The Chancellor's draft proposal on how to handle violent students received mixed reactions yesterday.

Supports giving teachers and principals greater authority to remove violent and disruptive students.

Education authorities could no longer expel violent students or even isolate them from students who wanted to study.

Rudy Crew called them Second Opportunity Schools, intended for the 300 most violent students, a program created in 1997.

Dr. Crew began voicing concerns about violent students last fall, when he was angered by an illegal search case.

The schools, which were created in 1997, faced opposition from residents who said that having a concentration of violent students would harm their neighborhoods.

It left students and teachers shocked, he said, because the teen-ager had not been known as a violent, or even volatile, student.

He also set up a separate school for habitually violent students.

Many educators have said that if principals are pressured to reduce suspensions, they will allow disruptive and even violent students to remain in school.

Two years after it was established for violent or potentially violent students, Wildcat has had its share of feats and hurdles.