Senseless violence smeared CedarBridge Academy's clean slate, less than 48 hours after classes began at the Island's newest school.

Incidents of students fighting at the senior secondary school, on their way home, and in Hamilton culminated yesterday with two female students receiving head injuries.

Some 20 students were believed to have "ganged up'' on the girls on Church Street just before 4 p.m.

The girls were taken to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital where they were treated and later released. Details of their injuries were not known. But they did not require stitches.

And while neither Police nor CedarBridge principal Ernest Payette could shed much light on the incident nor confirm whether it was related to two earlier fights involving students from the school, both expressed great concern.

Police spokesperson Evelyn James Barnett said Police were called to CedarBridge around 3 p.m. after a fight broke out between two 16 year olds.

The fight was broken up by security guards stationed at the school at Prospect.

But less than an hour later Police received a report of CedarBridge students fighting outside of Jamaican Grill on Parsons Road, Pembroke.

They were also told of CedarBridge students riding through Hamilton without due care. "This poses some concern,'' Mrs. James Barnett said of the incidents, "because suddenly we've got so many students in one place.

Mr. Payette, clearly disappointed by the episodes, told The Royal Gazette teachers and security guards had been experiencing problems with the two boys involved in the fight at CedarBridge since school began.

He said while they were able to calm down one of the boys and reach his parents, the other boy had disappeared after the guards intervened.

And they were still trying to find out the reason for the fight.

But Mr. Payette stressed that such behaviour will not be tolerated at CedarBridge and he did not rule out expulsion. "We will be dealing with the issue today,'' he said. "An issue of this nature will be dealt with harshly.

"Parents have already been called of the one boy we made contact with. The parents of the other one have not been contacted yet simply because we have not gathered all of the information together yet on that one.

"We will be looking at suspension with probably a request for expulsion, depending on the conditions under which they were admitted to the school; histories at previous schools; and the fact that both boys have received warnings from teachers and security guards over the last couple of days.'' Principal to read riot act after outbreak of violence Pointing out that the incidents marred a school year which started off so well, Mr. Payette said: "Students have to understand that they are here to learn. They also have to understand that their actions disrupted the learning of a school population of almost 1,200. That is just not acceptable. If they chose to do that, they chose to exempt themselves from this kind of an institution.'' And while noting that the school had to take a zero-tolerance stance, the veteran educator admitted that it was "unfortunate in some circumstances'' because staff at the school wanted "to try to help young people and try to get them to understand the importance of an education''.

"But at the same time,'' Mr. Payette added, "we cannot allow this behaviour to continue. It's self-destructive behaviour. They're destroying not only their own ability to look at a lifestyle, but the ability of the young people around them. So violence cannot be accepted.'' Mr. Payette, who did not know about the other incidents away from the school, said he believed they were more community/young people issues.

"We're going to have to deal with them and help these young people through and we do,'' Mr. Payette said.

"But I don't know how we get them to understand that violence is basically a meaningless act, that it is self-destructive in the long term. They have to come to understand that.

"We're a very small Island. And if our young people cannot learn how to get along and accept and understand each other, what hope is there for the future?'' Mr. Payette said peer mediation and other behaviour programmes will be implemented. But he pointed out that those programmes have to come about after the first couple of weeks of school.

"We have not had time to even start to put some of these programmes in place,'' he noted.

Mr. Payette, through the school's public address system, is expected to read students the riot act this morning. He will also visit individual classes.

While praising the security officers -- four stationed inside and four temporarily outside of the school -- for their efforts, he admitted that the number of security personnel will also have to be reviewed during the next two to three weeks.