2. How many of these students were receiving FARM?
3. For the school year 2018-2019, how many students not normally assigned to River Hill High School enrolled in the Jumpstart Program at River Hill High School?
4. How many of these students were receiving FARM?
5. How many students normally assigned to River Hill High School are enrolled in Jumpstart in school year 2019-2020?
6. How many of those students receive FARM?
7. How many students assigned to other high schools are enrolled in Jumpstart at River Hill High School for school year 2019-2020?
8. How many of the Jumpstart students from other high schools attending in school year 2019-2020 are receiving FARM?
9. Of the students from other assigned high schools who did not reenroll in Jumpstart in school year 2019-2020, what reasons did they give for returning to their home schools?
10. If Jumpstart has been terminated or will be terminated, what were the reasons stated for the termination?
Note that I am not requesting data that would identify any individual student, only aggregated data. There should not be any concern regarding privacy issues.
I am part of a group of concerned parents in Clarksville who oppose Martirano's proposed busing plan because we believe it is detrimental to all 7400 children affected. We are working on alternative plans to propose and one of these would be voluntary transfers from one school to another. Because the failure of the Jumpstart program at River Hill High School is relevant, I am requesting the information above.
Responsive to this request, much of this information can be found via records supplied under our recent request to MPIA 2020-055: https://mpia.hcpss.org/requests/2020-055 including:
- MPIA 2019-067: https://mpia.hcpss.org/requests/2019-067. Under a previous response to an MPIA we provided several records regarding data about JumpStart.
- October 18, 2018 Memo to the Board of Education. Additional information, including transportation costs, regarding JumpStart developed since the above MPIA response.
- June 2019 Joint Report with HCC. A summary of the SY2019 participation developed in conjunction with Howard Community College.
- JumpStart Transfer Tracking 2019 – RHHS. Available summary data on students who attended RHHS during SY2019 for Jumpstart that returned to their respective schools in SY2020 for the reasons indicated.
- October 3, 2019 Memo to the Board of Education. SY2019 JumpStart data as collected by the Dual Enrollment Office.
Outside that provided previously, our Dual Enrollment Office indicates for SY2018-2019 there were 561 student enrolled at the Jumpstart program at River Hill High School, of which 166 students who reside in the current boundary areas for RHHS are participating in a structured JumpStart Dual Enrollment program.
Additionally, under the MPIA process, and as advised in the Fourteenth 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. As such, the remaining data points related to FARMS do not exist beyond that analyzed in the March 2018 Board memo under the response to MPIA 2019-067 as staff indicates we do not track data in this manner for the purposes of the JumpStart Dual Enrollment program.
Please note, staff indicates the program has not been terminated, nor will it be as it is mandated by Maryland statute. As a result of the College and Career Readiness and College Completion Act of 2013 (Senate Bill 740), Howard Community College (HCC) and HCPSS partnered to provide high school students the opportunity to earn college credit while enrolled in high school. The Act requires HCPSS to promote dual enrollment options available for students. JumpStart Dual Enrollment encompasses the dual enrollment partnership between HCC and HCPSS. In the 2018-2019 school year, JumpStart was also used to alleviate overcrowding at Howard, Centennial and Long Reach High Schools by moving students to Oakland Mills and River Hill High Schools. At those two high schools, a series of additional JumpStart Dual Enrollment structured programs are currently being piloted, with these programs having a mix of HCPSS-based dual enrollment opportunities as well as requiring students to complete a series of courses on HCC’s campus in order to earn between 30 and 60 college credits prior to graduating from high school. Per the Board’s decision, this transfer option was only available for students who elected to transfer during the 2018-2019 school year and for their trailing siblings. The transfer option is no longer available as a way to participate in the pilot JumpStart Dual Enrollment programs offered at Oakland Mills and River Hill. However, JumpStart Dual Enrollment is HCPSS's programmatic version of the mandate given in SB740.