I am requesting the following: 1. Numbers of students in special education restrained by grade level and by HCPSS school location for the 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 school years. 2. Number of students in special education secluded including the amount of time secluded by grade level and by HCPSS school location for the 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 school years. 3. Records listing names of staff who received the HCPSS restraint training by school for the 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 school years. 4. Records indicating the training or certification of the those providers, teachers, or trainers who provide HCPSS restraint training for staff.
Date Received
Status
Complete
Response Notes
Please note, the reports/data collection included here are different for the 2016-2017 school year as HCPSS began using a new student information system to track restraint and seclusion incidents in 2017. 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. In the new system, while duration of specific incidents is entered under an individual student’s record, which is confidential 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, there is no existing report that pulls a total or summary of duration data similar to that which is available from the 2016-2017 report. In order to extract duration from the HCPSS reporting system, a new query would have to be programmed. Per the MPIA GP § 4-205(c)(4)(iii), an agency is not required to program a new record if the type of data extraction requested is outside its normal course of business. 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.
Existing report including responsive data on seclusion and restraint by incident. 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, we have redacted notes that have the potential to identify specific students within the responsive fields.
Existing reports including responsive data on seclusion and restraint by school as separate incident types for all HCPSS students, as well as combined seclusion and restraint totals by grade and school for all HCPSS students.
Existing reports including responsive data on seclusion and restraint by school as separate incident types for all HCPSS students, as well as combined seclusion and restraint totals by grade and school for all HCPSS students.
Existing reports including dates HCPSS staff members successfully completed an initial and refresher course as applicable in Safety Care since 2016, as well as those HCPSS staff members who are certified Safety Care trainers along with the dates of their full and refresher courses as applicable in training.
*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.
