HCPSS MPIA Request #2018-451

Requested Information
Seeking GT stats by race and gender since inception of the program in Howard County. If available, provide stats broken down by school (for middle and high school). Additionally, please provide any reports of efforts made to increase GT access for minorities and any assessments of those efforts.
Status
Complete
Response Notes

Responsive to this request, and following discussions to narrow the scope to 2010, available demographic data for high school and middle school level participation is provided below. Please note, at the middle school level Gifted and Talented Education Program participation is by student, while at the high school level participation is determined by completion of GT and/or AP courses. Additional data would require a time/cost estimate to release. 

Additionally, while the Gifted and Talented Education Program routinely conducts initiatives to increase minority participation through outreach, presentations and partnerships, there are no existing reports or assessments regarding such efforts responsive to this request.

Responsive Documents
Annual county-wide gifted and talented participation at the middle school level broken out by demographics since 2010. 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, HCPSS must protect against the potential disclosures of personally identifiable information about students. In accordance, HCPSS follows the Maryland State Department of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics’ guidelines for protecting student privacy in public reporting and suppresses the following from responsive records: populations that fall below 10, percentages that are less than or equal to 5, or greater than or equal to 95; categories directly related to specific student records; and/or information that, when combined with other publicly accessible data, can reasonably identify an individual student or reveals information from an individual student’s record. Please note, HCPSS has made substantial efforts to ensure the accuracy of this information; however, data collection and reporting is consistently subject to change. Please be mindful when comparing data as many variances can occur between reports based on date pulled, parameters used, categories included, etc.
Available data on students at the high school level who finished a gifted and talented and/or advanced placement course broken out by race since 2010 (along with the overall demographic reporting per comprehensive high school per year). 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, HCPSS must protect against the potential disclosures of personally identifiable information about students. In accordance, HCPSS follows the Maryland State Department of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics’ guidelines for protecting student privacy in public reporting and suppresses the following from responsive records: populations that fall below 10, percentages that are less than or equal to 5, or greater than or equal to 95; categories directly related to specific student records; and/or information that, when combined with other publicly accessible data, can reasonably identify an individual student or reveals information from an individual student’s record. Please note, HCPSS has made substantial efforts to ensure the accuracy of this information; however, data collection and reporting is consistently subject to change. Please be mindful when comparing data as many variances can occur between reports based on date pulled, parameters used, categories included, etc.

*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.