January 2026 WISE Insights Newsletter
January 2026: Winter Cheer, the New Year is Here
Spotlight on Data
2026 WISEdata Conference, School Directory Closed for 2025-26 School Year, WISEstaff Preliminary Clean Up Continues, Open Enrollment for 2026-27, WISEsecure Clean Up, WISEdata Portal Removal of 2023-24 School Year
Data Quality Tip
Data Errata Letters
App Feature
WISE and Partner Support Webpage Reorganization
WISEdash Featured Dashboard
Student Growth Percentiles
Upcoming Data Related Events
Spotlight On Data: Announcements
2026 WISEdata Conference
Registration for the 11th annual WISEdata Conference is now open! This year we are offering tracks for:
- beginner level data reporting
- advanced level data reporting
- Career and Technical Education data reporting
- WISEstaff
- data analysis
- data security and privacy
The WISEdata Conference webpage has the link for the registration, details on sessions, booking a room, lunch offerings, networking sessions, and more!
Return to WISE Insights Landing page
School Directory has CLOSED for the 2025-26 School Year
The School Directory Management Portal closes each year for a few weeks between December and January for annual maintenance. The School Directory Management Portal closed for the 2025-26 school year on December 19, 2025. You are no longer able to make changes to 2025-26 school year data directly in the system. If you need help making changes to information for the 2025-26 school year, please submit a Help Ticket, and select School Directory Updates from the application drop-down list. When the application re-opens in late January 2026, schools will enter data for the 2026-27 school year. Visit the School Directory Annual Updates webpage for details on your required updates. The School Directory Management Portal User Guides gives step-by-step instructions on how to do this.
If you are opening a new school, or closing a school, please submit a School Modification request.
Return to WISE Insights Landing page
WISEstaff Preliminary Certification, Data Clean-Up Continues
Please continue to address your WISEstaff preliminary audit results. You can make corrections to your WISEstaff data starting on March 10, 2026, until the final certification deadline on March 24, 2026.
Return to WISE Insights Landing page
Open Enrollment for the 2026-27 School Year
Public School Open Enrollment usually opens in February.
Return to WISE Insights Landing page
WISEsecure Clean-Up
Each year in January, the DPI reviews inactive WISEsecure accounts. Those that have had no activity for the past 18 months are considered inactive and removed. Partner Support communicated this status change via email. Read the KBA for more information.
Return to WISE Insights Landing page
WISEdata Portal: Removal of 2023-24 School Year
With the December Student Snapshot completed, WISEdata Portal no longer has a need to store data from the 2023-24 school year. Graduation data from this 2nd prior school year is used for data quality for dropouts, which is collected during the December snapshot. This school year will be removed from WISEdata Portal sometime in January or February 2026.
Data Quality Tip: Data Errata Letters
December 09, 2025, Snapshot Complete
We did it! YOU did it! We prepped, we snapped, we rejoiced for winter recess! The December 9, 2025, snapshot is complete. All data is considered certified and final.
However, if there are still some data that you didn’t correct before the snapshot occurred, there are two things DPI encourages you to do:
- Correct the data in your student information system (SIS).
- Submit your Data Errata letter to address the incorrect snapshot data.
Partner Support team will begin data errata outreach to help support this practice. Submitting a data errata letter will not change your snapshot data; it is still a vital part of the data quality process. Researchers, the public at large, as well as state and federal government agencies, can reference your LEA’s data errata letter when researching and analyzing your data for various reasons. Some data (e.g., October 1 Child Count data) can affect funding: if you submit a data errata letter to clarify the incorrect data in your snapshot data, this could help your lea obtain grant money.
Visit the Data Errata webpage for information, frequently asked questions, as well as a checklist for the information needed on your data errata letter and a sample template letter. Visit the WISEadmin Portal User Guide (Data Errata Screen section) for step-by-step instructions on how to digitally send your data errata letter to DPI. Someone with the District Admin user role must submit your data errata letter. Reminder: data errata are open to the public and should not contain personally identifiable information.
Stay tuned to WISEdash Public Portal in March when the data will be released. Data derived from the data snapped on December 9, 2025, includes graduation and dropout rates, attendance/absenteeism, and economically disadvantaged status.
