HCPSS MPIA Request #2021-284

Requestor
Barb Krupiarz
Requested Information
In the 2019/2020 report on restraint and seclusion submitted to MSDE, there were 616 physical restraint events for 125 students and 132 seclusion events for 27 students in HCPSS. I am requesting the following information for the student with the highest individual number of physical restraints and for the student with the highest number of seclusion events in that school year:
Age or age range
Gender
Race
Whether the student was/is on an IEP
If on an IEP, the disability category
School

Additionally, I am requesting the answers to the following questions in the MSDE reporting form for the school year:

Has an individual from the local school system, public agency or nonpublic school observed each seclusion room during the 2019-2020 school year? (yes or no)
Has an individual from the local school system, public agency, or nonpublic school reviewed the training plan(s) for seclusion in the 2019-2020 school year? (yes or no)
Has an individual from the local school system, public agency, or nonpublic school reviewed the training plan(s) for seclusion in the 2019-2020 school year? (yes or on)
If your local school system, public agency, or nonpublic school did not observe seclusion room(s) and/or review training plan(s) for the 2019-2020 school year, explain why. (full response)
Date Received
Status
Complete
Response Notes

Responsive to this request, at the individual student-level, the specific items requested above for the student with the highest number of restraint/seclusion instances, 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). As such, we are unable to release such data.

Additionally, the HCPSS submission to the Maryland State Department of Education survey on 2019-2020 restraint and seclusion data collection including those questions above can be found under our recent response to MPIA 2021-266 within the document Restraint and Seclusion Survey Answers SY20: https://mpia.hcpss.org/sites/default/files/2021-07/R%26S%20HCPSS%202020%20Survey%20Responses.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.