December 18, 2020 For Immediate Release
Baltimore City Public Schools is coordinating with the Maryland Office of the Inspector General for Education (OIGE) in response to its request for information regarding the effectiveness of its student grading review procedures from 2015 to the present.
While information requests from the OIGE are not subject to public disclosure, City Schools is affirmatively sharing this information, with permission from the OIGE, in a spirit of transparency. City Schools is committed to collaborating with the OIGE’s review, consistent with all applicable laws regarding the student and employee information that the OIGE may require City Schools to provide.
To date, City Schools has shared over 41 gigabytes of documents, including all of the material that City Schools previously provided in response to litigation by Sinclair Broadcasting, which includes records from multiple investigations that City Schools launched as part of its internal efforts to safeguard the integrity of its grading and reporting policies.
In full support and transparency, the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners updated Board Policy IKA, governing grading and reporting, in May 2019. And City Schools staff have developed protocols for reviewing and auditing requests for grade changes to ensure consistency with Policy IKA.
As part of this information request, the OIGE may require City Schools to release some personally identifiable student information. By law, that information is protected and will not be made public under any circumstances. To the extent permitted by law and with permission from the OIGE, City Schools will notify all families that may be impacted by this disclosure.
City Schools looks forward to any recommendations of additional opportunities for improvement that the OIGE may offer after its review of the material provided by City Schools. The OIGE information request is consistent with both agencies’ missions to promote the well-being of all students in the City of Baltimore and throughout Maryland.