Thursday, April 18, 2024
Subject – Counted in Membership Tab in OPAL
Wis. Stat. § 121.91(4)(p)1. provides a revenue limit non-recurring exemption to a resident district that made an open enrollment payment for a student who was not included in the district’s revenue limit membership for the previous school year.
One scenario where a resident school district would qualify for a revenue limit exemption would be when an alternative application student open enrolls out of the district after the Third Friday in September and was not included in the resident district’s membership report. This usually includes students who moved in from out of state or another Wisconsin school district or who had previously been attending a private school or homeschooling.
The resident district must determine whether the alternative application student that appears on this tab was counted on the district’s Third Friday membership report. Counted in membership means one of two things – either the student was counted as a resident attending the district in the district’s Head Count or the student was counted as a Resident Addition (OE Transfer Out student) on the district’s Third Friday membership report. If either of these things are true, the student should be marked as “counted”. If neither of these things are true, the student should be marked as “not counted”.
Resident districts should periodically review the Counted in Membership tab throughout the school year to monitor alternative application students who open enroll out during the school year.
In OPAL, please go to the Alt Apps tab, click on the Counted in Membership tab and change to Transfers Out. This tab includes a list of students who have transferred out of the resident district under an alternative application, with two columns titled “Counted in Membership” and “Not Counted in Membership”. This tab will be available until the OPAL rollover occurs in August.
For each student on this list, please select whether they were counted in membership on the Third Friday Count date, which for this school year was September 15, 2023.
If you have any questions, please contact us at openenrollment@dpi.wi.gov or call us at 888-245-2732, option 2.