Student Discipline Collection in ISES

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 requires a major expansion in the discipline data reported to the public and the US Department of Education. This expansion takes effect beginning with the collection of 2006-07 discipline data from Wisconsin school districts and non-district charter schools in the summer and early fall of 2007. It is not too early to consider changes in your district's local discipline data record-keeping procedures in order to prepare for this change.

You may know that discipline data required by state law and a more limited range of IDEA-required data has over the past several years been collected as part of the Wisconsin School Performance Report (SPR) aggregate collection. This collection is already extensive, and confusing, and we believe change is needed to improve data quality.

After a thorough review of the new IDEA requirements, DPI has concluded that collecting the expanded set of discipline data in the SPR aggregate collection is no longer a feasible alternative to a student-level discipline collection. Consequently, the 2005-06 will be the final year of the WI SPR discipline collection. The required 2006-07 discipline data will be collected from districts and nondistrict charter schools as part of the Individual Student Enrollment System (ISES). With this change it will also be possible to eliminate the collection of school-safety and discipline data in the ESEA Consolidated End of Year Report.

Whereas the collection of discipline data at the student level is new to Wisconsin, the vast majority of states responding to a recent 50-state survey indicated that they are already collecting these data at the student level. DPI believes that collecting the expanded set of discipline data at the student-level will be more efficient for districts and will result in higher-quality data than we have had in the past. It will also provide more flexibility in addressing future growth and changes in mandates without significantly changing the data collected or the data collection system.

Protecting student privacy will be Wisconsin's highest priority in the design of the new discipline data collection. Privacy will be protected through existing and new ISES security procedures and by collecting only the student data required. We will then destroy the student level discipline data after these requirements have been met.

School district staff can take steps to ease this transition to the new way of collecting discipline data. General information to begin the planning process is provided on the Web at http://dpi.wi.gov/lbstat/isesprepar.html#step_e. Data elements, definitions, and collection categories are posted at http://dpi.wi.gov/lbstat/isesdiscip.html, and specifications are at http://dpi.wi.gov/lbstat/doc/isesspec_disc.doc. Answers to possible parent questions about the student level discipline collection can be found at http://dpi.wi.gov/lbstat/isesfaq5.html. If you have questions about this change, you may send email to dpistats@dpi.wi.gov.

cc:	Special Education Directors
	Pupil Services Directors
	SPR Coordinators
	WSLS/ISES Administrators and Assistant Administrators

Submit questions, comments, and suggestions about the WSLS or ISES to dpistats@dpi.wi.gov or call 1-800-507-5744.

Submit questions regarding the ESEA Report Card Requirements to dpieseadata@dpi.wi.gov.

For help with this page contact the DPI Helpdesk Expert

Last updated on 2/28/2008 7:56:04 AM