From:	DPI Open Enrollment
Sent:	Wednesday, August 1, 2018 8:32 AM
To:	Danfield, Jennifer L.  DPI
Subject:	2018-19 OPAL Rollover

To – District Administrators and Open Enrollment Coordinators
 
From – Jen Danfield, Open Enrollment Consultant
 
Subject – 2018-19 OPAL Rollover
 
OPAL has rolled over for 2018-19 school year. When you click on the Students tab or any sub-
tab under Students, the default year is 2018-19. On the Applications tab, the default year is 
2019-20 (therefore, the page is empty). If you need to work with applications, you will need to 
change the school year to 2018-19. On the Alt Apps tab, the default year is 2018-19. 

The Actively Open Enrolled list is empty. The All Students list will contain the names of all 
students who were open enrolled at the end of the 2017-18 school year (except for seniors and 
those students who withdrew over the summer) PLUS all students who applied for open 
enrollment for the 2018-19 school year.

Pupils are added to the Actively Open Enrolled list when the nonresident district reports them 
as open enrolled on the third Friday in September. You can get a head start on this by indicating 
“not open enrolled” for those pupils who you know will not be attending your district under 
open enrollment. However, you should not begin entering pupils as open enrolled until you are 
doing your 3rd Friday counts. 

If a student was a senior last year, the student will have been removed from the list. If the 
student did not graduate and will still be open enrolled, click on the Returns tab located under 
the Students tab. Find the student’s name and click on Retain. This will put the student back 
into the All Students list. 
 
If the student withdrew over the summer and you marked them as “withdrawn” in OPAL, the 
student will have been removed from the list. If the student was not supposed to be withdrawn 
and will still be open enrolled, click on the Returns Tab located under the Students tab. Find the 
student’s name under Summer Withdrawals and click on Retain. This will put the student back 
into the All Students list.

It is too late to enter summer withdrawals now, since the rollover has already occurred. For 
pupils who withdraw on or before the 3rd Friday Count date (September 21, 2018), you will just 
mark these pupils as “not open enrolled” on your 3rd Friday list in OPAL. Do not try and 
withdraw the pupil for 0 days; you will get an error message if you try to do this. 

Change of Resident District

Be sure to compare each pupil’s address in OPAL with the address reported by the parent for 
this school year. If the address is different, enter the new address in OPAL.  

If the resident school district is different than that shown in OPAL, contact us to correct it. You 
cannot change a resident district for the current school year (2018-19). Any resident district 
change made by the district at this point is for the 2019-20 school year!

It is extremely important to verify each open enrolled pupil’s address and resident district (both 
the resident and nonresident district should do this). Many of the errors discovered later in the 
school year could have been caught in September.  

If you have any questions, please contact us at openenrollment@dpi.wi.gov or 888-245-2732, 
option 2.   
 
Jen Danfield
School Administration Consultant
Public School Open Enrollment
Department of Public Instruction
608-264-6707 or 888-245-2732, option 2, then 3
Jennifer.Danfield@dpi.wi.gov