Web Feature: WISE and Partner Support Webpage Reorganization
Changes are coming to the webpages supported by the Partner Support team in our efforts to align with DPI’s Strategic Plan. There are just shy of 1,000 webpages under our sections, including all of the data element pages, About the Data pages, and the support pages for the WISE, WISEadmin, WISEdash, WISEdata, WISEgrants, WISEhome, WISEid, WISEsecure, WISEstaff, WISE Training, WISE Community, PI-1207, School Directory, and School Modification.
Here's the scoop
- Our new web organization will improve your user experience. New URLs will accurately display breadcrumbs of all webpages, and menus will be more focused. We will demonstrate our new digital domains at the WISEdata Conference. The result will be a sleeker presentation of all the great content you’ve come to know and love, with some new pages, too!
- You won’t have to worry at all about those changed URLs either because we are enabling redirects that will prevent any ‘404’ messages! Yippee! You will, however, have a timeline by when you’ll have to adjust your bookmarks. The redirects will remain in place until indefinitely.
- Good work takes time. Between four web administrators and two technical writers, we expect the changes to be completed by the end of January.During those weeks (sometime between the middle and end of January) the left-side menus will change and update. During these weeks when our web content is in the weeds, please consider attending our weekly WISE User Group on Tuesdays from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. where we will keep you informed and answer any questions you have. If you experience a broken link, or can't find a page or file that you know must be on the website somewhere, you can ask those question during the User Group call and to each other by using the WISE Community Teams channel.
WISEdash Featured Dashboard: Student Growth Percentiles
Did you know that a student-level growth measure is available on WISEdash for Districts? Student growth percentiles (SGPs) compare a student’s academic progress to the progress made by other Wisconsin students with similar test performance histories and can help interpret standardized test results.
For example, consider the following scenario. Note that the SGPs in the table below are for example purposes only:
| SGP Example | Emma | Oliver | Ava |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3rd grade math score | 1530 | 1570 | 1580 |
| 4th grade math score | 1590 | 1590 | 1630 |
| 4th grade match SGP | 85 | 40 | 55 |
Emma and Oliver are 4th grade students that had the same score on their 4th grade Forward mathematics exam. Which student had a higher rate of learning this year? Looking at just 4th grade assessment results is not enough, so instead, compare their 3rd and 4th grade math scores - Emma’s score increased 60 points while Oliver’s increased 20 points, meaning Emma had a higher rate of learning this past year. SGPs automate this tedious comparison of past scores to current scores and calculate a simple 1st (lowest growth) to 99th (highest growth) percentile instead. Since Emma’s SGP is higher than Oliver’s, Emma had a higher rate of growth than Oliver – no multi-year assessment score comparison needed.
SGPs can also be compared for students with different current year scores. In the example above, Ava is a 4th grade classmate of Emma and Oliver. Based on the assessment scores alone, it is not possible to compare Ava’s rate of learning math to Emma’s and Oliver’s because their current year scores are different. However, SGPs can be compared between students regardless of their exam scores. In the example above, since Ava’s SGP is higher than Oliver’s but lower than Emma’s, Ava’s rate of math learning was also higher than Oliver’s but lower than Emma’s.
SGPs can also compare student performance across grade levels and identify a school’s areas of success and areas for improvement. For example, let’s say that Wood Violet Elementary’s average math SGP is 55 and that Mourning Dove Middle’s average math SGP was 45. Based on the average SGPs, Wood Violet Elementary had higher growth in math than Mourning Dove Middle. Average SGPs are also used in Wisconsin’s federal accountability system.
Both student-level SGPs and average SGPs are available on WISEdash for Districts. To access them, go to Dashboards > Topics > Growth. More information on SGPs is available on DPI’s website. Still have questions? Contact the Office of Educational Accountability at oeamail@dpi.wi.gov.
Upcoming Date Related Events
View the WISE Events Calendar
Training Opportunities:
WISEdata Conference: March 17, 18, & 19, 2026
Recurring Training
WISEdata New User Training: First Wednesday of the Month
- Wednesday, February 4, 2026: 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
BI-WEEKLY WISE User Group Call: EVERY OTHER Tuesday, January - May
- 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
WEEKLY WISEstaff User Group Call: EVERY Tuesday, October - March
- 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.