off at their school on Monday morning.

But they were not meticulously carrying out a fire drill. A short in the school's alarm system forced the students from their classrooms as alarms went off in different areas of the school.

So teacher Ray Smith gathered roughly 75 M-3 students and took them to Ducking Stool Park on the North Shore, Pembroke, for a clean-up mission.

Mr. Smith said that Dellwood and Centre Re have adopted the park -- which is in walking distance from the school -- and that students periodically go and clean up trash strewn about the park and surrounding area.

The students had a clean-up scheduled for last Friday but rain forced a cancellation.

When the fire alarm problem arose on a sunny Monday, the students were afforded the opportunity to get out and clean up the park.

Mr. Smith said that they collected 35 to 40 bags of garbage at the park and along the North Shore between 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

The school managed to fix the alarm problem and classes resumed in the afternoon.

"We just wanted to take the opportunity to turn something negative into something positive,'' said Mr. Smith.

"The kids were really enthused. We normally use the last Friday of each month to do something other than academic like a clean-up. So all we had to do is quickly arrange with Keep Bermuda Beautiful to have Works and Engineering pick up the bags.'' Clean team: This group of Dellwood students took advantage of a faulty fire alarm by taking time out to help clean up Ducking Stool Park.

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