For the second time in two days, education officials yesterday moved to dismiss parents' claims that public high schools were in a state of crisis.

In a press conference days after parents complained to The Royal Gazette about a lack of discipline, competency, and accountability in the school system, Education Minister Jerome Dill said: "I am not going to try to tell you there are no discipline problems in the public schools. Every school in the world, whether public or private, has difficulty with some students.

"But public schools in Bermuda are not in a state of crisis. There are approximately 6,500 students in our system, the overwhelming majority of whom are well served by it. Teachers are in control of their students, teachers are educating their students. And teachers are trying very hard to achieve my goal, which is to make the schools in the public system in Bermuda just as good as, if not better than, any private school in Bermuda.'' Parents, who are fed up with the Ministry and Department of Education's running of public schools, have called for privatisation.

Close to a dozen parents of students at St. George's Secondary said their children were being exposed to everything but an education at the school.

And they shared stories of students, a school, and an education system which they believed had spiralled out of control.

They complained that in addition to enduring threats by other students, their children often had no homework and were distracted by unruly students in classes.

One couple, Beverley and Hav Trott, said they had to send their son overseas last month after realising the poor state of discipline at the school. And they said they had not heard from the school about their son's whereabouts.

They, however, received a report card from St. George's Secondary a couple of weeks ago depicting their son as a student in good standing who had not been absent for the term.

The Trotts said they were trying to figure out how the school came up with the grades when their son had not taken his English final exam and required tutoring in that subject and several others.

They suspected that the school gave their son good reports to pacify them.

But the Trotts and other parents pointed out that what was happening at St.

George's Secondary was taking place at high schools throughout the public system.

Defending St. George's Secondary yesterday, principal Charlotte Ming claimed that the Trotts had "a vendetta'' against her.

"The Trotts were not happy having their son at the school,'' she said. "But they had their son there for 18 months so we must be doing something good.'' Mr. Dill also defended the school, stating: "St. George's Secondary School is not in a state of crisis. It is about to become one of our middle schools... With its excellent new campus to give it a boost, I believe its principal and her staff are going to make it a first class middle school, and I think that in the future you are going to be seeing graduates of that school taking their places in the community alongside graduates of every other school on the Island.'' However, both Mr. Dill and Mrs. Ming refused to explain how the school came up with the grades on the Trotts' son's last report card.

"I'm not going to pick over them in public,'' Mr. Dill said.

Education chiefs hit back "That would not be fair, for obvious reasons,'' Mr. Dill said. "He was good at some things and not so good at others, and his report cards reflected that.'' Chief Education Joseph Christopher added that there were documents to support the grades.

Concerning the school's failure to contact the Trotts about their son's whereabouts, Mr. Dill said the parents had told the school counsellor on the day that they took their son out of school that they needed their child's documents for his new school.

"They did not, however, tell the principal their son was leaving, nor did they tell any of his teachers,'' he added. "The school was in no doubt about what had happened to the boy, and had no need to contact them.'' Turning to parents' complaints about a lack of discipline, Mr. Dill said teachers had the Code of Conduct to use as a guide.

And Mrs. Ming said the classes were often supervised by herself or the deputy principal.

She explained that students became noisy at times due to cooperative learning, a process where they work in teams.

Mrs. Ming admitted that "a few months ago'' parents had expressed concern about a lack of homework.

But she said: "I got behind that and now students have homework every night.'' "Those parents who have gripes should have guts enough to see me,'' she added. "I have an open-door policy.'' When contacted yesterday Mr. Trott said it appeared that Mr. Dill and the Education Department were willing to minimise the difficulties that the public school system was facing.

"Despite what he wishes to say about my particular case, the problems are real and I can only conclude that their objectives can only be to provide false comfort to the general public,'' Mr. Trott said.

He noted that he was willing to have any "reputable, independent body'' assess his son and examine his report cards to see if there was a correlation between his academic standing and the report cards.

"I should like for Jerome Dill to have someone produce the actual exams for the most recently ended term and explain to me how they have been arrived at,'' Mr. Trott said. "Let them pick over my son's grades with me present so I can question them about how they were determined.'' He also pointed out that he was willing to make his son's last report card from St. George's Secondary public and to discuss it with any senior Education Department official.

Accusing Education Department officials of having their heads buried in the sand, Mr. Trott added: "... like so many other people in Bermuda, I am nothing more than a concerned parent who cares deeply for his children.

"I have spoken with many people who are in situations similar to mine and who feel equally frustrated with the state of public secondary education.

"The Department of Education does very little to convince people that it is doing anything and it is way overdue for something to happen.'' Mr. Trott stressed that he welcomed restructuring of the school system. But he said it will not be complete without a restructuring of the Education Department.

And while noting that Mr. Dill's response to parents' complaints was expected "from a politician'', Mr. Trott challenged Mr. Dill to show he cared by publicly providing the following information: Statistics that show for each of the last ten years the percentage of school leavers, by school, that obtained a university education; An explanation for why it is said on "so many occasions that black males in Bermuda are not part of the local economy''; The number of people employed by the Education Department as of December 31 in each of the last ten years; The number of children in each high school and the percentage of white students versus black students; An explanation for security guards at high schools; An explanation for why Warwick Academy chose to go private and why private schools are "bursting at the seams'' and have long waiting lists; The names of children of "key personalities'' in the business and political arena in Bermuda who attend public high schools versus those who attend private high schools; and An explanation for why "so many parents are so upset about the state of education'' in public high schools and "how he can dismiss it so lightly and suggest it is not a widespread problem''.