Thirty-one months after losing her 14-year-old son Renaldo Dixon to school violence, Camille Taitt is still trying to come to terms with his death.
Taitt, 34, admitted that Renaldo’s passing will forever leave a void in her life.
However, the recent upsurge in school violence has opened afresh Taitt’s wounds and rekindled her grief.
Every time Taitt hears about a brawl or fight in school, she remembers how her second son met his death at the Waterloo Secondary School.
Renaldo, a form three student, was stabbed four times with a knife in May 2013 by another student over a girl, as he sat on a bench with his friends.
In November 2014, another student, Salim Delzell, 17, a Success Laventille Composite School student, also lost his life after being gunned down by two armed men as he exited the school’s compound.
Posted on the internet in the last two months have been videos of schoolchildren fighting in and outside of school.
In one of the videos, two schoolchildren were seen fighting with a police officer who, after trying to break up the fight, was also beaten by the girls.
Another video showed schoolgirls fighting with MTS security guards when they intervened to try to break up a fight.
There was also an incident at the Chaguanas North Secondary School involving students who threw firecrackers into a classroom while teachers were there.
One video highlighted a student hitting another with a chair in class.
This is in spite of the “$400 to $500 million spent annually” in the last four years to curb school violence, according to former education minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh.
In the last four years, between $1.6 and $2 billion was spent to reduce school violence.
“There was very little that we could have put in except to make sure that all these areas worked well and were implementable,” Gopeesingh said.
Gopeesingh said he was shocked at the rise in the level of school violence.
He said Success Laventille and Waterloo Secondary got additional security and hand-held scanners following the murders.
Taitt: School violence
opening old wounds
Taitt has little hope that school violence will be reduced, stating that within the last few weeks, fighting among students has been taken to a different level.
“It’s getting out of control. When will it stop?” she asked.
“Every time I hear a student is attacked Renaldo’s death would come back fresh in my mind. It’s like opening up old wounds,”