To: All public school WISEdata primary, secondary, and generic contacts
Date: 7/16/2024
Subject: DPI Back to School Reminders & Updates
Hello and welcome to the 2024-25 school year!
The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) wants to ensure you’re off to a great start whether you are brand new to your school or could tackle this to-do list in your sleep. Here are some changes and reminders regarding the new school year. We recognize this is a lengthy communication but encourage you to read it all to ensure you don’t miss a key update.
Training Opportunities
Back to School Kickoff Training
We are pleased to announce the return of the WISE Back to School Kickoff! This training is intended for school staff looking to learn more about WISE, ask questions, and hear what questions other schools are asking about their data. Please join us as we work through tips and updates for schools to have the best start to the new school year.
We will cover items such as setting up contacts in multiple WISE systems, setting English Language Proficiency (ELP) scores, requesting WISE application access, common validation messages, and issues setting up the new school year’s data. The Customer Service Team will host with subject matter expert guest speakers from other DPI teams, including Special Education and Career and Technical Education.
Register for an option that fits your schedule.
Virtual: August 21-- 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
In-person Madison Area: August 26—9 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
In-person Green Bay Area: August 30—9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
In-person Milwaukee Area: September 3-- 9 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
New User Training
Aside from the Back to School Kickoff training, the Customer Service Team offers recurring, monthly NEW User WISEdata training sessions. The goal of this training is to teach you how to navigate the WISEdata Portal, troubleshoot errors/warnings in your data, and seek help resources. It will also touch on the DPI website documentation and a few other WISE applications, such as WISEid and WISEsecure. This course is geared towards new users at the school and district level or those unfamiliar with the WISEdata Portal.
If you’re brand new to your WISEdata role or need a refresher, check the WISEdata Events Calendar for dates/times.
Weekly WISE User Group and WISEstaff User Group Webinars
Check the WISEdata Events Calendar for our weekly user group webinars. Join one or both groups to hear the latest updates, view application demos, and ask questions directly to DPI staff!
Join our WISE Community
To hear the most up-to-date WISE-related announcements, learn about system updates, and connect with your peers for tips and guidance, join our Microsoft Teams WISE Community. It’s a collaborative space for asking questions, as well as the new spot the Customer Service Team will share training slide decks, user group materials, etc. Submit a Help Ticket with your name and work email address, requesting to join the WISE Community.
School Directory Management Portal
The School Directory application is open for 2024-25 updates to contact information, KG information, and grade level ranges. As a reminder, you can find contact information and much more in the Wisconsin School Directory Public Portal. User Guides for the School Directory Management Portal are available for your convenience. A printable checklist is also available for public schools as a ‘pilot’ document. Please Submit Feedback to let us know your experience if you use it, so we can continue to improve our documentation. If you still need to open or close a school, submit the School Modification form.
SIS Vendors and Ed-Fi Credential Application
Make sure your SIS or specialty vendor subscriptions are correctly set up to maintain data flow with DPI. The Ed-Fi Credential application now shows your subscriptions from the past three years, helping you plan before creating or modifying them.
NOTE: The Ed-Fi Credential Application User guide webpage has been updated for the 2024-25 school year. We appreciate your feedback on these changes!
Considering a switch or addition to your SIS vendor? If your school/district is changing SIS vendors, or adding or changing a third-party vendor, such as special education or discipline, please let us know as soon as possible by starting a Help Ticket and selecting “SIS Conversion: New SIS Set-up" from the application drop-down. Some helpful things to consider:
It is important that Ed-Fi Credential subscriptions are set up correctly and that any data from a prior vendor is available for all applicable future snapshots.
NOTE: It is recommended that you do not delete your existing subscription but add a NO ACCESS AFTER year constraint instead. Deleting a subscription that has been used can create problems for updating prior year data.
If switching or adding vendors tools, ensure your subscription(s) are added or modified in advance of the new school year but after the DPI start of the new school year (July 1). Mid-year vendor switches are discouraged. Submit a Help Ticket with your questions. You can also review our SIS conversion guidance for more in-depth info.
