Another part of her plan would transform Henry.

Upward of $5 million was channeled annually to about 20 schools with majority-black enrollments in racially mixed neighborhoods. Not only were the schools lavished with perks, but white students whose neighborhood schools were not targeted for desegregation also could transfer in, bused by the district.

"You did what you had to do to keep children who had a choice" of going to private or parochial school, said Ralph Smith, the University of Pennsylvania law professor who designed Clayton's desegregation strategy. "Basically, you had to figure out what the draw was."

For Henry, it was figured well, from small classes, specialist teachers and a computer lab to free after-school care. At a time when the working mom was becoming the trend-to-be-reckoned-with, the school offered another powerful lure: full-day kindergarten.

"It made Henry very attractive," said Oshtry, a kindergarten teacher. If school-shopping parents were still on the fence, "I would say, 'We can't pretend to be the same as private school. But there are advantages in having your child in a school whose population more accurately reflects reality. If you're not satisfied, you can make a change. Then think of all the money you've saved.'"

The resources hit their mark.

White children streamed into Henry, not only from West Mount Airy, but Germantown and beyond. Black parents from poor neighborhoods tried to slip their children in by faking West Mount Airy addresses. In the name of racial balance, the policy required those who were found out to be sent back.

By the late 1980s, the black-white breakdown at Henry was 60-40.

The school also got an infusion of activist parents in those years. They raised money for musical instruments and found cut-rate deals for students to attend Academy of Music concerts. They even put on a show.

"Every year, we'd have a musical with hundreds of kids," said Judith Bernstein-Baker, a Henry mother. "It was phenomenal. When you have involved parents, you can get a lot done."

The school was becoming a community hub, she said, "and that was a wonderful thing."

But this, too, would pass.

This year, St. Patrick's Day fell on the third Wednesday of March, the monthly meeting of the Henry Home and School Association. Appropriately, the subject was the spending of the green, what little there is of it.

About 30 parents, evenly black and white, gathered in the basement library. Its book collection is aging, its card catalog dysfunctional, and its librarian long gone.

The room was dejectedly rapt as principal Trantas delivered the bad news: about the 2004-05 budget, down at least $100,000. About a projected enrollment drop of 16 children. About the probable retirement of several teachers and the long odds of their being replaced.

Kim Puhl, the association president, wondered whether noontime aides who patrol the lunchroom would be cut. A rowdy cafeteria, she warned, would scare away parents of prospective students, especially young ones.

No decisions had been made yet, Trantas said. Ominously she added, "The budget is ugly."