Friday, July 3, 2020
Dear District Administrators,
Following are updates regarding 2019-20 School Calendar Reporting and the 2021 YRBS.
1. 2019-20 School Calendar Reporting
The PI-1505-Calendar School Calendar Report collects the days and hours of instruction that have been provided by each school district during the prior school year. It is a statutory reporting requirement* that cannot be waived under Act 185, the state COVID-19 response bill. Districts must complete this report for 2019-20 whether or not they received a waiver of instructional hours from DPI.
The due date for the 2019-20 School Calendar Report is being extended to Friday, August 14, 2020.
Due to the health order to close schools, DPI understands that districts may have needed to shift their instructional models to virtual or other remote learning, which would affect the way instructional days and hours are counted and reported. Therefore, we are providing the following guidelines to assist with completing this report for the 2019-20 school year:
- Days and hours of instruction through mid-March should be determined and reported as usual.
- Days on which virtual or other remote instruction were provided while school buildings were closed by the COVID-19 public health order should be reported in the “Days of Instruction” category. Such instruction could have been provided synchronously or asynchronously with digital or analog resources, so long as teachers were engaged with students on the instructional resources provided.
- Scheduled school days on which no instruction was provided and buildings were closed due to a COVID-19 public health order should be reported in the “Closed by Health Officer” category.
- Scheduled days on which schools were closed preemptively due to COVID-19, as a local decision before a public health order was issued, should be reported in the “Closed by District Administrator” category.
- Spring break and other scheduled no-school days should not be reported in any category.
- Hours of instruction for each school should be determined with reasonable judgment, based on a district’s local assessment of how instruction was provided while the school building was closed, and whether or not a waiver of the instructional hours requirement was granted by DPI.
DPI staff will be developing guidance to school districts regarding days and hours of instruction for the 2020-21 school year.
* Wis. Stats. §§ 115.01(10) and 120.18(1)(d)
2. Postponement of the 2021 YRBS
The CDC recently determined that states are allowed to postpone their YRBS data collection from Spring 2021 to Fall 2021 given the extraordinary circumstances of COVID-19. DPI has therefore decided to postpone the 2021 YRBS from Spring 2021 until Fall 2021. We believe that this allows DPI to reduce the burden on schools while increasing the chances of a successful YRBS. While DPI has never been more interested in data on student wellbeing, we have evaluated the situation and determined that high quality data collection is not feasible for the 2021 academic year. We believe that the chances of securing high quality data on students’ mental, physical, social and emotional health will be improved by postponing the survey until more schools are able to reliably participate.