HCPSS MPIA Request #2025-121

Requestor
Mabel D. Tang
Requested Information
Pursuant to the MPIA, I am requesting the following:
1) All reports of incidents or accidents involving kindergarten students at Atholton Elementary School for the 2023-2024 school year.
2) All reports of incidents or accidents involving first grade students at Atholton Elementary School for the 2024-2025 school year.
3) A report of the number of incidents or accidents involving kindergarten students at Howard County Public Schools (HCPS) for the 2023-2024 school year and first grade students at HCPS for the 2024-2025 school year.
4) All internal communications and decision-making materials, including emails, memorandums, and internal correspondence between HCPSS administration and leadership, HCPSS principals, teachers, and staff, any HCPSS Board of Education members, HCPSS legal counsel, policy advisors, and any external legal consultants regarding Policy 1040 -- Safe and Supportive Schools.

I request the records in a searchable and analyzable electronic format.
Date Received
Status
Complete
Response Notes

Responsive to this request, data on health room visits are as follows:
# Health Room Visits
2023-24 AES K
365
2024-25 AES 1st
233
2023-24 HCPSS K
11490
2024-25 HCPSS 1st
8004
 

These counts reflect the number of Health Room Visits entered into our student database as of March 30, 2025, where the reported visit type is “New Injury.” 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.


Responsive to your request number 4, per clarification you are seeking records between January 30, 2001, to October 17, 2019, initially staff found no record of use of external legal consultants on Policy 1040. Based on the revision and modification dates found at the bottom of Policy
1040: https://policy.hcpss.org/1000/1040/, the following public records from Board of Education discussions are available:
• January 30, 2001: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/hcpssmd/Board.nsf/legacy-content/83NMN24D7E55/$FILE/01-30-01%20Reg%20BOE%20Mtg.pdf (see the bottom of page 14 - Policy 3445 – Violence and School Safety)
• April 12, 2007: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/hcpssmd/Board.nsf/legacy-content/83NKTT4D3D6A/$FILE/04%2012%2007%20Regular%20Meeting%20Approved.pdf (see the bottom of page 17 - Report of the Review Committee for Policy 3445 [1040] Violence and School Safety)
• November 3, 2011: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/hcpssmd/Board.nsf/files/8N2LZ5582A01/$file/11%2003%202011%20%20Policies%201000%20Civility%20and%201040%20Safe%20School%20BR.pdf
• June 12, 2014: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/hcpssmd/Board.nsf/files/9KQLRP52B970/$file/06%2012%202014%20Policy%201040.pdf
• October 17, 2019: https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/hcpssmd/Board.nsf/files/BGTL8B554A62/$file/10%2017%202019%20Policy%201040%20Safe%20and%20Supportive%20Schools%20BR.pdf.

Responsive Documents
Per clarification regarding your request number 4, please find attached the HCPSS Procedures for the Threat Management Process used during the timeframe of 2012 through 2019. Under MPIA GP § 4-352, an agency may withhold records related to emergency management, including records that are prepared to prevent emergency situations and where inspection may endanger the life or physical safety of an individual. As such, HCPSS has determined that disclosure of some content within this document, which contain prescriptive descriptions of threats and their sources, could compromise the administration of the assessment with students. In the hands of the public/a student, these could be used to bias responses/actions such that an staff member could not accurately gain the information needed to respond.

*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.