Reminder on Cooperative Agreements and Tuition

Updated Tuesday, September 29, 2020

The SFS Team recognizes and appreciates the substantial work districts have been doing to provide virtual and other alternative instructional models for their students this fall. We have become aware of questions regarding intergovernmental “66.0301” cooperative agreements and tuition agreements between districts and would like to address possible unintended consequences that these agreements may have on this year’s student membership counts.

Districts may enter into cooperative agreements under Wis. Stat. § 66.0301 to collaborate for instruction by:

• Forming a cooperative to obtain and/or deliver services to member districts,
• Purchasing services directly from another district or cooperative, or
• Providing access to a specific program operated by another district.

Similarly, a tuition agreement under Wis. Stat. § 121.78(1) is used in order for a resident district to enroll a student with a nonresident district.

In either case, there are a number of important considerations:

1. Cooperative or tuition agreements may not be used to circumvent Open Enrollment law. A district that denies a nonresident student for Open Enrollment due to space may not then enroll another nonresident under a cooperative or tuition agreement.
2. The resident district retains the responsibility to ensure that all applicable standards are being met for its students receiving instructional services from a nonresident district under a cooperative or tuition agreement. These include, but are not limited to, school district standards under Wis. Stat. § 121.02(1) and free appropriate public education (FAPE) requirements under federal and state special education laws.
3. Assessment, accountability, WISEdata reporting, and FAPE responsibilities remain with the resident district under a cooperative or tuition agreement. There is one specific caveat related to accountability identifications for multidistrict charter and certain other virtual charter schools, but otherwise these responsibilities are not transferred as they are under Open Enrollment.
4. Cooperative agreements may not transfer residency or membership between districts. Wis. Adm. Code PI 14.02(2)(d) requires that cooperative agreements between districts "specify that pupil membership, for state aid purposes, shall be counted by each pupil's school district of residence."
5. Finally, any cooperative or tuition agreement must be entered into voluntarily by all participating districts and formally adopted by the districts’ school boards. A district is not required to accept a cooperative agreement presented by another district, nor is a district required to pay a tuition bill from another district without a cooperative or tuition agreement in place.

Districts should make sure that if they are counting and reporting students in their September 2020 PI-1563 pupil counts for membership under the “66.0301” or “Tuition” categories, those students are enrolled under duly adopted cooperative or tuition agreements and all applicable standards and responsibilities are being met with the instructional services they are receiving.