I’m requesting:
1. The number of emergency petitions initiated by public schools in your district for the 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 (as of May 15) school years including those initiated by school resource officers, and the number of petitions granted, disaggregated by:
a. School name
b. Student race
c. Student gender
d. Student age
e. Special education status
2. The justification for an emergency petition was filed
Responsive to this request, please find below available data tracked by HCPSS related to Emergency Petitions granted within schools. This data only exists since school year 2024-2025 when HCPSS implemented procedures for Licensed Certified Social Workers - Clinical (LCSW-C) within the Homewood Bridges Program to write Emergency Petitions in compliance with the Health General Article §10-622 of the Maryland Annotated Code. The data tracked represents individual instances of emergency petitions granted, and may represent repeat students at various times during the year. Please note, those within this data initiated by a School Resource Officer are done so in collaboration with the social workers on the Bridges Clinical Team. Emergency Petitions are also written in collaboration with the family in order to ensure a timely, safe response to behavior that was showing an imminent safety concern.
School Year School EP-School Social Worker EP-SRO
24-25 Homewood - Bridges *<10 *<10
25-26 Homewood - Bridges *<10 *<10
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.
Given the small populations and specific application of the use of Emergency Petitions to this program, additional demographic information about these instances are also being withheld.
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.
Beyond the Bridges Program, School Resource Officers may have initiated Emergency Petitions within their capacity as police officers under the authority of the Howard County Police Department, however HCPSS does not track that data. For reference, information on submission of an MPIA to the HCPD can be found on this website: https://www.howardcountymd.gov/PIA.