1. In as much detail as legally possible provide the amount of compensation that has been paid out in legal settlements every year in the elected school board era (1974-2026) . Please include specific case names as allowed by law. Also please include any settlements where HCPSS or HCSB was required to any legal fees of the plaintiffs. Please include any record of judicial reprimands against HCPSS.
2. Provide a detailed list of all cases regarding HCPSS or HCSB regarding FOIA disputes including outcomes and any judicial reprimands.
Date Received
Status
Complete
Response Notes
Responsive to this request, HCPSS does not maintain a comprehensive list of settlements since 1974. Under the MPIA process, and as advised in the Nineteenth Edition of the Maryland Public Information Act Manual created by Maryland’s Office of the Attorney General, an agency is only obligated to produce existing records and is not required to generate new data or summarize data. Additionally, in regard to Maryland Public Information Act disputes (the statute similar to FOIA that applies to Maryland government agencies) if by cases you mean decisions issued by the Maryland Public Information Act Compliance Board, no list exists, however the only case staff is aware of since 2017 can be found here: https://oag.maryland.gov/resources-info/Documents/pdfs/PIA%20Documents/PIACB24_073.pdf. No clarification received from requester to continue response.
*Some request language is summarized to include the requester's
specific document requests and legally protected information (such as
personally identifiable information of a student) or personal, defamatory
and malicious content removed at the discretion of the school
system.
**Responses containing legally protected information available
only to the person of interest are omitted from the above
report.
***Howard County Public Schools reserves the right to remove
erroneous or outdated documents from this site.
