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[Anonymous]

The name of the high school where I teach has three words in it - we commonly use the initials of the three words to identify ourselves.  It dawned on me that there could be companies or organizations with the same initials, so I did a web search, and my suspicions were confirmed.  Is it possible that we are committing trademark infringement by using these initials on uniforms and publications?  If so, how do we know?

[Kaitlin]

As in many areas of life, in trademarks, context is everything. 
The function of trademark law is basically to keep consumers from being confused as to the source of goods or services, and to keep businesses from losing goodwill due to such confusion.  The legal standard for infringement is "likelihood of confusion."

There's not much chance of trademark infringement in a school referring to itself by its initials, even if those initials are the trademark of one or more businesses, unless the school does so in a context which could lead the public to think there is some connection with, or a sponsorship by, one or more of the people who own the trademark(s).