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Despite Greene's growing reputation throughout the Detroit system, city school officials have not entirely approved of his approach. Ousters for absences or rowdiness, they argue, are too severe a punishment for students who may have deeper social and psychological difficulties. "They bring their troubles to school," says Junious Williams, director of the Detroit public schools' office of student code of conduct. "When you suspend a kid for not attending, it really doesn't resolve the problem." In 1984, in effect rebuffing Greene and other principals who were employing similar tactics, the school board in its redrafted student code removed truancy from the list of violations and began ordering transferred students to be returned to their original schools. Greene remains opposed to such returns.
Furthermore, the board now requires Greene to run his school under restricted rules. For example, Redford students can be sent home for three to five days for loitering in the halls, but they may no longer be transferred for repeated offenses. Students who are violent or commit crimes can be suspended for a semester only if Greene has shown that he has used all his support and counseling services. Greene argues that leaving such students in the schools forces principals to create a prisonlike environment in order to protect the other students. "When you say to an educator, 'You're going to have to teach those children who are constantly disruptive,' " he says, "my question is, 'At what cost?' " A better solution, Greene believes, would be alternative schools for unruly students.
Although he has made striking progress at Redford, change is clearly not coming fast enough for Mean Joe Greene. "School has got to be a better place than the streets," he insists. "For some young people, it may be the only place where they have some sense of structure in their lives. If we don't provide it, who will?"