Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Dear District and Choice School Administrators,
Next week, Tuesday, October 1, DPI will release the secure preliminary versions of 2018-19 Accountability Report Cards. As in prior years, the preliminary report cards will be released via SAFE, the Secure Access File Exchange. The Accountability Report Cards are both preliminary and secure. As a secure report, they contain potentially identifiable student information, and have not been redacted. As such, and because the report cards are preliminary and subject to change, the secure reports and any information on the report cards may not be shared with your local media or with parents.
We plan to release public and final versions of the Accountability Report Cards on November 12, posted to the DPI website. The public versions will have redacted data and will be safe to share.
To prepare for next week’s secure release, I encourage you to do the following:
- Get access to SAFE—and delegate or update access to the Accountability Report Cards in SAFE—as soon as possible. Please visit and follow the steps on this page to access SAFE (https://dpi.wi.gov/wise/secure-home-info). If you have any questions about accessing SAFE, please contact the DPI help desk: https://dpi.wi.gov/wise/secure-home-info/asm-help-ticket.
- Read the attached What’s New document for 2018-19. As it explains, there are no calculation changes in the report cards this year, but the addition of Aspire data for grades 9 and/or 10 may have a significant impact on scores. Additionally, schools and districts with a Closing Gaps scores that changed at least 20 points (positive or negative) from last year will not receive a Closing Gaps score this year. In the majority of cases, these large score changes are due to changes in student groups that impact the calculations more than changes in performance, and schools cannot control the size of different populations. This is a one-year change as the Office of Educational Accountability is working with an Accountability Advisory Group, comprised of staff from public and choice schools and CESAs, to design a new closing gaps measure for 2019-20 accountability.
- Make use of the accountability resources we have available to help understand and explain the Accountability Report Cards. Additional resources will be added prior to the final public release. If you have questions about your school or district report card, or the data used for accountability, please contact the Office of Educational Accountability or your Accountability Trainer.
I will send another message to confirm when the preliminary report cards are available in SAFE on October 1. If you have any questions about this timeline, reach out to Laura Pinsonneault, Director of the Office of Educational Accountability (laura.pinsonneault@dpi.wi.gov).