HCPSS MPIA Request #2020-350

Requested Information
I am requesting permission to use school data within my proposed study. I would like to use data from one of the high schools in the county that is selected at your discretion that use SWPBS intervention. I would like to use 9th grade student data from the 2017-2018 school year. This data would consist of a listing of all 9th grade students identified by a unique identification number. Additionally, I would like to request that this data include a record of the following information: number of times the student has been suspended for fighting, number of times the student has been suspended for defiance, and the student's ethnicity.
Date Received
Status
Complete
Response Notes

Responsive to this request, at the individual student-level, the specific items requested above, even with personally identifiable information (PII) removed, have the potential to reveal educational records 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. According to the U.S. Department of Education “The simple removal of nominal or direct identifiers, such as name and SSN (or other ID number), does not necessarily avoid the release of personally identifiable information” (Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 237 / Tuesday, December 9, 2008 / Rules and Regulations at 74831).

If looking to use student-level data at an analytical level for research purposes please contact Mary Levinsohn-Klyap in our Shared Accountability Office at Mary_Levinsohn-Klyap@hcpss.org. For reference, research involving students and employees is addressed under HCPSS Policy 3030, which can be found on our website at: http://www.hcpss.org/f/board/policies/3030.pdf.

*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***Howard County Public Schools reserves the right to remove erroneous or outdated documents from this site.