School Attendance Law 'Gone Awry'

Nine Stephen Knolls students missed 50 or more days of school last school year, some to complications from surgery, others from prolonged respiratory illness or the pain of muscle contractures. Students die at a rate of about one a year. A memorial garden, dedicated last year, remembers 25 deceased students.

Stephen Knolls is not the first special-education center to be sanctioned for poor attendance.

Rock Creek School, in neighboring Frederick County, missed its annual performance target in 2007 for poor attendance. School officials did not protest. But Steve Hess, a Frederick school system administrator, wrote in an e-mail that the attendance requirement has "very real potential for negative impact" on a special education school. Rock Creek met Maryland's attendance goal this year.

Students at such centers as Rock Creek and Stephen Knolls cannot sit for a pencil-and-paper exam. Instead, they take an alternative test, designed to assess them at their instructional level rather than at grade level. The assessments have prompted complaints, because they require many hours of toil. Some students have such trouble communicating that teachers must guide their hands to the answer. Many teachers regard the test as a futile exercise.

In 2007, four of 16 Stephen Knolls students passed the state reading test. This year, 18 of 18 passed. But because of low attendance, the school failed to make adequate progress for a third year. State rules dictate that the school must prepare "a detailed plan to solve problems in student achievement." After several more years of failure, the school could theoretically reach the end of the accountability process: "restructuring," a top-to-bottom shakeup.

Susan "Sam" Campbell, mother of a 10-year-old Stephen Knolls student, said it is unfair to sanction the school for low attendance. Her son, like many at Stephen Knolls, misses school from time to time for visits to medical specialists.

"I think the fact that these kids are in school as much as they are is a minor miracle," she said.