security guards at secondary schools. Only a few years ago such a thing would have been unthinkable in Bermuda.

It is ironic that severe problems in the schools are emerging just at the time when Government is restructuring the education system. That restructuring with the use of middle schools is designed to prevent the trouble in the schools.

It is impossible to tell just how much the restructuring is contributing to current troubles but doubtless it is unsettling for students and teachers alike.

From the beginning a significant number of people have questioned the wisdom of the mega school at Prospect. Now that it is nearly completed and Bermuda is committed to the new system it is essential that CedarBridge should succeed.

However, current school problems are leading more and more people to ask if the new school can be operated with discipline. It does seem that Bermuda may be getting ready to put all the public school problems together in one school where the problems will be magnified. That would be a disaster for the students.

When there is trouble, parents become alarmed and some are already wondering if CedarBridge is the place for their children. Given what is going on now, parents have a right to be concerned.

Bermuda's students are entitled to a learning environment where they can learn. If they cannot be guaranteed that at CedarBridge, there will be an even greater flight to the private schools or to schools abroad. Parents should not have to pay for education twice, once with taxes and again out of their pocket.

Bermuda's has a crazy quilt education philosophy in which there are strikes against the public system. One of those strikes is that the movers and the shakers in Bermuda have little interest in the system of public education because their children and their grandchildren are not in the system and are never likely to be in the system. That means that the public schools system lacks the support of those people with influence. But it means something more than that. It means that the public system is branded as second best.

One of the ideas behind a first class CedarBridge was to get rid of the second best perception. While we believe that will happen with the physical plant, the plant itself does not make an education.

A good education cannot be achieved unless there is an orderly learning environment. The job that CedarBridge is designed to do is vital to Bermuda's future. Therefore it is going to be important for Bermudians to get behind the school and make it work.

There are problems in secondary schools now. If CedarBridge is a success it can go a long way toward alleviating those problems. Success is going to take hard work and it is going to take public support.