Whatever the circumstances are surrounding the fact that Stephen Plakaris is no longer deputy director of school security in Grand Bahama, the Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports and Culture did not handle this particular issue as well as it should have.

At the very least, it appears as if Plakaris' termination was directly linked to his highly publicized one-man demonstration outside the government complex demanding that he be paid money owed to him since January of this year. If this is a case of bad public relations and the facts are not what they appear to be, the ministry must make public its side of the story.

And they should do so post haste, so that this matter can be put to rest before school closes for the summer break, which should be used to devise a new strategy for addressing violence in our schools before the new school year begins in September.

Adequate security in our public schools has been a major problem throughout the school year, and some critics say this is because of a decision made at the beginning of the school year last September to discontinue having regular police provide security on school campuses.

Despite the fact that the leadership of the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) agreed that this was a good decision, the outcry for the police to return to the campuses increases with each outbreak of violence on the grounds of a public school or nearby. Some teachers also claimed to legitimately be in fear for their safety and joined the chorus of those advocating for the return of the police.

It is our view, that the ministry made the right decision when it decided to use a civilian security force to maintain law and order at our schools. Regular police being used in this manner was a misuse of valuable law-enforcement manpower that could be used in the war to reduce the country's alarming crime rate to a level where Bahamians could feel safe in their homes and when they walk our streets at night.

Additionally, constant police presence on school grounds, to some extent, creates an atmosphere of perpetual pending danger, which surely could engender in the minds of younger students in their first year of high school a subliminal state of fear that most certainly is not conducive to learning.

What's more, the Ministry of Education was right when it noted, in announcing the change in school security policy, that most of the altercations among students do not occur on school grounds, but rather after school when students are on their way home. To address this issue, police patrols in school areas were increased around this time.

These combined efforts should have been sufficient for the provision of adequate security at our public schools.

But apparently, that has not been the case. And one of the reasons why was cited by BUT President Ida Poitier-Turnquest when she visited Grand Bahama late last year after teachers at St. George's High staged a sit-in to demonstrate their concerns about the lack of school security. Poitier-Turnquest outrightly accused the ministry of not providing sufficient security officers for the schools.

Plakaris has made a similar complaint on a number of occasion, and it is probably one of the reasons why he found himself in hot water with his bosses at the ministry. Certainly, if adequate security personnel is the answer to this problem, when school reopens in the fall, this should be given as big a priority as assuring that all school repairs are completed by September.