School Attendance

WHEN JASMINE Evans entered kindergarten in the fall of 1988, she began a streak a la Cal Ripken Jr. After 13 school years, this Hammond High School senior has not missed a single day of school. Ever. "Even to have four years of perfect high school attendance is unusual," said Phyllis Parker of the public information office for Howard County schools. Her informal survey of the county's high schools revealed that perfect attendance from kindergarten through 12th grade "is a very rare occurrence."

I WROTE a column recently criticizing the Maryland legislature for proposing to buy textbooks for private and parochial schools, and I must say that it is a good thing directions to my house don't appear in this space, or there would be an angry mob with torches and rope waiting in my front yard when I get home from the car pool. I suggested that before the state hands out money to benefit families who pointedly reject public schools, it ought to make sure those same public schools aren't lacking for so much as a box of paper clips.

The last remnant of a 150-year-old Catonsville school that lists among its alumni John Wilkes Booth and two co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination is a step away from being razed. St. Timothy's Episcopal Church has applied for a permit to raze the dilapidated shack where Booth and his friends became involved in a school rebellion that yielded an eerie prophecy about his role as one of America's most notorious villains. The Rev. Steven Randall of St. Timothy's said the two-story clapboard building with cannonball-sized holes in the walls and rusting metal roofs has become a hazard, particularly for children who play in the area.

The Rev. Monroe Seawood Simms Jr. is pastor of First Baptist Church of Elkridge. His aunt, Dorothy Taylor Richardson, has lived on Race Road in Elkridge all her life. They were interviewed by folklorist Alison Kahn on May 14, 1999, as part of an oral history project coordinated by Friends of Patapsco Valley & Heritage Greenway Inc. This is the second of two excerpts. Simms: Yes, Race Road was being isolated, not on the map, not even being noted. ... See, there was a school right here in Elkridge, but we couldn't go there.

Four boys killed in a recent house fire will be memorialized by young friends, their teachers and community members with a playground to be built at Norwood Elementary School in Dundalk, where two of the children were pupils.Administrators and teachers at Norwood hope to raise about $45,000 to pay for the plastic and metal play set and erect it before the end of December, Principal Harry Walker said yesterday.The play area will be dedicated in memory of James McCready, 10; Brandon McCready, 6; Raymond Jamison, 12; and Jacob Jamison, 10 -- stepbrothers who were killed Sept.

IT WAS JUST before 9 last Wednesday morning when the duck appeared in the outer offices of Douglass High School."Quack, quack to you," quoth the duck just before all 5 foot 6 inches of it strode through a pair of swinging doors and then out another door that led to the hallway. Within seconds the duck was at the front door, greeting the steady parade of Douglass students as they hurried in for classes."Welcome! Hurry up! Put some pep in your step!" the duck chided. "This means getting to school every day on time."

Once North County High senior Chalia Belt hit seventh grade without missing a day of school, she knew she would make it all the way to graduation with perfect attendance.And even though Russell Peacock of Glen Burnie wasn't much interested in book learning, he was interested in being known for his consistent attendance.When it came to homework, he said, sometimes, "I just didn't do it. But I went to school."As Anne Arundel County's 128 public schools closed for the summer yesterday, Belt and Peacock, both 18, basked in the distinction of being the only two of almost 22,000 graduating seniors who showed up each and every day.That's 2,340 days from kindergarten to 12th grade, 209 more days than consecutive games Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. played to break Lou Gehrig's record in September 1995.

Anne Arundel County school board members are likely to continue tinkering tomorrow with their plan to redraw school attendance boundaries.Some board members are uneasy about parts of the proposal, especially a recent amendment to pull four communities south of Annapolis out of the Mills-Parole Elementary School attendance area and place them in Edgewater Elementary.Parents in four predominantly white neighborhoods have been clamoring for more than a decade to send their children to the mostly white Edgewater school instead of to the predominantly black Annapolis school, saying they are part of Edgewater.

Each school-day morning, Bob Kane sits in his tiny bedroom-turned-office in Edmondson Heights and makes the calls.His message -- Why isn't your child in school today? -- is not one parents usually want to hear. But Kane, a retired school administrator, is persistent.As part of Project Attend -- an award-winning Baltimore County program that is the only one of its kind in Maryland -- his job is to get chronic truants to show up in class. This year, he and seven other senior volunteers have the daunting task of keeping tabs ++ on 400 middle- and high-school students.

The Anne Arundel school board will hold hearings on proposals to redraw school attendance areas in four sections of the county.All hearings will begin at 6: 30 p.m. They are:For the Chesapeake and Northeast feeder systems, the hearing will be Feb. 24 at Northeast High School. The school board is considering removing from George Fox Middle School the students who live in the Riviera Beach Elementary attendance area and part of the Sunset Elementary area. Instead, those 270 children would attend Chesapeake Bay Middle School, but would return to Northeast High for grades nine through 12.Also, the board wants to clarify the boundary for a small area of Sunset Elementary, where six children wrongly have been attending Sunset and going on to Chesapeake Bay Middle.