Teachers attached to the Lodge Secondary School on Wednesday downed tools citing security concerns and fear for their lives and their students.
According to Deputy Head Master (DHM) Khemraj Sawh, several students of the school are attached to a gang which goes by the name ‘L.A Team’ and over the last month they have constantly been making threats to teachers and students and have even abused them in some cases.
But it was an incident that occurred around 14:00 hrs on Tuesday that resulted in the teachers’ action. The DHM recounted that “We have had intruders, out of school boys come into the school compound and attacking our teachers with knives and improvised weapons, even attacking the teachers to rob them. Our students were attacked and robbed in the compound. Up to yesterday afternoon one of our teachers teaching, a child took off a seat off a chair and throw it over the wall and it almost hit the teacher.”
Sawh said that it is believed that the four boys that entered the school compound are also members of the gang and recalled that around 13:30 hrs he was made aware that two of them are in the compound through a photograph sent to him by a student. The DHM then noted that around 14:00hrs a teacher sent him a video showing him that there were now four of them present.
He continued “I called the police again for the second time that they were in the compound and about five minutes after they were in the school in the classroom with the teachers. So I called the police again and the police about 20 minutes after, to be exact 14:30hrs came.”
He further related that “They came to the front gate. I say don’t come to the front gate go to the back because they are going to run to the back. While the police is at the gate, the children say police. The whole school in chaos because of course everybody run out the classroom. They don’t care who teacher is there or not there they ran out to see the police and of course these perpetrators would have scaled the fence and gone.”
The DHM said that he has sent photos to the Ministry of Education several times with weapons that were in students’ possession but no serious action was taken.
The Deputy says they would not be back in the classroom unless they can feel secure within the school environment. This comment came with loud applause from teachers.
“We want a social worker to be stationed at the school, we want a second guard to be placed in the school, we want the fence to be fixed with barb wires,” he posited.
MTV News Update understands that at the time, the teachers were out of the classroom refusing to work, students were damaging furniture and several classrooms were in chaos.
Several parents showed up to the scene to collect their child and expressed their frustration. One mother was seen entering the compound weeping as she was worried that one of the gang members may have attacked her child.
This is a developing story and we will provide the details as it unfolds.
