HCPSS MPIA Request #2023-109

Requestor
Kristen Griffith
Organization/Agency
The Baltimore Banner
Requested Information
The Baltimore Banner is requesting a copy of contracts Howard County Public Schools have with vendors for English Language Arts textbooks, as well as supplemental materials, relevant to the teaching of reading in grades K through 5 since 2018.
Date Received
Status
Complete
Responsive Documents
Responsive to this request, and per clarification HCPSS does not issue contracts for textbooks and materials, we initially provided a report of purchase orders made from vendors whom our Elementary Language Arts staff has identified as those from-which such items have been used for system-wide purchases and the costs since 2018. No existing report identifies the individual items purchased, and as such, identification of the materials purchased and which purchases from the reports above are responsive to textbooks and materials specific to the teaching of reading in grades K-5 required manually pulling documentation for each purchase order. Please find attached all purchase orders issued since 2018 that have been identified as those containing central purchases of instructional resources and supplemental materials by the HCPSS English Language Arts Curriculum Office for system-wide first instruction in reading for grades K-5 and to support reading intervention. Under MPIA GP ยง 4-311, which prevents disclosure of personnel records of an individual, we have redacted employee identification numbers. Please note, this will not include materials that have been purchased by individual schools and other curriculum offices.

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***Howard County Public Schools reserves the right to remove erroneous or outdated documents from this site.