Trinidad: Outrage as student beaten is parent at Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary

(Trinidad Guardian) Rage and out­rage af­ter a 15-year-old Form Three stu­dent of the Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary School had to be hos­pi­talised af­ter be­ing beat­en by a par­ent on the school com­pound on Wednes­day.

The in­ci­dent trig­gered a vi­o­lent re­sponse from oth­er stu­dents who pelt­ed the par­ent’s car as he left the school.

Mara­bel­la po­lice con­firmed that they re­ceived a re­port re­gard­ing the in­ci­dent and the mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Guardian Me­dia was told that the par­ent is the fa­ther of a Form Two stu­dent who was in­volved in a fight with the Form Three stu­dent ear­li­er that day.

The in­ci­dent is just one of sev­er­al acts of vi­o­lence at the school in­volv­ing stu­dents phys­i­cal­ly and ver­bal­ly at­tack­ing oth­er stu­dents and teach­ers.

So fear­ful are the teach­ers for their safe­ty that they tread-light­ly around the stu­dents, es­pe­cial­ly the so-called “trou­ble-mak­ers.”

One school of­fi­cial who pre­ferred to re­main anony­mous said: “This school is like a war zone. Teach­ers are run­ning scared. We need help here. The prin­ci­pal just has a few months again be­fore he re­tires and he is not do­ing enough. Some of these stu­dents come from crime spot ar­eas and we don’t want to take any chances.”

The of­fi­cial al­leged that the Form Three stu­dent would “tax” and bul­ly the Form 2 stu­dent.

“Stu­dents tax oth­er stu­dents and if the stu­dents refuse to give up their mon­ey they would get beat up.”

How­ev­er, the moth­er of the Form Three stu­dent said her son and the Form Two stu­dent were friends in pri­ma­ry school, but their friend­ship de­te­ri­o­rat­ed. She claimed the Form Two stu­dent fre­quent­ly threat­ened her son.

Af­ter they fought on Wednes­day, she said the Form Two stu­dent called his fa­ther. “My son was com­ing out of the school gate when he (the fa­ther) grabbed him and be­gan cuff­ing him on the face.”

She said no one, not even the se­cu­ri­ty guards, tried to help her son. He re­ceived stitch­es for a deep lac­er­a­tion above his right eye which al­so has a large blood clot. “He could have lost his eye,” she said.

The teen was dis­charged from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Thurs­day evening but has to at­tend the eye clin­ic.

“His eye is swollen and blue-black. He try­ing to open it and it pain­ing plen­ty. His nose bridge pain­ing him. They said it look like he has a frac­ture to his cheek­bone, but surgery is not nec­es­sary.”

She ad­mit­ted that her son is ar­ro­gant and has a tem­per, but in­sist­ed that she had re­ceived no com­plaints about him “tax­ing” stu­dents.

“I don’t know any­thing about that. He does give his teach­ers talks. He get plen­ty yel­low pa­per al­ready. He does get in nicks and nacks but they see about that in the school. The man was wrong for do­ing my son this,” she said.

The dis­traught moth­er said her son will not be re­turn­ing to school.

 
“I heard that the man (par­ent) and some oth­er fel­las went back by the school yes­ter­day with cut­lass and thing.”

The woman said she is con­tem­plat­ing send­ing her son to Eng­land to live with his aunt.

But school of­fi­cials com­plained about the lev­el of in­dis­ci­pline at the school. They re­port­ed that on Wednes­day three male stu­dents phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ed a fe­male stu­dent on the school com­pound. The girl re­port­ed­ly had to be tak­en for med­ical at­ten­tion be­cause she was bleed­ing from her ears.

Wednes­day’s in­ci­dent ac­cord­ing to one school of­fi­cial has left teach­ers even more fear­ful for their safe­ty, es­pe­cial­ly as it hap­pened on the school com­pound.

One of­fi­cial re­called that about three months ago a male teacher was beat­en when he tried to part a fight amongst stu­dents.

An­oth­er stu­dent cursed a teacher last Fri­day and a teacher’s tablet was stolen.

Stu­dents phones have al­so been stolen.

The of­fi­cial al­so com­plained that some stu­dents were bring­ing mar­i­jua­na to school and hav­ing sex in the class­rooms. “We are fright­ened, we are frus­trat­ed and we are fed up.”

Some teach­ers have sought med­ical at­ten­tion for anx­i­ety prob­lems and stress, he said.

Af­ter the in­ci­dent on Wednes­day, the school which was manned by two fe­male se­cu­ri­ty guards was pro­vid­ed with a male se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer.

“We need safe­ty of­fi­cers, we don’t have any as their con­tracts have ex­pired. We need reg­u­lar po­lice pa­trols. We are afraid for our lives and prop­er­ty,” the of­fi­cial lament­ed.

The Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary School has a teach­ing staff pop­u­la­tion of 43 and a stu­dent pop­u­la­tion of 400.

 
A Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cial said they are await­ing a re­port from the prin­ci­pal and coun­selling will be pro­vid­ed to the stu­dent.

The Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MTS) has al­so been asked to sub­mit a re­port about the in­ci­dent.