HCPSS MPIA Request #2025-173

Responsive to this request, and per clarification by “successfully completed the course” you were seeking those who passed, please find attached available data on AP Biology enrollment and passage for the past five years. Please note, a passing grade is a D or higher. 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. HCPSS has made substantial efforts to ensure the accuracy of this information; however, data collection and reporting are 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.

No existing report breaks down passing grades received in a course by student grade level (10th), therefore the passage data reflects all students enrolled in the course who received a letter grade. Please note, under the MPIA process, and as advised in the Eighteenth Edition of the Maryland Public Information Act Manual created by Maryland’s Office of the Attorney General, an agency is only obligated to produce existing records and is not required to generate new data or summarize data.