Determined Principal Brings Order, Neatness and Hope to Inner-City School : Education: The neighborhood is blighted with crack houses, jobless people and trash-filled streets. Students are so poor that nearly 98% of them qualify for federal breakfast and lunch subsidies.

James Parham grew up in a West Virginia coal town, but says he really hadn’t seen the terrible effects of poverty until he began teaching in the Hartford school system.

Parham has spent the last 20 years in Hartford’s inner-city schools, teaching some of the nation’s poorest children. Now, the Bluefield, W. Va., native has a school of his own, and he is determined not only to give his kids a quality education, but to transform the terrible environment that surrounds their school.

J. C. Clark Elementary, where Parham is the principal, is located in Hartford’s impoverished north end, a neighborhood blighted with crack houses, jobless people and trash-filled streets. The school’s students are so poor that nearly 98% of them--669 of 685--qualify for federal breakfast and lunch subsidies.

But the students say that now, thanks to their new principal, they have something they didn’t have last year--a safe, clean learning environment when they come to school.

Judith Cosgrove has taught fourth grade at J. C. Clark for six years. She says she wouldn’t have believed such a transformation possible.

“It’s like day and night,” she said. “For the first time since I’ve been here, I feel empowered to teach. I went up to Mr. Parham and thanked him for that.”

Last year, she said, her classroom often was out of control, with the kids swearing at her if she told them to do something. “Now, all I have to do is mention Mr. Parham’s name and they straighten their spines. If they act up, they know he’ll not only put them out of school, but he’ll also personally take them home and deliver them to their parents.”

The big change began last summer after Parham, a 1974 graduate of Bluefield State College, was named principal at J. C. Clark. Parham recalls visiting the school and finding filthy floors and walls, and a playground littered with discarded furniture, crack vials and broken whiskey bottles.

Instead of despairing, the 41-year-old bachelor rolled up his sleeves and went to work, along with a team of volunteers from a local civic club.

He went around the neighborhood asking residents to quit piling their trash on the school grounds. “I asked them not to do it for the sake of the kids,” he said, “and they responded.”

Next, he confronted the men who congregated each evening on the playground, drinking whiskey and smoking crack. They left.

“They could see that I respected myself, and what I was doing,” he said. “People respond to that.”

When crack dealers at a house across the street failed to see the light, Parham called the police. The crack dealers moved to a house in an adjoining block.

Two days before school opened, Parham was aghast to see that the street in front of the school was filthy. Inside, the school was sparkling clean and he had erected a big sign that read: “Welcome Back! We Care About the Children at J. C. Clark School.”

Unable to bear the thought of the dirty street, Parham called the mayor--on her Sunday radio program. The street was swept and cleaned the next morning.

The first week of school, Parham saw kids coming through the door eating candy they had purchased at a little shop on the corner. He put out an edict--”No more candy for breakfast”--and held fast despite the store owner’s complaint that Parham had, in effect, ordered a boycott of his store.

In his speech to the faculty at the beginning of school, Parham said: “There will be no more cursing of teachers. No wavering. You are in charge of that classroom. You set your rules and you don’t waver.”

He also said he expected at least 30 minutes of homework each evening, and blackboards that each day contained new vocabulary words. He himself, he said, would see to discipline in the halls and the cafeteria.

Now, nearly six months into the school year, the children quietly walk down the halls in neat lines. They cheerfully say hello to visitors and greet their principal with a chorus of: “Hello, Mr. Parham.”

And, although the school once was isolated in a grimy part of the city, Parham has reached out and received invaluable help from Hartford’s business and civic communities. Aetna Life & Casualty Co. has donated thousands of dollars worth of office equipment. Northeast Utilities has launched a one-on-one program between its employees and the school’s pupils, and the Hartford Rotary Club has taken on an extensive, long-term partnership project with the school.

“We’ve got to get our children involved with the working world,” Parham said. “We’ve got to let them see a different world from the one they see at home. Our next move is to begin changing this neighborhood because, in my mind, a lot of the problems we see in school actually start at birth.”

He envisions buying a building near the school and putting in a prenatal health center and a preschool learning center. He wants books in the homes of the children, and is encouraging illiterate parents to come to the school’s adult education program.

Asked whether he agrees that a single individual can bring about change, Parham considered the question for a moment, then said:

“I think a person--a person with a vision--can bring about change, but only with the help of many other people. And that’s what is happening at J. C. Clark Elementary.”