Update Agency Contacts
Please check your contacts to confirm that everything is up to date. An out-of-date contact list means that important communications will not get to the right people. Updating your primary, secondary, generic, and snapshot-specific contacts is a very important step for each new school year, as well as any time throughout the school year if/when staffing changes occur.
Review the Updating Agency Contacts mini tutorial for more information on how to update contacts in: WISEadmin Portal, WISEid, WISEdata Portal, and WISEstaff.
WISEadmin Tasks
District Library Plan
The District Library Plan will be collected in the December 10, 2024, snapshot. Library plans are required by administrative code. Remember to use the new reporting tool in WISEadmin Portal.
Local Assessment Data Use
Since the 2021-22 school year, DPI continues to offer a unified data sharing agreement for districts wishing to use their MAP local assessment data with secure WISEdash for Districts. If you haven’t already, learn how to opt in to local assessment sharing by reviewing the Local Assessment Data Use Information page.
Immunization Registry SIS Integration
DPI allows SIS vendors to obtain a student’s immunization data from Wisconsin Immunization Registry (WIR), saving significant data entry time for school nurses and improving accuracy of the data. To opt in, please follow the instructions on the Immunization Registry Integration webpage. Contact your SIS vendor to verify if this feature is available and for the procedure to enable it.
Digital Equity
Help close the digital equity gap to ensure high-quality learning for all children in Wisconsin through access to robust broadband and digital learning resources! It is recommended to collect this information annually. Just like any data rolled over from year to year, there should be a mechanism to reconfirm and update the data that is rolled over. Acknowledge the Digital Equity & Student Address - Data Sharing agreement and “turn on student address”. Find more detailed information on the DPI Broadband DUA webpage.
Data Errata Categories
The Data Errata webpage has been reorganized to reflect the data errata categories as they appear in the WISEadmin Portal. The webpage also hosts a template data errata letter for WISEdata and template data errata letter for WISEstaff to assist with your errata submission.
WISEdata Annual Tasks Checklist
Please use the WISEdata Annual Tasks Checklist to help ensure you complete the necessary wrap-up for last year and begin the start of year tasks to prepare for each of the snapshots. There is also the Choice Schools: Yearly Data Reporting Resources webpage. New additions this year include the printable companion checklist documents: one for public and one for Choice.
2023-24 Prior School Year Wrap-up Tasks
The WISEdata Annual Tasks Checklist webpage, year-end tasks section has a complete, hyperlinked listing for your convenience.
Exit ALL 2023-24 enrollments:
If you have not yet done so, please ensure that you add an exit date and exit type for every student for 2023-24, including continuing students.
Ensure high school completers are reported with the appropriate credential type.
Be sure to continue to review data quality indicators, especially surrounding attendance, discipline, roster, and career education.
2023-24 Data Review
DPI does not have an official summer deadline, but we still encourage you to submit and clean up your 2023-24 data before the 2024-25 school year begins. DPI will review specific data areas to identify any glaring issues but can’t review data that has not made it to DPI.
Mid-August:
DPI will review the below data areas:
Attendance and Absenteeism
Pay special attention to Warnings and L2 validation errors related to Attendance, like 0% and 100%.
Discipline data
If using a Discipline vendor, ensure you have a subscription and that your SIS subscription has the appropriate Resource Access.
Roster and Career Education; see also CTE.
Late August:
DPI Customer Services will contact schools identified as needing more assistance with the above data areas. We will connect with the WISEdata contacts identified.
If no new 2024-25 school contacts have been entered into WISEdata at that time, we will use contacts from last school year.
If you know of someone new who might not have received this communication, please forward it and ensure they are added as a WISEdata contact.
When reviewing the quality of your data, make use of the WISEdash snapshot dashboards.
Review WISEdata Portal and update your 2023-24 school year data to resolve any lingering warnings or errors.
