HCPSS MPIA Request #2023-107

Requestor
Angela Nichols
Requested Information
I am requesting information on the number of students that were placed in out of state private placements for academic years 2019-2020 to 2021-2022 and the names of those private institutions. In addition I am requesting information about where the costs for that are included in HCPSS’ annual budget. I am not requesting student names or any private information.
Date Received
Status
Complete
Responsive Documents
Responsive to this request, please find attached data available on HCPSS students in out of state private placements. 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: 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.

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***Howard County Public Schools reserves the right to remove erroneous or outdated documents from this site.