A budget reduction for behavioural management in the public education system has been questioned in light of antisocial incidents in schools.

Susan Jackson, the One Bermuda Alliance spokeswoman for education, asked about the $156,000 reduction during the Budget education debate on Monday.

She highlighted that not only were students recovering from the “traumas of Covid-19”, but that there had also been a few highly publicised incidents involving violent actions.

Ms Jackson said: “We are clearly aware of some of the emotional and social risks, and vulnerabilities our young people have been through.

“Why did we have to reduce the allocation for behaviour management by $156,000?”

Ms Jackson also questioned the education minister, Diallo Rabain, about alternative education options for students in the public education system.

Mr Rabain responded: “Those are funds that would have been scheduled for consultants that are not needed and the consultancy would be the placement of students in alternative settings.

“There used to be a model with agencies that we would place [students in] … as we decreased the number of children that went into the models it became a per-person cost — before it was a bulk cost. It was not as efficient.

“That’s where that came, we are anticipating we wont have to pay as much money for those services we have had to do in the past …

“Now we have gotten to a point where we are going to go back and have a look and see if we can go back to the model where we pay one amount and we get X amount of children in.”

Mr Rabain said that children desiring alternative education, not necessarily those with behavioural challenges, were placed at Impact Mentoring Academy and different alternative learning organisations.

CedarBridge Academy made the headlines in November when a father announced at a town hall meeting that his daughter was attacked at the school.

There were also videos circulating last March of a fight at the school and a teenager was caught with a knife at the Berkeley Institute was sentenced to probation in September 2020. David Burt, the Premier, revealed at the town hall meeting that emergency Cabinet meetings had been held to discuss violence in school settings.

Ms Jackson pushed Mr Rabain on whether the measures he discussed addressed just alternative education or a remedy for antisocial behaviour in schools, and asked: “Are we extending out to the community in any way to make these programmes work?”

Mr Rabain spoke about some agencies including the Lighthouse Christian Academy and added: “I spoke about how we are strengthening partnerships with supporting services such as Department of Child and Family Services, Child and Adolescent Services, Probation Services, the Department of Health, the weekly meetings that are held with the various ministries of the High-Risk Intervention Committee where we talk about mutual clients.

“They have clients that are students so it makes sense for us to all sit around and talk — not me but the team — to talk about how we can do those interventions and what needs to happen.

“I also talked about the alternative education programmes and how they are incorporating different assessments on how we can assess children with dysfunctional behaviour assessments and behaviour intervention plans, and the training that they are giving to our people that identify this.”

Mr Rabain said that a multi-tiered support system carried out work in identifying students, adding: “All teachers are trained in it and I also talked about the school psychologists — they have weekly sessions throughout the schools to talk about students that are within the MTSS system and the various interventions that need to be put in place.

“Schools also have educational therapists and assistants to assist with that. Those are the things in place to identify the students and give them the resources to correct whatever is going on with them.

“You mention we see this stuff in the public eye — it is unfortunate that these things are captured and broadcast all over Bermuda.

“There are a minority of persons that do cause these things but we are trying to put things in place to have them in alternative locations so we can work on them with more intensive therapies or interventions needed to prevent that.

“The idea is to do that and put them back into the mainstream so they can continue with a regular educational career. We have in students services teachers on the ground. MTSS does its thing where once [a student] gets to tier three, you look at what kind of interventions can be put in place and some are with the partners we have discussed.”

He added that a clinical advisory team was also involved.