MEREDITH — In the backwoods of Meredith Center, across from a public landing on Lake Wicwas on Chemung Road, a small cemetery holds 164 graves of "forgotten'' former inhabitants of the Laconia State School, an institution for the developmentally disabled that closed in 1991.

But there are only a few dozen headstones at the cemetery. Until 2011, the lot had grown over with grass, was sometimes vandalized, and was often tracked over by boaters using the landing.

On Saturday, students from the Cocheco Arts and Technology Academy gathered with a few former residents and workers at the state school to dedicate the graveyard's first-ever sign and a mixed-metal garden arch over the cemetery's entrance. Both were made as part of a year-long project by the 90 students of the academy, a charter school in Dover that focuses on arts and technology education.

The school had invited the producer of "Lost in Laconia," a documentary about the difficult conditions at the school, to talk to students last fall. Also invited to the school was Freda Smith of Salem, who is a member of People First of New Hampshire, a nonprofit group working to improve treatment of people with disabilities.

The film and the speaker inspired the students to research the former state school and the cemetery, said Christy Holmes, the school's director. With the help of parent Candace Coleman McCrea, the effort produced the sign and the arch.

As the artwork was dedicated Saturday, the students, who had made the trip from Dover for the first time for the dedication, paid close attention.

"Many of these people were not thought of as people," said Megan Arnold, 16, a sophomore at the school. "I think it's really beautiful now that we can remember them in a good way."

"They died, and they were just put there," said Kestral Cole-McCrea, 18, a junior from Milton. "There should be more done."

People First, which led the beautification project at the cemetery in September 2011, welcomed the effort by the Cocheco students.

"It's about time that we mark the graves for the people of that institution that are so rightfully theirs," said Smith, who had a daughter at the state school.

Gordon DuBois of New Hampton, a former manager at the school, told of how deceased state school patients used to be buried on school grounds in Laconia.

In 1941, a piece of state-owned land was dedicated for school patients, but for decades, only a few of the graves were marked, and those were marked with just wooden crosses, he said.

In 1976, the state school's parents' association placed gravestones to mark many of the graves. But largely, the cemetery and those buried in it have been forgotten, said DuBois.

"So many were buried here because they didn't have a family, they were lost people, forgotten, ostracized by society, devalued by society," he said.

"These people existed, and they were citizens of New Hampshire. We, as artists, felt we had to use our work to let people know that," Holmes said.

The arch at the entrance symbolizes the long-lasting care and protection of the cemetery, and the mosaic entrance sign is made from broken dish pieces, symbolizing how people can pull together and change their world, she said.

A former patient at the state school, Rheal LaForest, 91, of Meredith, liked the new look.

"Somebody should have done this long ago," he said.