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Shortened Weekly Hours Compared to Peers: Special Education

Shortened Weekly Hours Compared to Peers: Special Education, Shortened School Day

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NEW for the 2025-26 School Year and Onward: Shortened School Day data elements

Shortened Weekly Hours Compared to Peers is a numeric value that records the reduction of hours per week for a special education student whose IEP provides shortened school day. This value focuses on how many less hours a week the student with an IEP attends school compared to students who attend the full number of weekly school hours.

School Weekly Hours defines the school hours attended by the Shortened School Day student.

Think of the Shortened School Day data elements as an addition equation:

School Weekly Hours + Shortened Weekly Hours Compared to Peers = Standard Peer Attendance Hours

25 hours of school per week + 5 hours less than peers attend school = 30 hours per standard school week.

 

For example, if the student's School Weekly Hours is 25 and their Shortened Weekly Hours Compared to Peers is 5, that means their peers attend 30 hours per week, or, 25 + 5 = 30.

NOTE: If the student attends school for less than half the standard school weekly hours (e.g., standard school week is 32 hours and the student only attends school for 12 hours a week), LEAs will receive Warning 7500. The validation logic throws the warning when “School Weekly Hours is less than Shortened Weekly Hours Compared to Peers,” the concern here being if the student attends too few hours per week that it may be difficult for LEAs to ensure FAPE responsibilities are being met. If the student actually in reality attends school fewer hours than the Shortened Weekly Hours Compared To Peers then LEAs should acknowledge the warning.

USES: The DPI Special Education staff use this data to identify instances where a reduced school schedule may be used inappropriately. Shortened School Day data elements are a part of Reading Drives Achievement: Procedural Compliance Self-Assessment (RDA:PCSA) by pulling data samples from the district level. Collection of Shortened Day data is necessary for implementing the department’s compliance monitoring system required under state and federal special education law. Additionally, these data elements will also be included in one of the DPI annual snapshots, however, these new data elements will not be ‘snapped’ until 2026.

 

FAQs, Details, and Use Cases

  1. Please note that these data elements should only be reported for students with shortened school day annotated as a placement in their IEP. These data elements should not be reported for students without IEPs. For example, these data elements should not be reported for high school seniors that qualify for late start and early release based on the number of credits they have earned/need to complete for graduation.

Resources

To contact the DPI Special Education Team with questions about disability data, you can     
submit a Special Education Team Help Ticket, or call: 1 (608) 266-1781.
 
If you need assistance from the Partner Support Team, please submit a WISE Help Ticket.
To provide feedback, click the "Submit Feedback" button.

 

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