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Background on Act 212
New legislation was signed into law on March 31, 2022, that impacts districts with juvenile detention facilities and similar facilities located within their jurisdiction. Act 212 creates 115.385 (1g) (f) of the statutes to disallow DPI from including data derived from juvenile detention facilities, Secure Residential Care Centers, houses of correction, and county jails on a district’s report card if 50% or more of the students residing at the facility were not present for the entire school term. The law would first apply to the district accountability report cards for the 2022-23 school year, which will be released in the fall of 2023.
To comply with this statute, districts will have the option to code such facilities as schools in the School Directory. Data of students in these facilities will be reported to WISEdata essentially the same way as they are currently, but data will be reported under the new school code (if the facilities within your district don’t already have pre-existing agency keys). Once students are reported under these new or updated school codes, the Office of Educational Accountability can then identify data from detained students and exclude these data from district report cards if the statutory requirement is met.
How to Set Up Detention Facilities as Schools for District Report Cards
Districts are now able to create new schools that exclusively serve detention facilities via the newly updated School Modification Form. To apply an additional attribute to an existing school/program exclusively serving a detained population, or to adjust an existing “hybrid” school program that serves multiple student populations (including students who are detained in a detention facility), please open a Help Ticket (select WISEdata Portal from the application dropdown menu). The Customer Service Team will then be able to help you make those school modifications. Further details are outlined below. If you have additional questions regarding how to set up these detention facilities in the school directory, please open a Help Ticket,selecting School Directory from the application dropdown menu).
Visit the Enrollment and Exit Date data element page to learn more about reporting enrollments and exit dates for students detained at county jails and detention centers.
Act 212 FAQ and Use Cases
- Who can set up a school for a program exclusively serving students in a detention facility?
- Any LEA may create or designate a detention facility with a school code if they have one of the following facilities within their district jurisdiction: a county jail, a juvenile detention facility, a secure residential care center, or a house of correction. This school set-up is not a mandate, however.
- Who should not set up a new school representing programming for students in a detention facility?
- If the LEA has a Department of Corrections facility within your district jurisdiction, such facilities are run by the Department of Corrections and are, therefore, outside of the Department of Public Instruction’s authority and data environment.
- This new legislation does not apply to Residential Care Centers (RCCs) and rather is specifically pertinent to Secure Residential Care Centers (SRCCs), a separate category of facility.
- What should an LEA do if they currently operate a hybrid/consolidated educational program that serves students who are detained but also includes various other student populations?
- Each school set-up should be exclusively serving a student population from one detention facility each. The LEA may set up multiple schools to represent multiple detention facilities, but they must be designated with a distinct school code unique to that facility.
- The LEA must update a preexisting school if it doesn’t exclusively serve students from a distinct detention facility. In order to maintain historical accountability and designate a preexisting school as one of the four types of aforementioned facilities, please submit a help ticket.
- Please note that an LEA may also need to establish a new school to house students who were removed from a hybrid program and are not detained in a detention facility. Alternatively, the LEA may want to place the non-detained students from such a hybrid program into an existing school.
- If your LEA has a preexisting hybrid program, you may also need to make modifications in your SIS. Please submit a help ticket if you require assistance. The Customer Service team can verify the school’s current WISEdata reporting status.
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