Calm appeared to have returned to the 650-student Community School in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, yesterday, following disturbances on Monday, the first day of the ASTI teachers' withdrawal from supervisory and substitution duty.
However, in Castlebar yesterday, hundreds of non-exam students were sent home from St Gerald's College.
While leaving certificate and junior certificate classes continued at the school, all other students at the all-male college were sent home on arrival. They were told that there was insufficient staff to cover for the day. Seven teachers were absent from St Gerald's yesterday.
More than 200 parents attended an emergency meeting at the Community School on Monday night, at short notice, after a day in which a number of incidents occurred during break-time. With more than 600 students gathered in the same assembly area, for break-times on Monday, food and water was indiscriminately thrown by some students. Students involved in the fracas covered security cameras in the hall.
One student, who asked not to be named, said: "It was a chaotic day. The incidents mainly involved boys.
"They threw sandwiches and apples in the assembly hall and then filled boxes with water and started throwing them across the room.
"The glass on some graduation pictures in the hall was also broken during the disturbances", the female student explained.
Ms Maura Noone, secretary of the parents' association at the school and a member of the board of management, described Monday's incidents as "minor disturbances". Yet, she continued "we could not let the situation continue and so we acted quickly by calling an emergency parents' meeting. We told parents that if the situation is not under control today then their children would be sent home. Parents immediately responded and now we will have eight to 10 parents to assist the people hired under the Department's contingency plan scheme each day during break-times while the dispute continues.
"We have our internal camera system in operation again and we believe that the problem is well under control.
"If you listened to some of the stories that have been emanating from the school over supposed incidents on Monday, you'd think the building was wrecked. It certainly was not," Ms Noone said.
She said that the incident was probably sparked off by a change in the usual routine break-time management. "On Monday more than 600 students, aged from 12 to 18, were all gathered in the one assembly hall, with new supervisors, who would not know each pupil by name.
This led to some students causing some disruption, but that situation has now been eased with students again going into the schoolyard, together with the additional parents assisting the new supervisors," Ms Noone said.
In Castlebar, Fine Gael TD Mr Enda Kenny said the situation was upsetting for many parents and added that he hoped the dispute between the ASTI and the Department of Education was not allowed to go on.
"A solution must be found to this problem, as the education of young people cannot continue to be disrupted indefinitely," he said.