Additionally, I am requesting copies of any memoranda from Dr. Martirano sent to the HCPSS Board of Education between May 1, 2017 and August 22, 2022 with either the words “Restraint” or “Seclusion” in the Subject.
Responsive to this request, please find available records attached below. Please note, since the response to MPIA 2021-230, MSDE began a new reporting method for SY2021-2022 which includes individual student-level incident reports, and subsequent summary reports which include data as provided below on the number of students secluded or restrained by school as well as number of incidents by grade and special education status. SY2020-2021 reports included with this response have been compiled by staff from individual student-level incident reports for consistency with this new reporting to the State.
For suppression found in all of the records below, HCPSS must protect against the potential disclosures of personally identifiable information about students as required by 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. 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 (see also specific suppression techniques contained within the responsive record): 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 can reasonably identify an individual student or reveals information from an individual student’s record or could do so when combined with other publicly accessible data. 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.
Data regarding injuries to students and/or staff for SY20-21 and partial SY21-22 was manually pulled to include in the above Board of Education memoranda from January 5, 2022. There is not an updated report, however, which contains total or summary information for the second half of SY21-22. Under the MPIA process, and as advised in the Seventeenth 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. Please note, staff in the process of determining how to track this information for future use in monitoring injuries caused by restraint incidents.