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Open-Enrolled Students

Open-Enrolled Students

Definition: Student who is a Wisconsin resident in K4 to grade 12 may apply to attend a nonresident school district under the open enrollment program.

Data Element Information: Generally use a TC exit type for a student who transfers out of your school to open enroll in another district and then let DPI validations tell you through an error message when it needs to be modified to ETC.

In the case where a student open enrolls into your district, if you provide educational services to the student for even one day, then the student is your responsibility. If the student ceases to attend or enroll elsewhere, then the student will become your dropout and should be exited with the ODO Exit Type. The dropout will NOT revert to the student's Resident District if you provided educational services. 

  • The only exception to this is when beginning a new school year enrollment – if a student is approved for open enrollment by both open enroll and resident district but does not show up for services at the open enroll district, the open enroll district should not submit an enrollment in WISEdata and the resident district is still responsible for compulsory attendance follow up.

Helpful Details/Use Cases: The inter-district public school open enrollment program allows parents to apply for their children to attend public school in a school district other than the one in which they reside.

The nonresident school district is the local educational agency (LEA) responsible to provide a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) to children, with and without disabilities, attending the school district under open enrollment.

Children with disabilities can and do participate in open enrollment. A pupil may not be denied open enrollment because the pupil is a child with a disability or based on the category of the disability. However, any open enrollment application may be denied if the nonresident school district does not have space for the pupil. For a child with a disability, this includes availability of and space in the special education program and related services required in the pupil’s individualized education program (IEP). An IEP moving a special education student is different than a special education student choosing to open enroll in another school. In the case of open enrollment, the school of open enrollment will be FAPE accountable and will generate the IEP (usually still working with the resident district).

Open Enrollment in Virtual Charter Schools: If a student open enrolls in a virtual or multi-district charter school, students will be enrolled under the authorizer. The authorizer is then accountable and submits the open-enrolled students. Students open enrolled in a virtual charter school in a public district are treated the same as other regular public school students; their not attending in a physical school building doesn't impact reporting.

  • ACCOUNTABILITY: Even if a student open enrolls in a virtual charter school in another district, whether receiving services in both districts or not, the accountability and reporting still remain with the school of open enrollment. 
  • DROP-OUTS: If a student attends an open enrollment virtual program (even just for one day) and then drops out, and the school of open enrollment is aware of the dropout, the school of open enrollment should claim the dropout.
  • FAILURE TO PARTICIPATE: If the open-enrolled student does not attend but instead fails to participate (FTP) in the virtual school program, then:
    • If the student never attended the school of open enrollment at all - the resident district should be making multiple attempts to figure out where the student went. These communication attempts should include reaching out to the school of open enrollment to obtain any info they might have on the student’s whereabouts or if they did or didn’t ever show up. Once it has been confirmed that the student never attended the school of open enrollment at all, the responsibility goes back to the resident district. 
      • At this point, in an effort to avoid claiming a drop-out, the resident district would want to determine if the student has enrolled anywhere else. You may submit a Help Ticket if assistance is required. Select WISEdata Portal as the application from the drop-down menu on the Help Ticket.   
      • Or, if it is confirmed that the student is not enrolled anywhere else, the resident district would claim the dropout. They would exit the student with the exit type ODO in their SIS. 
  • SwD: If the student in the open enrollment virtual charter school is a student with a disability, then all services and accountability are on the school of open enrollment.
  • TRANSFER to HOMESCHOOL: If a student enrolls in a virtual private school or registers for home-based education through HOMER, the student should be exited from the public district with an exit type of TNC. As the student is leaving the district, after the exit of the student,  there will not be any further tracking in WISEdata.

Membership/Financial Implication: The resident school district counts the pupil in membership for state aid and revenue limit purposes. The Third Friday in September is the date upon which a school district’s allowable revenue limit and state aid is based.

Related Links:    

Open Enrollment home page     Open Enrollment - Special Education

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