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Eligibility Determination Date

Eligibility Determination Date: Special Education

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Eligibility Determination Date: This is the date (month, day, and year) when the determination of whether or not a disability category and need for specially designed instruction was made.

The date of the eligibility determination is the date the Individualized Education Program (IEP) team meets and determines whether the student is or continues to be a ‘child with a disability.’ If the student has met the criteria to receive special education services, the date of eligibility determination also (1.) is the date the child is admitted into special education, and (2.) begins the 30-calendar-day timeline in which the IEP team must meet to develop an IEP and determine a student’s placement.

The Eligibility Determination Date must be on or after the Consent to Evaluate Received Date.

Data Submission Details

DPI is requiring Timely Initial Evaluations (Indicator 11) data to be reported through WISE to better support our local educational agency (LEA) staff time and efforts by reducing the number of applications they need to access to report required data.

Beginning immediately, all data element fields must contain valid data or will be found to be in error (not warning) status.

Starting with the 2023-24 school year and onwards:

  • DPI will get Indicator 11 from data submitted by LEAs into WISEdata.
  • All Indicator 11 data elements must be submitted by all LEAs each school year through WISEdata.
  • Starting with the 2023-24 school year, all LEAs will report Indicator 11 data annually through WISE. In the past, only LEAs “in cycle” were required to submit data in any given year.
  • The first instance of Indicator 11 data being collected as part of the 23-24 Year-End collection in a snapshot will be December 10, 2024, during the 2024-25 school year.

In order to ensure that the data is valid and reliable, please note the following:

  • All students who are evaluated for special education must have a WISEid (for children below compulsory school age or parentally placed in private or home-based schooling, please visit the Student Education Organization Responsibility Association (SEORA) data element page.
  • NOTE: Data cannot flow to DPI unless it is entered in your SIS. To resolve issues around data that is entered into the SIS that isn’t flowing to DPI, LEAs need to work with their vendor support staff to resolve data flow issues.

FAQs, Details, and Use Cases

 

  1. Do timelines count by school days or calendar days? All special education evaluations adhere to calendar days, not school days. If that timeline falls across a holiday break or other time off of school, the LEA needs to plan accordingly within that time frame. Failure to perform the evaluation within the timeframe is an instance of noncompliance, which is important for monitoring and for the DPI special education team's annual reporting. For evaluations that occur outside the timeframe, there may be allowable exceptions.

    1.  If LEAs are unable to complete the initial special education evaluation within the 60-day timeline, then the LEA will need to provide either an Evaluation Delay Reason OR an Evaluation Late Reason. Do not enter both. If the completion of the evaluation is uncertain due to one of the reasons above, an Evaluation Delay Reason should be provided.

For more information refer to the Timely Special Ed Evaluation, the Evaluation Delay Reason, and the Evaluation Late Reason data element pages.

 
To contact the DPI Special Education Team, submit a Special Education Team Help Ticket, or call: 1 (608) 266-1781
 
If you need assistance, please submit a Help Ticket.
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