Requestor
Kelsey Carlson
Organization/Agency
Public Justice Center
Requested Information
Pursuant to Maryland Public Information Act (“PIA”), Md. Code Ann., General Provisions, § 4-101 et seq., we request copies of the following public documents and/or data held by Howard County Public School System:
1. School enrollment and characteristic data collected for 2023-24 as required by the Office of Civil Rights for the federal survey. (See the 2023-24 CRDC School Form which is downloadable and available at https://crdc.communities.ed.gov/resources/2023-24-school-form and the district (LEA) form downloadable and available at https://crdc.communities.ed.gov/resources/2023-24-lea-form. Alternatively these forms are available here: https://civilrightsdata.ed.gov/assets/downloads/2023-24-crdc-school-form-final.pdf and
https://civilrightsdata.ed.gov/assets/downloads/2023-24-crdc-lea-form-final.pdf
Please provide for each school in Howard County Public School System as well as the district level information covering the following required reporting elements:
School Enrollment Data (for example ENRL-1 to ENRL-4 in the school level form at pages 21-25)
• Total number of students enrolled in school (disaggregated by race, sex, disability-IDEA, disability-504 only, LEP).
• Number of students with disabilities (disaggregated by race, sex, LEP).
• Number of LEP students and number of students enrolled in LEP programs (disaggregated by race, sex, disability-IDEA).
School & District Characteristics (for example SCHR-1 to SCHR-7 in the school level form; and CRCO-1 to CRCO-3 in the LEA form)
• Whether the school is an alternative school (and if so, for academic or discipline or both).
• Whether the school is focused primarily on serving students with disabilities.
• Whether the school is a charter school.
• Contact information for Civil Rights Coordinator(s) (LEA).
• Whether an LEA is covered by desegregation order or plan (LEA).
2. School discipline data required to be collected for 2023-24 and reported to the Office of Civil Rights for the federal CRDC survey. From the same above referenced document, we request the discipline data for each school in Howard County Public School System as well as the district level information.
This request covers the following information from sections labeled:
● DISC: Student Discipline (Suspension, Expulsion, Corporal Punishment)
○ Note, this includes DISC-27: School Days Missed Due to Out-of-School Suspension
● ARRS: Referrals to Law Enforcement & School-Related Arrests (pages __in the school survey form)
● RSTR: Restraint and Seclusion (pages ___ in the school survey form)
For each of the above requests please disaggregate the data exactly as required by OCR and in the same manner.
If the data requested have not yet been collected please regard this as a standing request for the data that you are required to report to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights pursuant to the CRDC, such that this request applies on the date that you have completed the collection of the data specified in this request. Once the data are certified as accurate please provide it to us on or before the day that it is reported to the federal government.
Note: Currently the OCR website states that the data are due between December 9, 2024, and March 7, 2025.
Additional Disaggregation of Discipline Data: We request the data in the same format as required by OCR for the 2021-22 academic school year. However, we also request that the data for the students suspended out of school just once be combined with those students suspended more than once, especially where combining these mutually exclusive categories will overcome the need to redact information to avoid the disclosure of personally identifiable information.
This request seeks no personally identifiable information: Generally speaking, we request the same data submitted to OCR and agree to the use of the minimum degree of redaction and/or rounding of numbers to safeguard our request from containing personally identifiable information and to conform with all federal and state privacy protection requirements.
1. School enrollment and characteristic data collected for 2023-24 as required by the Office of Civil Rights for the federal survey. (See the 2023-24 CRDC School Form which is downloadable and available at https://crdc.communities.ed.gov/resources/2023-24-school-form and the district (LEA) form downloadable and available at https://crdc.communities.ed.gov/resources/2023-24-lea-form. Alternatively these forms are available here: https://civilrightsdata.ed.gov/assets/downloads/2023-24-crdc-school-form-final.pdf and
https://civilrightsdata.ed.gov/assets/downloads/2023-24-crdc-lea-form-final.pdf
Please provide for each school in Howard County Public School System as well as the district level information covering the following required reporting elements:
School Enrollment Data (for example ENRL-1 to ENRL-4 in the school level form at pages 21-25)
• Total number of students enrolled in school (disaggregated by race, sex, disability-IDEA, disability-504 only, LEP).
• Number of students with disabilities (disaggregated by race, sex, LEP).
• Number of LEP students and number of students enrolled in LEP programs (disaggregated by race, sex, disability-IDEA).
School & District Characteristics (for example SCHR-1 to SCHR-7 in the school level form; and CRCO-1 to CRCO-3 in the LEA form)
• Whether the school is an alternative school (and if so, for academic or discipline or both).
• Whether the school is focused primarily on serving students with disabilities.
• Whether the school is a charter school.
• Contact information for Civil Rights Coordinator(s) (LEA).
• Whether an LEA is covered by desegregation order or plan (LEA).
2. School discipline data required to be collected for 2023-24 and reported to the Office of Civil Rights for the federal CRDC survey. From the same above referenced document, we request the discipline data for each school in Howard County Public School System as well as the district level information.
This request covers the following information from sections labeled:
● DISC: Student Discipline (Suspension, Expulsion, Corporal Punishment)
○ Note, this includes DISC-27: School Days Missed Due to Out-of-School Suspension
● ARRS: Referrals to Law Enforcement & School-Related Arrests (pages __in the school survey form)
● RSTR: Restraint and Seclusion (pages ___ in the school survey form)
For each of the above requests please disaggregate the data exactly as required by OCR and in the same manner.
If the data requested have not yet been collected please regard this as a standing request for the data that you are required to report to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights pursuant to the CRDC, such that this request applies on the date that you have completed the collection of the data specified in this request. Once the data are certified as accurate please provide it to us on or before the day that it is reported to the federal government.
Note: Currently the OCR website states that the data are due between December 9, 2024, and March 7, 2025.
Additional Disaggregation of Discipline Data: We request the data in the same format as required by OCR for the 2021-22 academic school year. However, we also request that the data for the students suspended out of school just once be combined with those students suspended more than once, especially where combining these mutually exclusive categories will overcome the need to redact information to avoid the disclosure of personally identifiable information.
This request seeks no personally identifiable information: Generally speaking, we request the same data submitted to OCR and agree to the use of the minimum degree of redaction and/or rounding of numbers to safeguard our request from containing personally identifiable information and to conform with all federal and state privacy protection requirements.
Date Received
Status
Complete
Responsive Documents
Responsive to this request, please find attached the data as submitted and certified for the 2023-2024 Civil Rights Data Collection by HCPSS on February 27, 2025. 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 (see also specific suppression techniques contained within the responsive record): 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. 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.