing bul­lied, and noth­ing sub­stan­tial is hap­pen­ing to fix the prob­lem.”

He said it re­flect­ed broad­er is­sues of stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline and the des­per­ate need for con­flict res­o­lu­tion in­ter­ven­tions in schools.

He hopes the is­sue of in­dis­ci­pline will not be for­got­ten when the mat­ter dies down.

“We con­tin­ue that ad­vo­ca­cy; we con­tin­ue to high­light the need for the re­vis­its of the poli­cies and laws that we have ex­ist­ing that give chil­dren all the rights to do as they please in our pub­lic spaces,” he said.

The en­tire al­ter­ca­tion hap­pened in front of the school’s main en­trance in full view of oth­er stu­dents, se­cu­ri­ty and passers-by.

The Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy said it was aware of a re­cent fight in­volv­ing stu­dents and adults out­side the school.

Al­though it hap­pened off the school com­pound, the di­vi­sion said it was con­cerned and had launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion with school of­fi­cials and the au­thor­i­ties.

It is now ask­ing par­ents and the pub­lic to use prop­er chan­nels like guid­ance coun­selling and stu­dent sup­port ser­vices when deal­ing with is­sues such as bul­ly­ing and warns that pub­lic con­fronta­tions on­ly make things worse.