Welcome! If you are new to the world of WISE, this is a great place for you to start. The Info for Schools page provides you with a high-level overview to help you get established into your state and federal reporting requirements, and how to accomplish these tasks. For more advanced information, click the links within each section.
Getting Started with a Student Information System
Schools/districts must select a Student Information System (SIS) to input student data. For thorough training in the entire WISEdata submission process, complete e-learning courses.
View the Vendor List for the list* of SIS vendors and their certification status.
Security and Access to DPI Secure Applications
DPI’s secure applications are equipped with different user roles. User roles provide more or less access to the data that lives in each application, helping to ensure that only people with a ‘need to know’ can help maintain student and staff data privacy. Visit the WISEsecure User Roles webpage for detailed information and user roles available for each application.
WISEsecure is a tool that allows District Security Administrators and Application Administrators to securely assign or remove user access to data reporting applications and tools stored in WISEhome. Access to DPI’s secure applications is granted by the Districts Security Administrator (DSA) or by the Choice Security Administrator. Learn who this person is within your school or district organization. If you are the DSA or Choice Security Administrator, visit the WISEsecure Tasks for District Security Administrators webpage.
Data Reporting Requirements
Wisconsin state statutes and Federal laws inform schools and districts what data is required for each school year. The DPI school year begins annually on July 1, and ends on June 30. DPI has an annual cycle of data collections for each school year. The Annual Data Collections: Tasks & Checklist webpage is a great resource to help schools ensure they collect and submit all of the required data for their agency type (e.g., Choice schools do not have the same data reporting requirements as public school districts). The “Info, Help and FAQ” webpages nested underneath the WISEdata Help webpage as also helpful for learning more detailed information on these various data collections.
You will collect your required data using your student information system (SIS) and push this data to WISEdata Portal. The WISEdata landing page provides more detailed information.
Snapshot Data
DPI also a static collection of data. This data is used by researchers of all natures to analyze education outcomes in Wisconsin, including accountability report cards. The permanency of a snapshot is useful in that it supports current and future, short-term and longitudinal data reporting and data study. The static nature of a snapshot also facilitates reporting from an unchanging set of attributes because it provides consistent, repeatable query results that are unaffected by the dynamics of real-world changes and corrections. Visit the Snapshot Preparation Guidance webpage to learn what needs to be collected for the December and May WISEdata snapshots.
WISEdata and WISEdash
The data that is in WISEdata today will be in WISEdash tomorrow. Review the WISE User and Data Flow Basics mini tutorial for detailed information.
Student Data Resources
- What Is Student Data?
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What is Student Data?
- Who Uses Student Data?
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Who Uses Student Data?
- Reporting Student Data
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- EdFacts Federal Data Reporting
- SPR Reporting (State Statute 115.38)
- Civil Rights Data (CRDC) Support for Districts
- EdMaps – REL Midwest EdMaps is a web-mapping application that displays complex education data geographically as “story maps.” EdMaps helps users analyze publicly available data, observe trends over time, and frame conversations on practice and policy.
- More Data Resource Links
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- Administrator Data Literacy: Empower leaders with the skills to use data to create a culture of effective data use that includes supporting teacher data use in the classroom.
- Data Quality Campaign Home
- Education Data 101: A Briefing Book for Policymakers
- GED & HSED Information
- Use the GED Lookup Public Portal to locate your records.
- How Data Empowers Parents (Infographic and Video)
- Mr. Maya's Data-Rich Year (Infographic)
- Ms. Bullen’s Data-Rich Year (Infographic)
- Teacher Data Literacy: Teachers need the time, training, and resources to interpret and use information effectively.
- Time to Act: Making Data Work for Students (pdf)
- Time to Act: Making Data Work for Students (Infographic and Video)
- Who Uses Student Data? (Infographic)
Updating Contacts in WISE apps and in School Directory Management Portal
School Directory is a critical application for schools to know about and use. School Directory Management Portal allows districts, independent charter schools, and private schools, and other local education agencies (LEAs) to update the DPI database. The data entered into School Directory Management Portal then feeds the information viewable on the School Directory Public Portal. There are annually required updates to be completed each year in the School Directory Management Portal.
These updates, along with updating your agency contacts within other WISE applications, is how DPI stays in touch with Wisconsin LEAs.
For more advanced WISEdata Training, consider this WISEdata eLearning course.
WISE Training
This page is intended to be a very general overview of the most basic and necessary data reporting requirements for schools and districts to be aware of. As your experience with WISE data reporting grows, so will your need to keep learning about these applications and the data requirements of each one. Visit the WISE Training search page and use the filters there to locate trainings by topic, application, and learning formats to meet your training needs.
Check out the WISE Events Calendar for live in-person or webinar trainings.
Joining the WISE Community is also a great way to stay connected.
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