Focus Items:
Critical Errors: Look over any critical errors in the WISEdata Portal. Critical errors prevent the data from making it to the WISEdash data warehouse.
Overlapping Enrollment: Resolve any overlapping enrollment dates. The WISEdata Portal Overview mini tutorial webpage provides more detailed information about the Overlapping Enrollment screen in WISEdata Portal. If you need to remove records, for example, in the case of an overlapping enrollment, please visit the Removing Records from WISEdata Portal mini tutorial webpage. If you’d appreciate the assistance of a Customer Services Team member for this, please submit a Help Ticket.
2024-25: Tasks for the New School Year
WISEdata Portal and Ed-Fi Credential API
The WISEdata Ed-Fi API officially opens for the 2024-25 school year on July 23, 2024. After this time, you can send 2024-25 data to WISEdata if your SIS vendor has certified with us and has notified you they are ready. Vendors may wait to open the new school year until August 1, 2024.
In advance of August 1, 2024, work with your local SIS to roll over continuing students, add new students, and enter enrollment records.
Please start sending 2024-25 data as soon as your vendor is ready. The earlier you submit, the more time you will have to review, validate, and correct as necessary prior to the December 10, 2024, snapshot.
2024-25 WISEdata Collection Reporting Changes
While there are no new required data elements, there are a couple new optional data elements, a deprecated data element, and some updates to existing data elements.
Deprecated for 2023-24:
The “Rigor Level” attribute from the course list will be eliminated in the 2025-26 school year. For 2024-25, DPI will run validations and display a warning when an LEA submits a course code that is marked as deprecated.
Learning Modality Type: As of the 2024-25 school year, this data element is not required. It was previously required under ESSER and is no longer needed for federal reporting. WISEdata Portal validations have been turned off for the 2024-25 school year, and this data element is not needed for 2023-24 year-end (YE) reporting.
Updated for 2024-25 School Year:
Attendance:
On July 1, 2024, DPI released a revised edition of the Non-Attending Minor Students and Attendance Process FAQ. Access specifics about the changes, and the document itself, on the School Attendance Improvement and Truancy Prevention webpage. This document is intended to provide answers to frequently asked questions regarding the attendance process for situations where minor students stop attending school for long periods of time. The revisions include a more accessible format, reminders related to topics that must be covered as part of the district truancy plan, clarity around district withdrawal procedures, and considerations for non-attending students with IEPs.
The daily negative attendance is a new optional data collection starting in the 2024-25 school year. This supplementary data will be beneficial, as it allows for the issuance of exports in the WISEdata Portal when there are uncertainties or discrepancies in meeting membership attendance requirements.
Career and Technical Education:
Cluster Title: Cluster Title is the career cluster for the CTE concentrator career pathway (formerly career pathway type).
Starting in the 2024-25 school year, the program type ‘Certified Career Education' is updated to Industry Recognized Credentials (IRC). They are entered into the SIS and associated with a course or directly with individual students (referred to as a student program association). DPI prefers associating IRCs at the course level so that we can measure how many teachers are eligible to teach IRCs.
Starting in 2024-25, the program type ‘Non-certified Career Education' is updated to Work-Based Learning (WBL).
CTE Department: CTE Department is being differentiated from Program Area Type. LEAs can now let DPI know which CTE Department they are offering through the /section and /studentSectionAssociation. DPI needs to know this information to complete the Civil Rights Compliance report for Carl Perkins.
Some CTE courses can be taught by multiple CTE Departments (also known as Program Area Types). For instance, the Telecommunications course (6687) is linked to two CTE Departments: Business and Information Technology Education and Technology and Engineering Education. When an LEA reports these courses, they must inform DPI of the selected CTE Department for the reported course through the /section resource. Starting in the 2024-25 school year, the CTE Department (courseLevelCharacteristicDescriptor) reported on /section will be a new data element collected. There are six CTE Departments in total.
CESA WISE Support Staff
The CESA WISE Support Staff webpage displays newly updated staff for CESAs 1 – 12. CESA 7 is now providing stand-alone support.
