Tuesday, October 21, 2025
October 2025: Making Data Less Spooky
Announcements:
WISEstaff: Collection Dates Posted for 2025-26
Review updated WISEstaff Assignment Codes and the 2025-26 school year timeline for the annual staff audit and snapshot on the WISEstaff Data Collection: Reporting Information page. As well as being in the WISEstaff application, Assignment Codes are located in the Technical Documentation section, and the calendar dates for this year’s audit schedule are listed in the Timeline. If you’re looking for assistance with the annual staff audit process, please visit the following resources:
- The WISE Events Calendar for training opportunities, like the WISEstaff Weekly User Group calls that start October 14.
- The WISEtraining Slides and Videos webpage to access a recorded video and the slide deck used for the October 7th WISEstaff Preliminary Certification Training.
Recent Communications Sent:
- 9/30/2025: WISEstaff is open for preliminary certification data. A communication was sent to WISEstaff primary and secondary contacts, and a separate communication was sent to WISEstaff DSAs.
- 10/7/2025: Snapshot communications were sent.
- 10/14/2025: A snapshot communication specific to economically disadvantaged data applies to all schools.
WISEdash Public Portal: 2024-25 Spring State Assessment Data
Spring 2024-25 statewide assessment results for the Forward Exam, ACT, PreACT Secure, and DLM are now available in the WISEdash Public Portal. Read the press release on the DPI News Releases webpage. Several resources, including the Assessment Data Release, Parent Letter Template, and the Assessment Data Release Talking Points are available on the Office of Educational Accountability webpage. Find additional resources for each assessment on the corresponding assessment’s data and results webpage. If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Educational Accountability (dpioeamail@dpi.wi.gov).
Spotlight on Strong Data: Snapshot Preparation Data Quality Auditing Webpages
We have several webpages specifically tailored for assisting LEAs with their data clean-up in preparation for the December snapshot. These Data Quality Auditing webpages were co-created by multiple teams at DPI (i.e., Partner Support, Office of Educational Accountability) to show what WISEdata Portal screens align with which columns in WISEdata exports, and how to use WISEdash for Districts as a data quality check tool.
Because the majority of snapshot data ultimately display on your accountability report card, many of these data quality auditing pages also include sections describing the impact of the data.
New this year is an additional data quality auditing webpage for Special Education Timely Initial Evaluation (i.e., TIE, or Indicator 11) data.
Data Quality Tip: Special Education (SSEPA) Records
With the October 1 Child Count having occurred earlier this month, here are a few reminders about student special education program association (sSEPA) record data:
- Schools/districts that have a 3rd party Special Education SIS vendor tool: Your October 1 Child Count inclusion data needs to be submitted to WISEdata from your primary/main SIS vendor tool.
- Prior school year close-out sSEPA record end dates must *match* the enrollment end dates. If the sSEPA ends before the enrollment, then the student will not be designated as ‘Special Education’ for year-end completion data and may be excluded from important reports like graduates/completers and assessment results.
We also have one more WISE Special Ed, Indicator 11 in-person training this month that can help answer questions about SEORA records and SSEPEA records.
- Middleton: Monday, October 27; 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
App Feature: School Modification Form is now an Application
DPI’s school modification form has a very limited purpose. The School Modification Form submits a request to DPI to either:
- OPEN a new school - OR -
- CLOSE an existing school.
This form is now an application that you can access through a link on the School Modification webpage. The application only allows users to make this open/close request using the categories of either:
The interface of the school modification application is very intuitive and user friendly. Simply click through the screens and enter information into each required data field (marked with an asterisk).
Each screen progresses you through a new section of questions. An indicator across the top of each screen reminds you of where you are in the school modification application process.
Information icons and text boxes provide helpful, descriptive information for items that may seem confusing.
The DPI School Modification application webpage serves as a landing page for the user guides. There is one user guide for public schools and one user guide for private schools.
WISEdash Featured Dashboard: Administrator Dashboards
As snapshot season is upon us, district administrators may begin to wonder “Well, how are we doing?” Fortunately, we designed several dashboards in WISEdash for Districts with this question in mind. Find these dashboards under Dashboards, Administrator.
There you can find dashboards for Enrollment, Year End, Assessments, Growth, and School Information. The goal of these dashboards is to allow administrators to quickly get a high-level picture of how things stand and easily filter the data by school or school type.
For example, the Enrollments dashboard shows last night’s enrollment counts (green dashboards are for the Current View/Not Certified data), the not certified TFS enrollment, and the not certified Oct 1 Special Education Enrollment counts.
Purple dashboards that show Snapshot View/Certified data for the past three years are available for comparison. Expand the “Data Quality Indicators” link at the top of each dashboard to show key details and context for the metrics and the dashboard.
The KPI dashboards tile found in the WISEadmin Portal also display these dashboards. Read the Key Performance Indicators webpage for detailed instructions on how to use these dashboards.
High level counts simply do not meet everybody’s needs, so we have detailed dashboards on a variety of snapshot topics under Dashboards, Snapshots.
Each dashboard has data metrics and a crosstab chart for current data (green) and a crosstab chart for snapshot data (purple).
- The current data is based on 2025-26 for Third Friday of September enrollments and October 1 Child Count and 2024-25 for other year-end data topics (e.g., Attendance, Graduation, Discipline, etc.).
- The snapshot data can be based on any of the prior years through 2016-17. The WISEdash for Districts: Snapshot Dashboards page has detailed instructions for these dashboards.
Find links with resources, notes, About the Data pages, and helpful tips on each dashboard.
Happy Dashboarding!
Upcoming Events
Training Opportunities:
Regional Snapshot Preparation Workshops:In-Person
- Milwaukee Area (CESA 1): October 28, 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
- Eau Claire Area (CESA 10): November 17, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
- Green Bay Area (CESA 7): November 19, 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
- Madison Area (Middleton Public Library): November 24, 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Regional Snapshot Preparation Workshops: Virtual
- Public Schools: Thursday, November 6; 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
- Choice Schools: Thursday, November 6; 1:00 p.m. – 1:50 p.m.
Recurring Training:
WEEKLY WISE User Group Call: EVERY Tuesday, September - December
- 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
WISEdata New User Training: First Wednesday of the Month
- Wednesday, October 1, 2025: 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
WEEKLY WISEstaff User Group Call:
EVERY Tuesday, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. October - March
October WISEstaff User Groups
- 21st – Checklist Step One: Review previous year final audits, WISEid uploads, assignment code changes, updating contact info
- Review new assignment code descriptions
- 28th – Preliminary Certification opens, DQ dashboard, assignment counts, missing Entity IDs
- Reporting subcontracted staff
- How to report Alternative Ed
November WISEstaff User Groups
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4th – Assignment codes / license rules, DQ tools to verify assignments are entered
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Warnings: when to acknowledge, when to correct
- 53-0050 exceptions
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- 11th – Review of Prelim Certification tasks
- 18th – TBD
- 25th – Status of preliminary audits; start to review common audit errors
Upcoming WISEdata Events
3/10/26
3/10/26
Return to WISE Insights Landing page
Data Milestones
PI-1207 Closed: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
If data in the PI-1207 requires a change, the change must be made as soon as possible. Changes must be completed no later than December 15, 2025. In the time between the October 15 and December 15 close dates, DPI does outreach to ensure PI-1207 data is completely reported. If the form is not completed by December 15, the private school is listed as inactive in the DPI School Directory. There are issues associated with this inactive status. Submit a Help Ticket if you need assistance, selecting PI-1207 from the application dropdown.