HCPSS MPIA Request #2018-004

Requested Information
HCPSS recently presented a redistricting plan that included an extensive spatial analysis of school attendance areas. We are familiar with the documentation currently provided by HCPSS on the Attendance Area Committee website; however, all of the files are in .pdf format and are not suitable for analysis. Since this information has already been released to the public, we are interested in the source files for this analysis. We would like to request that HCPSS make available the following data:

1. School Polygon Tables (in Excel format)
2. Shape files for the Feasibility Study Maps for Elementary, Middle and High schools.
3. Shape files for the Attendance Area Planning Polygon 2016-17.
4. Shape files for the Elementary, Middle and High School Attendance Area Maps

We have been encouraged by the Office of School Planning to investigate/propose alternative plans - but currently the only data provided for analysis is in .pdf format. We are not interested in any PII data. Just the polygons and number of students in each.

Thank you for your help.
Status
Complete
Responsive Documents
The following responsive documents are inclosed in this file:
1. An excel table showing 5-year projection by planning polygon. (updated file below)
2. 2016-17 Attendance Areas - all three levels.
3. Feasibility Study proposed 2018-19 Attendance Areas - all three levels.
4. Planning polygon layer with current and proposed assignments as attributes.
The 5-year projection can be joined to the polygons using the polygon ID fields. The Planning polygon layer (FS17_COMpolys) has the proposed assignments shown in the “Home” fields, and the current assignments shown in the “1617” fields.

For any questions regarding the data or to discuss your project and findings, please contact the Office of School Planning at 410-313-7184 or SchoolPlanning@hcpss.org. Please note, HCPSS has made substantial efforts to ensure the accuracy of this information, however, school polygons and attendance areas are subject to change. The user of this data accepts full liability for any use of the data.
Updated polygon projection files with corrected FARMs data. The discrepancy resulted from the issuance of a nine-digit student identification number for new students in our student database. The code language written for School Planning’s redistricting software uses six to seven digits; therefore, these new students were excluded from the original analysis. The new student data was incorporated into the redistricting software and the Plan Assessment.

Additionally, within this updated polygon projection file, in order to protect against potential disclosures of personally identifiable information about students when looking at polygon-level data where those who know the residents of a particular neighborhood may be able to deduce student-level information, HCPSS is following the National Center for Education Statistics’ federal guidelines for protecting student privacy in public reporting. Under both the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), which restricts access to student records, and MPIA GP § 4-313, which prevents disclosure of school district records pertaining to individual students, FARMs and academic testing data has been suppressed per the key contained in the file.

*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.