HCPSS MPIA Request #2023-054

Requestor
Angela Farnella Graboski
Requested Information
I request the records pertaining to the Regional Program from Triadelphia Ridge Elementary. Correspondence and records specifically for ED regional .
Date Received
Status
Complete
Responsive Documents
Responsive to this request, and per discussions to identify the scope of correspondence sought including a search of the @hcpss email system within the following parameters:
• Date Range
o Between July 1, 2020 and the date of this request
• Mailbox Locations
o Board of Education members
o Patrick Saunderson
o Dr. Tiffany Tresler
o Dr. Caroline Walker
o Dr. Terrell Savage
o Michell Schalik
• Keywords
o (TRES OR Triadelphia) AND
o (“ed regional” OR “regional ed” OR “regional program” OR “emotional disability” OR “emotional disabilities”) AND
o (lockdown OR “modified hallway” OR “hallway modified” OR violence OR outburst OR “violent behavior”)
• Other Parameters
o TO (including CC) or FROM Board of Education members
o BETWEEN (anywhere on an email together) Patrick Saunderson and Tiffany Tressler
o TO (including CC) Caroline Walker or Terrell Savage
o FROM Michell Schalik

The attached emails met the above parameters. Exemptions found within these records include:
• Under MPIA GP § 4-330, we have redacted sociological information throughout where it contains personal phone numbers, addresses, age, and/or has the potential to pose a risk to individual safety or privacy.
• Under MPIA GP § 4-329 (b), which prevents disclosure of medical or psychological information about an individual person, we have redacted content throughout that could reveal individual medical information from the responsive records.
• Under MPIA GP § 4-311, which prevents disclosure of personnel records of an individual, we have redacted content throughout relating to matters involving an employee’s status, including leave and retirement.
• Under 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 made redactions throughout where content could reveal individual student information from the responsive records. This includes descriptive information pertaining to specific students and incidents that has the potential to reasonably identify an individual student given the regional program population that is the subject of this request.
• Under MPIA GP § 4-344, which allows a custodian to deny inspection of confidential opinions, deliberations, advice, or recommendations from one governmental employee or official to another for the purpose of assisting the latter in the decision-making function, we have made redactions on pages 24-25.
• Under MPIA GP § 4-301(1), which requires a custodian to deny inspection of a record if by law the record is privileged or confidential, we have made redactions on page 63 where information constitutes attorney-client communications/work product or deliberations regarding legal matters, and thus are subject to non-disclosure.
• Following manual review of the search contents, 16 email chains were removed as non-responsive where keywords (lockdown OR “modified hallway” OR “hallway modified” OR violence OR outburst OR “violent behavior”) appeared however not pertaining to staff, parent, or Board member discussions of concerns with the regional program at TRES.

Please note, further review would be needed to determine releasability of all attachments, links and/or external records noted within the responsive email content itself.
A correspondence record as provided by TRES administration regarding when the program started is the attached Principal’s Report from the school’s first PTA meeting of 2021.

*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.