A small sign taped outside the main entrance of Far Rockaway High School says it all: No hats or do-rags, no iPods or MP3 players, no cell phones or weapons, no gang colors or insignia. This time last year, Far Rockaway was considered one of the 16 most dangerous schools in the city. Now a rosy pink sign affixed to the wall just steps from a metal detector suggests just how far the school has come.

Major crimes in the school’s hallways are down 75% since last January, according to Department of Education and police figures. There were 16 incidents in the school in 2003 and only four last year, according to city officials. The turnaround came when Far Rockaway and 15 other schools in the city were designated as “Impact Schools,” which opened the gate to a flood of new rules and an influx of police officers, school safety agents, and other disciplinary staff.

While Mayor Bloomberg stopped short of declaring victory over violence in the city’s schools, he did suggest that some small battles have been won. Overall crime in New York’s 16 most troublesome schools is down 33% since this time last year, and major crimes are down 42%.

“Where before the children were free to run around the schools as they pleased, now they have to get hall passes,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters at the Queens high school yesterday. “Where before Far Rockaway didn’t even have a detention room, today it does, along with clearly defined rules about punctuality and loitering in the hallways. Teachers tell us that school pride is now on the rise.”

So much so that Far Rockaway, as well as four other schools, will begin transitioning out of the impact program in the coming months. In addition to Far Rockaway, M.S. 222 in the Bronx, South Shore and Franklin K. Lane high schools in Brooklyn, and Washington Irving High School in Manhattan will be removed from the watch list. Overall crime in the five schools has fallen 59% over last year’s figures, Mr. Bloomberg said.

“If you make the principal accountable, if you explain to students what the code of conduct is, and that they ought to respect it, it works,” said Mr. Bloomberg. “Is it a panacea for all of society’s problems? Of course not. But it is going in the right direction and now we know, based on real evidence, how to go and address the problems of other schools.”

The other 11 schools designated as the city’s first impact schools didn’t fare as well. Crime at Christopher Columbus High School in Brooklyn more than doubled since it was put on the impact list. Similarly, CIS 22 and Evander Childs High School saw increased crime this year over last. What’s more, the mayor added six troubled schools to the impact roster, including: Lafayette and Abraham Lincoln high schools in Brooklyn, John Bowne and Springfield Gardens high schools in Queens, Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan, and Harry S. Truman High School in the Bronx.

While Mr. Bloomberg lauded the program, other city officials were less convinced that it provided the best solution for the city’s schools.

“Putting cops in schools is a Band-Aid approach,” the public advocate Betsy Gotbaum said. “What our kids need isn’t a cop at every corner, they need a teacher in every classroom, a desk to sit at, a chair to sit in. We need to fix the gross overcrowding in our large high schools. That will bring crime down and keep it down.”

Council Member Eva Moskowitz, who heads the council’s education committee, was equally circumspect.

“It may have put out a few fires, but it is not a long-term solution,” she said in a written statement. “There are scores of schools across the city that are not reaping the benefits of this exclusively law and order approach.”

The Impact Schools initiative took many of its cues from a police department program that focused on quality-of-life offenses and trouble areas in order to stamp out crime. The police tracked crime patterns and redeployed their forces to concentrate on what they called “problem people and problem places.” In the schools, the idea was to establish a climate of order and safety at the handful of schools that accounted for a disproportionate number of crimes.

Special police officers were dispatched to focus on low-level crimes, hold students to the letter of the New York City Discipline Code, and correct those things in the schools that contributed to disorder. To evaluate the schools, officials look at 13 major categories including everything from entry and exit procedures to security and detention centers.

“We look at school culture and it is a real quantitative and qualitative list of characteristics that make up these impact schools,” the schools safety tsar, Rose Albanese-DePinto, said.

Far Rockaway’s freshly-minted principal, Denise Hallett, said she has seen an improvement in attendance since September. “The kids are very pleased with the progress the school has made; they have actually participated in the progress,” she said. “They feel they are in a safe environment. There is a change in all the students because they are all held accountable now.”

While city and school officials were careful to shield students from reporters, one did wander over to discuss Far Rockaway High. “They still get knives in here, I don’t know how they do it but they do,” said Michael Howard, 17. “The metal detectors don’t always work.” When asked if he was scared, he shook his head. “Nah, not really, things have gotten a lot better.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s crime announcement came amid criticism from the City Council that he’s failed to disclose the full extent of the problems plaguing the schools. The City Council will vote today to override a mayoral veto of legislation that would require the Department of Education to release the crime data on individual schools.