Mount St. Agnes Academy has joined a list of private schools which sought to distance themselves from a policy at Saltus which bumps the children of exempt company staff to the top of waiting lists.

A group of insurance firms has ploughed $2.4 million into the development at Saltus Cavendish and Saltus Junior in the past 18 months.

In return the school has offered up to ten places for the firms in each year at Cavendish, with the promise of further places at the junior school when a classroom building project is finished.

School heads claimed the move was designed to benefit the entire Bermudian community -- as it had also made extra places available to local children.

But heads of both the Bermuda High School for Girls and Warwick Academy have denied following such a policy.

BHS headteacher Eleanor Kingsbury said her school board looked hard at the issue because "the international business community was interested in having the schools make special allowances.'' Sen. Walwyn Hughes, Chairman of the Board of Governors at Warwick Academy, said the school didn't "have any arrangement to provide places for money.'' And now MSA high school principal Judith Rollo said she felt compelled to let the public know that the Catholic school also did not accept money for places.

"We have a very definite admissions policy for admissions at the age five level,'' she said. "For all other levels, applications are studied on an individual basis in terms of what would be best for the child/student and if he/she could adjust to our system of education and could be academically successful.

"I felt I had to respond lest our silence indicated we followed what Saltus is currently doing.''