Courses
The Courses data element page has been updated to SCED 11. The Courses page now only displays a few filters. Remember that the Course list appears in WISEdata Portal under the Resources menu. A full set of filters is available on this WISEdata Portal screen.
In the Courses download, DPI has identified which departments can teach what courses. This information is in Column I (CTE Department).
WISE applications plan to remove the rigor level in the 2025-26 school year. Most of these course codes are labeled as deprecated. We are retaining course codes with the 'general' rigor level and AP/IB courses with the 'advanced' rigor level. LEAs can still send these deprecated course codes, but they will receive warning 6798 prompting them to update the course code.
New Courses: The World Language list has been expanded to include Ojibwe, Afghan Persian/Dari, K'iche'/Quiché, Kabuverdianu, Rohingya, and Sign Languages. LEAs will be able to report these languages to WISEdata through the student demographic record (/studentEducationOrganizationAssociations) starting in the 2024-25 school year. This expansion aims to be more inclusive and reflective of the diverse student body.
Other Data Element Updates:
The Economically Disadvantaged Status and Food Service Eligibility data element pages have been updated with the following important forms for the 2024-25 school year:
Alternate Household Income forms
CEP forms
Income Guideline forms
The Parent/Guardian data element page contains information about changes to the Summer EBT (S-EBT) program that may affect families. Secure data sharing occurs between DPI and the Department of Health Services (DHS), the Wisconsin state agency that assists with all EBT funds. This secure data sharing eases the burdens for both our citizens and the agencies because it removes duplicate requests and reporting. The data elements required for S-EBT funds are:
Parent/Guardian address
Parent/Guardian, legal guardian status: NEW for 2024-25 school year
Parent/Guardian, lives with: NEW for 2024-25 school year
Parent/Guardian, primary contact status: NEW for 2024-25 school year
PK: Changes have been made to the definitions of and use of the codes PK and K3 to reflect more accurate data collection requirements. PK is not a grade. Grades are defined by Wis. Stat. §115.01(2). PK is a code signifying educational services obtained by students who: have not reached the age for first grade (aged 3, 4, or 5), and are not enrolled in K4 or KG, have an IEP, and receive primary educational services from the LEA/agency.
The PK code has been removed for some agency types from the School Directory Management Portal application. Visit the School Directory Annual Updates webpage for more information. PK will still appear in WISEdata Portal and on WISEdash platforms as a grade level.
K3 no longer appears on applications.
Please visit the following webpages for more information:
Special Education Indicator 11 data elements:
DPI is requiring Timely Initial Evaluations (Indicator 11) data to be reported through WISE to better support our local educational agency (LEA) staff time and efforts by reducing the number of applications they need to access to report the required data.
Beginning immediately, all data element fields must contain valid data or will be found to be in error (not warning) status.
Starting with the 2023-24 school year and onwards:
DPI will get Indicator 11 values from data submitted by LEAs to WISEdata.
All Indicator 11 data elements must be submitted by all LEAs each school year through WISEdata.
All LEAs will report Indicator 11 data annually through WISE. In the past, only LEAs “in cycle” were required to submit data in any given year.
The first instance of Indicator 11 data being collected as part of the 2023-24 Year-End collection in a snapshot will be December 10, 2024, during the 2024-25 school year.
To ensure that the data is valid and reliable, please note the following:
All students who are evaluated for special education must have a WISEid (for children below compulsory school age or parentally placed in private or home-based schooling, please visit the Student Education Organization Responsibility Association (SEORA) data element page.
Data cannot flow to DPI unless it is entered into your SIS. To resolve issues around data that is entered into the SIS that isn’t flowing to DPI, LEAs need to work with their vendor support staff to resolve data flow issues.
The State must annually report on the percent of children evaluated within 60 days of receiving parental consent for initial evaluation as part of the State Performance Plan (SPP). This refers to children that an LEA has received a referral for evaluation to determine if the student is eligible for special education services.
