Security guards will be stationed at three of the Island's public high schools from next week.

Education Minister Jerome Dill disclosed this yesterday after Warwick Secondary teachers threatened to abandon classes if security problems at the school were not addressed.

Schools across the Island have been experiencing security problems of different degrees.

But the issue came to a head this week when a suspended Warwick Secondary student knocked out a male teacher.

The 15-year-old boy, who had been sent to the Education Ministry's Learning Support Centre at Woodlands after assaulting the same teacher some two months ago, rode onto the Warwick Secondary school property without permission.

When the teacher told him to leave, the student rode the cycle directly at him and struck him on the lower torso.

The student then struck the dazed teacher in the face with an unknown object, causing the teacher to lose consciousness for a few minutes.

The teacher had to be taken to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital where he was detained overnight and required treatment for a suspected broken nose and 15 stitches to close a cut on his forehead. He also received minor cuts to both hands and there were numerous bone fragments suspected in his face.

Warwick Secondary teachers, after a meeting with Bermuda Union of Teachers officials, demanded some form of security at the school by Monday morning.

Both BUT president Michael Charles and union organiser Milton Scott stressed that the incident highlighted the security concerns teachers had been expressing for some time and they could no longer be ignored.

School principals echoed similar sentiments yesterday before Mr. Dill's announcement.

Expressing outrage at the "callous and senseless attack'' on the Warwick Secondary teacher, Association of School Principals president Livingston Tuzo stressed that "a decision must be made immediately about security guards being placed at not only Warwick Secondary but in all of our current secondary schools and our two proposed senior schools''.

"For the past few years principals and teachers have been complaining incessantly to parents, Ministry of Education personnel, and the community at large about the violent nature of a number of the pupils now enrolling in our schools,'' Mr. Tuzo said.

"The emotionally fragile, the drug induced, and the physically and sexually abused child that we are now charged with educating are making life extremely difficult and dangerous for not only the principals and teachers, but for the hundreds of children who come to our schools for the sole purpose of getting a quality education.

"Additionally, the number of idle young people who congregate along the boundaries of our school property throughout the day making a nuisance of themselves by using our bathrooms, stealing parts from pupils' bikes, and harassing the girls and teachers is reaching an epidemic state.'' Guards stationed at three schools The cost of security guards and equipment was a small price to pay to ensure that the health and safety of everyone in schools was protected, Mr. Tuzo added.

"The educational, medical and psychological damages that will result if this matter is left unchecked much longer, will prove to be far more expensive in the future,'' he said.

And while Mr. Dill made no promises earlier this week to have security guards at schools -- explaining that the Ministry was waiting until after a workshop by a visiting security specialist to act on a security committee's recommendations, yesterday he said education officials had decided to assign two private security guards to Warwick Secondary, Northlands, and Whitney Institute.

As a pilot security programme, he said, the guards will remain at the schools until the end of the term when the Ministry will "re-evaluate the need to keep them in place''.

However, Mr. Charles said while placing two security guards at schools was a start, it would not solve the security problems at some schools like Warwick Secondary in the long term.

Noting that Warwick Secondary had several accessible entrances, he said at least three or four guards were needed there.

Mr. Charles also questioned why guards were only being placed at some high schools while all of them had security problems.

The BUT plan to meet with the ASP today over the issue and on Monday with all teachers to assess the needs of each school.