Education Minister Terry Lister on Friday cleared the record on fights at CedarBridge Academy while standing up for the vast majority of students at the public secondary school.

"The students at CedarBridge Academy do not have a mob mentality, nor do they have little regard for authority," Mr. Lister said in a Ministerial statement in the House of Assembly on Friday. "A small percentage of this society's children are challenged with meeting the expectations of conduct that we may expect from them, but I am pleased to report the majority of the students embrace and live the CedarBridge Academy standards of excellence.

The Social Agenda programmes, he added, are designed to target those few students with behavioural or emotional problems so that while students are held accountable for their behaviour, no one slips through the cracks.

Mr. Lister gave MPs the details of what happened at the school on November 17, clearing the air after controversial reports in the Press.

"Three fights did take place during the lunch break, all involving one-on-one situations with male students," he said.

"No CedarBridge Academy staff member was sent or taken to the hospital after attempting to break up a fight. When a particular teacher stepped in to break up a fight one student backed off immediately; the other continued to lash out and the teacher was hit in the process.

"In a separate incident, a student disrupted a classroom after a confrontation with another student. When the teacher asked him to leave the class and report to the office, he left in anger and pushed the teacher, which caused the teacher to fall down.

"The teacher was not stepped on by the student. The student's behaviour was not tolerated, and he was immediately removed from the school.

"The students involved in these incidents were suspended with requests for extensions or placement in an alternative programme."

Speaking later to The Royal Gazette, Mr. Lister said the Ministry of Education was reviewing reports on the incidents before deciding what course of action to take regarding the seven students involved in the three incidents.

One option is the Education Centre at the old Devon Lane School in Devonshire. Students from middle and senior schools can be referred to the centre where they receive individualised attention. With middle school students, the goal is to return them to the mainstream public school system.

Senior school students may be unable to return to their original school for various reasons, Mr. Lister said, and will complete their education at the centre. Students are either signed up for the GED or divide their time between work and school for half-days. "So, they will either have their GED or be integrated into the workplace," Mr. Lister explained. "Preferably both, but we'll go for either one.

"We want every one of our students to graduate," he told The Royal Gazette. "However students have to respect the school, respect their teachers, respect the other students.

"If they can't, then they've required us to allow them to study elsewhere. We cannot accept a situation where someone is afraid to come to school or teachers are afraid of disciplining a student because of recoil."