Grade Level Placement

Grade Level Placement: WISEdata/WISEstaff

Grade level is the level of the educational program studied by a student. For staff, the Grade Level value refers to all course levels performed by teaching staff for an assignment and doesn't necessarily coordinate to the students' grade levels.

When grade level changes during a period of enrollment, report the grade level at the time of exit. For students who are in multi-age classrooms, consider how the curriculum taught best fits into the traditional grade structure. Exception: for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, record the grade to which children of the same age would be assigned if that school applied a traditional grade structure.

*Count only one grade level placement for any given student as of any given date.

Reporting Grade Level Placement for High School Students

These are DPI recommendations. (Exception: For students with the most significant cognitive disabilities, record the grade to which children of the same age would be assigned if that school applied a traditional grade structure.)

USES: For public reporting purposes, data will be aggregated by grade level placement. Year-to-year changes in grade level placement in the same district will be used in public reporting of grade advancement/retention rates. Grade advancement/retention and habitual truancy are not publicly reported for students at the K3, K4, or PK grade levels. Dropouts are not publicly reported for students at the K3-6 grade levels. Grade level placement is also used in the generation of Wisconsin Student Assessment System (WSAS) roster files and, for instructors, in Licensing, Educator Advancement and Development (LEAD) licensing audits.

FAQs, Details, and Points to Note

This data element is required for Choice schools.

1. Grade Level Descriptions/Notes: 
   • K3: Used only in certain schools, such as Milwaukee Public Schools and independent charter schools
   • K4: Students at K4 must be four years old on or before September 1 in the year that he or she proposes to enter school. (See Section 118.14, Wis. Stats.)
   • PK: Students in PK have not reached the age for first grade and are not enrolled in K3, K4, or KG, but have an IEP and receive primary educational services from the district. 
   • KG: Unless early admission criteria under s. 120.12(25), Wis. Stats. are met, students at KG (five-year-old kindergarten) must be five years old on or before September 1 in the year he or she proposes to enter school.
   • Grade 1: Students at Grade 1 must be six years old on or before September 1 in the year he or she proposes to enter school. (See Section 118.14, Wis. Stats.)
   • Grade 10: The # of credits earned must at least equal the (credits required for graduation * 1/4) minus (credits required for graduation *1/7). Districts may establish additional or more rigorous requirements for placement at each grade.
   • Grade 11: The # of credits earned must at least equal the (credits required for graduation * 1/2) minus (credits required for graduation *1/7). Districts may establish additional or more rigorous requirements for placement at each grade.
   • Grade 12: The # of credits earned must at least equal the (credits required for graduation * 3/4) minus (credits required for graduation *1/7). Districts may establish additional or more rigorous requirements for placement at each grade.
2. Valid Grade Level Codes: While other teams at DPI may collect more granular grade level codes, such as EC3 and EC4, only the above grade levels are valid to be submitted for WISEdata and School Directory. For example, if you would submit the grade level code EC3 for DPI Food and Nutrition, you should submit the grade level PK for WISEdata and School Directory.
3. One Grade Level: Each student may have only one grade level placement at any given point in time.
4. SPR: Year-to-year changes in grade level placement within the same district will be used in reporting grade advancement/retention as part of the Wisconsin School Performance Report.
5. District High School Credit Requirements: Districts are free to establish, for local purposes, separate grade level placement standards lower than the above listed 'minimum threshold credits-earned' numbers from grades 10 through 12 as long as grade level placement data submitted for DPI data collection purposes are consistent with the 'minimum threshold credits-earned' numbers in the table shown above. Districts may establish additional or more rigorous requirements for placement at grades 10 through 12 and use these requirements for DPI data collection purposes.
6. Students with Disabilities: Grade level placement of students with disabilities may be based on chronological age in the case of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities who may have grade level achievement standards that are different from those that apply to other students.
7. Disability & Retention: For public reporting purposes, students with disabilities at grade 12 will not be counted as retentions if they continue at grade 12 for multiple years prior to high school completion.
8. Date Determination: Grade level placement is determined as of a specific date. For WISEdata count date records, that date is the count date. For other WISEdata collections, that date is the exit date from the school or the end of the school term, whichever occurs first. If the student was promoted on the exit date, then submit the grade level placement in effect just prior to promotion.
9. School Directory: Grade level placement must be consistent with the grade range submitted for the school in the School Directory application. GRADE ORDER: K3, K4, PK, KG, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12. If the grade range reported in the School Directory application is incorrect, district staff authorized for School Directory update can revise the grade range. After grade ranges for schools become final in January for the current school year, changes can no longer be made. 
10. Grades 10-12: For grades 10 through 12, grade level placement is based on accumulation of the minimum number of credits specified in the table above. The assumption is that each year a student would accumulate at least one fourth of the credits required to graduate. To be reported as beginning a specific grade, a student may have a deficit of credits not greater than one-seventh (1/7) of the expected credit accumulation towards the district's high school graduation requirements. For example, a student with 7.0 credits as of the beginning of the fall semester could be reported at up to the 10th grade level at that time. Districts may establish additional or more rigorous requirements for placement at grades 10 through 12 and use these requirements for DPI data collection purposes.
11. Foreign Exchange Students: For WISEdata inclusion purposes, we do not distinguish between students participating in foreign exchange programs and other students. All foreign exchange students must be placed in the appropriate grade as determined by acquisition of credits. However, schools must check the visa type and then submit a new data element, Visa Type, for all foreign exchange students. If the district does not know the visa type, then they must provide the visa type of F.  In general, foreign exchange students are expected to be working toward a Regular Wisconsin Diploma. Note, foreign exchange students holding a J-1 visa are here for cultural exchange, and DPI cannot report J-1 visa holders as graduates.
12. K4 Students: K4 students who are located in a private school/private day care center under a contract with the Local Education Agency (school district) should be reported by the public district. These K4 students should NOT be counted by the private school in any reporting to DPI; this includes private schools participating in a Choice program. For Choice schools, note the implication that if the Choice school has opted in to reporting all students and if they track K4 students under contract in their SIS, then Choice schools need to prevent these K4 public students from being reported to WISEdata.

13. Validation 6633: Validation rule 6633 uses the student's enrolled school (sSA) in its logic, except if the FAPE Accountable school or district is set. Then the logic looks at that agency's/school's valid grade range as reported to DPI. Work in the School Directory application to modify available grade levels. More information can be found on the Customer Services - School Directory webpage.

    • Grade Level Impact: For a PK or K4 student, when a FAPE Accountable School is set in the student's special education program association (sSEPA) record and the school pointed to in the accountable school logic does not have K4 or PK in the valid grade range, the likely resolution is to remove the FAPE Accountable School from the sSEPA, as the enrolled school is most likely the accountable school in this case. The identified FAPE Accountable School may be supporting the writing of the IEP or evaluations only.

14. WISEstaff Grade Levels: The grades reported in WISEstaff are not necessarily the grades of the students but the grades of the courses the instructors are teaching. DPI now only supports the method to store all applicable grade levels in a single string of grades in a two-digit format each separated by a semicolon, for example "PK;K4;KG;01;02;03;04;05;06;07;08;09;10;11;12". Zero padding at the start of the field is optional, and it has a 60 character max.
    • This value is required for positions 51, 52, 53, 54, 80, 83, and 84. 
    • Users can see a Grades Required “Gr” column on the Assignment Code List to help determine if they need to report grades for an assignment.

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