HCPSS MPIA Request #2026-146

Requestor
Alita-Geri Carter
Requested Information
Pursuant to the Maryland Public Information Act, General Provisions Article §§ 4-101 to 4-601, I am requesting to inspect or obtain copies of the following public records for the 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025, 2025-2026 school year:

De-identified Aggregate Data: Reports or spreadsheets showing the total number of students at Phelps Luck Elementary considered for Extended School Year (ESY) services and the number of those students determined to be ineligible.

Special Education Compliance Audits: Any school-level internal monitoring reports or "trend data" related to Phelps Luck Elementary regarding the documentation of "critical life skills" and "regression/recoupment" data in IEPs.

Instructional Communications: All internal school-level memoranda, emails, or guidance documents sent to IEP chairs or special education staff at Phelps Luck Elementary regarding the criteria or standards to be used for ESY eligibility determinations for the 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025, 2025-2026 cycle.

Behavioral Support Trends: De-identified data or reports summarizing the frequency of documented "social-emotional dysregulation" incidents or behavioral escalations at Phelps Luck Elementary that resulted in late arrivals or excused absences for students with IEPs.
Date Received
Status
Complete
Response Notes

Responsive to your first request, please find attached data from an available tracking record that includes Extended School Year (ESY) eligibility determinations specific to Phelps Luck Elementary School for each student considered during school years 2023-2024, 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 YTD. With this exception of the current school year, this reflects a point in time as of the end of that school year. Please note, this tracking began in SY2023-2024, therefore no similar data exists prior to that year.

Responsive to your second request, with the exception of information kept within the above tracking for the first year only (SY2023-2024), no ‘trend data’ beyond what may be reflected in individual student IEPs exists regarding the documentation of critical life skills and regression/recoupment data in IEPs. Please note, under the MPIA process, and as advised in the Nineteenth 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.

Additionally, while individual student records may also reflect attendance notes with more details, no data summarizes the frequency of documented social-emotional dysregulation incidents or behavioral escalations at Phelps Luck Elementary that resulted in late arrivals or excused absences for students with IEPs exists under your fourth request. For reference, we have provided a list of documented attendance reasons used for data purposes.

Responsive to your third request for instructional communications provided to school-level special education staff regarding criteria or standards to be used for ESY eligibility determinations, the attached records were identified as related portions of professional learning and guidance provided during the current school year. Please note, further review would be needed to determine releasability of all attachments, links and/or external records noted within the responsive document content itself. Additional time would be needed to review guidance on eligibility determinations for prior years that would be found within county-wide professional learning each year.

Responsive Documents

*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.