secondary school at Prospect.

Parents plan to mass at the House of Assembly on Monday to drive the point home to Government.

The decisions were taken at a meeting last night which drew close to 200 parents to Cathedral Hall in Hamilton.

At Press time, the PTA was still deliberating over what alternatives it would propose to the new senior secondary school, popularly known as "a mega-school.'' But strong support was shown for spending funds budgeted for the new school to upgrade existing facilities and curriculum.

The parents plan to gather at the House of Assembly at 5 p.m. on Monday, when MPs will be midway through a debate on the Education Ministry's Budget.

Rather than applying to the Deputy Governor's Office to march on Parliament, as some suggested, the parents decided to meet at the Sessions House at a specified time.

"As far as asking for permission -- I don't know,'' one woman said. "Did Martin Luther King ever ask for permission to march?'' It was a difficult forum at which to plan reforms to the school system, and the chairman, National PTA president Mr. Ross Smith, sometimes had difficulty maintaining order.

"Every solution we come up with, there's another problem attached to it,'' said one man.

When a show of hands was taken on construction of the new school at Prospect, only five people supported it as part of the restructuring plan.

Ms Thelma Trott spoke for the minority when she said: "If the restructuring is done to the best of Government's ability, it would address all of the concerns that we all have.'' As stated, the plan would result in five equal middle schools and two equal senior secondary schools, she noted. "As parents, we should be pushing to be sure that the ideals that Government has put to us for trying to address our concerns are met.'' "I don't trust Government,'' was another woman's reply. "Unless all our children, black and white, get together and protest, nothing is going to happen.'' Retired schoolteacher and longtime Progressive Labour Party candidate Mrs.

Aurelia Burch said she did not think it was realistic to ask Government to spend money on existing schools to make them equal. Government was promising to do that when she started teaching.

The schools "are running down and becoming less and less equal every day,'' she said.

Some parents in attendance wanted the current plan for two senior secondary schools replaced with one in which there would be three secondary schools -- one for each of three geographical zones in Bermuda. That was suggested by a sub-committee of the Education Planning Team that worked on the original reform plan, though it was never adopted by the EPT as a whole.

Support was also voiced for moving disruptive students into an alternative system.

Among those who attended were former Education Ministers the Hon. Gerald Simons and Mrs. Gloria McPhee, Shadow Education Minister Ms Jennifer Smith, Community and Culture Minister the Hon. Wayne Furbert, Government Whip Mr.

John Barritt, and Berkeley Institute board of governors chairman Mr. Calvin White.