(WiSFiP) Pupil Count for Membership data elements – Pilot Continues
Thank you to the 30+ school districts who have participated in the Wisconsin School Finance Portal (WiSFiP) Pupil Count pilot. We appreciate the feedback we have received. Based on that feedback, the department has decided to continue the pilot through the 2024-25 school year. We are using the feedback provided to review and update the system. SAFR will remain the official record for this year’s September and January Pupil Counts. Dual reporting will not occur in 2024-25.
The Pilot Project for the Membership Pupil Count Collection (referred to more simply as ‘Pupil Count’) through WiSFiP will ease the burden of data collection from users associated with the PI-1563. The Pilot WiSFiP will pre-fill counts for most of the pupil count categories from WISEdata into WiSFiP, leaving a much smaller, and far more manageable, amount of data for districts to enter manually. These pre-populated data fields can be edited as needed, allowing users to maintain accuracy of data and save them time. Pilot districts will complete reporting in WiSFiP in addition to completing PI-1563.
The SFS Team will provide updates throughout the year on the pilot. In addition, the team will develop additional resources and guidance on the WiSFiP Pupil Count Module. We may also expand the number of districts participating in the pilot. Thank you again for your continued participation in the pilot and for your feedback as we work together to implement the Wisconsin School Finance Portal (WiSFiP) Pupil Count.
WISEdash for Districts Related Items
NEW! Cohorts User Guide
NEW! Tribal Affiliations Cohort User Guide
NEW! Dynamic Public Cohorts, data element pages:
Connect with DPI’s WISExplore Team to receive coaching on how to use WISEdash to the fullest!
WISEstaff and WISEid Related Items
WISEstaff Collection Timeline:
DPI has set the deadline for which agencies must submit staffing data for their preliminary staff snapshot in WISEstaff and the resulting preliminary audit. This timeline allows for earlier notice to audited entities of issues surrounding licensure and an ability to better assist school boards with their obligation under Wis. Stat. §121.02 to ensure staff are properly licensed for their assignments. Visit the WISEstaff Data Collection: Reporting Information page for more details.
The WISEstaff application will open on 9/27/2024.
The Preliminary Certification Deadline will occur on 11/12/2024.
The Final Certification deadline will fall on 3/18/2025.
Weekly WISEstaff User Group calls are also hosted every Tuesday from 11:00 a.m. to noon, starting in October, going through March. Check the WISE Events Calendar for details.
Student and Staff Identity Integration:
Many of you may have already been using Student Identity Integration with your SIS to search WISEid to see if a WISEid already exists for a student (or review a list of possible matches and select) or if a WISEid needs to be generated. NEW! This feature that allows you to stay in your SIS instead of using the WISEid application is now also available for Staff Identity Integration! Visit the Staff and Student Identity Integration webpage for details, including a list of vendors who support this new feature.
WISEid and WISEstaff Files and Templates Webpages:
The Files and Templates webpage has been split into two separate webpages located at the following URLs:
WISEid Files and Templates URL: https://dpi.wi.gov/wiseid/filelayout-templates
WISEstaff Files and Templates URL: https://dpi.wi.gov/wisestaff/filelayout-templates
Updated Guidance on Change Requests
Birth date change requests require comments. If a birth date change request is submitted without the proper comment, DPI will automatically deny the change request with the following comment:
“Comments entered on change requests for birth dates must indicate that the district has approved the change request based on district policy for such changes. District policies determine what document or information is required by a district to prove the birth date and what is required may vary by district.” The KBA for Error 6394 has also been updated to reflect this DPI requirement.
Thank You for Your Hard Work!
As always, we thank you for working diligently to ensure that your staff and students’ needs are met. DPI is always here to assist and support you.
For a multitude of WISE resources, see our WISE Help page.
Remember to check our WISE Events Calendar for opportunities to join us for our training sessions and weekly user group calls.
Reach out to us with any questions or concerns by submitting a WISE Help Ticket.
We look forward to a wonderful school year with you!
Regards,
DPI Customer Service