HCPSS MPIA Request #2024-042

Requestor
Daniel Zawodny
Organization/Agency
The Baltimore Banner
Requested Information
We are requesting any communication between any Howard County Public Schools officials, in particular, Brian Nevin and Michael Martirano, and consulting firm Decision Support Group. This request includes communication with employees of the consulting firm's parent company, Center for Effective School Operations.
Date Received
Status
Complete
Responsive Documents
Responsive to this request, and per clarification this request did not include text communications, we conducted a search of the @hcpss email system within the following parameters:
• Date Range
o Between April 15, 2021 and January 14, 2022
• Mailbox Locations
o Dr. Michael Martirano
o Brian Nevin
• Participants
o @decisionsupportgroup.com

Which resulted in the attached records. Please note, Center for Effective School Operations is not noted in the contract nor is staff aware of any communications with that organization. Exemptions found within these records include:
● Under MPIA GP § 4-330, we have redacted sociological information where it contained personal phone numbers and/or has the potential to pose a risk to individual safety or privacy.
● Under MPIA GP § 4-338, which requires a custodian to deny inspection of information about the security of an information system, we have redacted unique identifiers such as login, password, and database server information.

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.
Under MPIA GP § 4-335, which prevents disclosure of confidential trade secret, commercial or financial records furnished by an outside unit, unique hourly pricing by position and service, and customer reference information (also under MPIA GP § 4-310), have been redacted as they have the potential to impair our ability to obtain similar information in the future. Additionally, under MPIA GP § 4-330, we have redacted sociological information where it contained a government issued identification number, personal phone number, personal address, and/or has the potential to pose a risk to individual safety or privacy. For reference, this publicly available Bids and Contracts report (see PR-32) contains the total estimated dollar amount of the awarded contract: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/hcpssmd/Board.nsf/files/C3ZQQ6698EC3/$file/06%2024%202021%20Bids%20and%20Contracts%20BR.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.