The altercation between the principal and a teacher at the El Dorado East Secondary School on Oct. 19 is one of the more recent stories of indiscipline that will sadly be dismissed as an isolated case.

Apart from the obvious disappointment expressed by several readers on our Web site, some used the incident to lay to waste the students and reputation of the school instead of taking issue with those involved in the melee.

October was designated Month of the Teacher by the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers' Association and it is a fitting time to remind school administrators of their critical role as standard-bearers for all students. It is also sufficient reason to urge students to work toward healing the fractures within their schools instead of tearing the schools down with more fighting.

The deeper issue of poor conduct among staff in secondary schools seems the most profound revelation of this story.

Teachers at the school were engaged in industrial action that day because they expressed concerns about their safety. As with other institutions, there is a hierarchy in place at school where the principal is head and he/she is guided by instructions from the Ministry of Education ... except that unionised school environments create a different chain of command that results in a kind of indiscipline over which the principal has no control.

That day, the principal lost control of his staff and, sadly, lost his cool, too.

The teachers may have felt justified in exercising their right to protest for a safer school, but in so doing, they managed to undermine the discipline they should have modeled for their students. The ground they gained battling for a safe school ironically eroded when students witnessed the dean in a scuffle with the principal. How vulnerable they must have felt.

The bomb scare meant to disrupt classes and threaten security also shortened teaching time and ultimately left students one step behind in the race for quality education.

The students and teachers we spoke to reported issues such as uncooperative teachers, unsupervised classes and students missing vital class time that would hopefully multiply the scholarship success this year. Worse, the principal has now been suspended from his post indefinitely.

The Ministry of Education does not tolerate indiscipline; neither does the competitive education system address the hardship that students face when teachers and principals square off. The result sheet at the end of every academic year is the litmus test by which school administrators are measured. An impartial disciplinary committee handles issues of indiscipline.

Students, on the other hand, leave their schools short on passes, angry for having gone to a "bad school," harbouring ideas that such is the reason they cannot learn. The fight at El Do' at the end of the day, is another reason we suggest that it is the students who ultimately suffer when things go wrong.

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