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WSLS Training FAQ
Certification
- Is a list of certified vendors
available?
- We do not have a third party vendor
for our student information system. Must we go through a certification process or is that
optional? Optional but recommended.
Delegated Authority
- My district does not yet have access to the WSLS. How does our Superintendent begin the process? A Superintendent can begin the process by using DPI's Delegated Authority Application. Availability of this application was delayed but it is now ready for your use. See steps provided in the May 13 memo.
- Are we to send the superintendent's username and password through the email? Do not send any passwords.
- My district already has access to the WSLS, but wants to authorize more staff to use it. What do we do? If you are the district WSLS/ISES administrator, then see steps provided in the May 13 memo. For more information about the Delegated Authority, see Delegated Authority Web Application
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Enrollment Reporting
- If I serve special education
students in a different building, do I include this students in the
WSLS? Yes.
- Do I include students who
attend in my district under part-time open enrollment? No. full time open enrollment? Yes.
- Do I include our students enrolled in a charter school in another
district? 1 2
- If I send students to a multi-district charter school, then do I include
these students in the WSLS? If this school was established under s.118.40(3)(c), then your district should have a school code in your district for this school. Include these students under the school code specifically assigned to your district for this multi-district charter school.
- Do we include students served by our district while in county corrections? Yes.
- Do we include students
attending a virtual school in our district under open enrollment? Yes.
- Do we include foreign exchange students attending our schools? Yes. We do not distinguish between students participating in foreign exchange programs and other students. (Note that, per state statute 121.84(1)2.(c), a school board may permit a foreign exchange student to attend school in the school district without payment of tuition. So the district of attendance (which may or may not be the district where the foreign exchange student temporarily resides) might also count the student on the PI 1563 membership report.)
- Do we include students in parent-placed, home-based private education who are taking 1 class in our district? No.
- Do we include students with modified schedules finishing a course or two for graduation under the supervision of my district? Yes. If the students receives his/her primary PK-12 educational services from your district, then count the student. (These students also count for membership purposes, if they are participating in a Board approved Alternative Program that has as a component a modified schedule. Otherwise they would be counted as part-time for equalization aid purposes.)
- Do we include our students who were expelled but who continue to receive educational services from our district but not in a school building? 1 2 Yes.
- Do we include our students who were serving a period of temporary expulsion during the 2003-04 school term who were not receiving educational services at the end of the school term? 1 2 Yes.
- Do we include our students who were permanently expelled and are not currently receiving educational services or who were temporarily expelled and failed to return when eligible? 1 2 3 Yes. The Initial Load should include any students who were enrolled in your district at some time during the 2003-04 school term unless they transferred or die.
- Do we count our students who attend
school out of state? Yes, if your district supervises the primary educational services received by the student.
- Should my district submit data for students with disabilities residing at a Residential Care Center (RCC)?
Maybe. A Wisconsin resident student with a disability residing at a residential care center (RCC) and receiving his/her primary PK-12 education on RCC grounds should be submitted to WSLS by the local educational agency (school district) responsible for the student's IEP. If this student's primary PK-12 services are provided off RCC grounds in the school district responsible for the IEP, that school district should submit the student. If a student's primary PK-12 services are provided off RCC grounds by a school district other than the school district responsible for the IEP, then the school district the student attends should submit the student.
- What is the school code for students with disabilities who receive their primary PK-12 education on RCC grounds?
- Should my district submit data for parentally-placed students with disabilities who receive their primary PK-12 education on RCC grounds? No. If the student is not publicly placed (e.g. by a county, a school district, or the Departments of Corrections or Health and Family Services), then the student should not be included by the district in WSLS/ISES at all. Districts should not submit students with Services Plans rather than IEPs. (Except for Norris, on grounds RCC schools are considered private schools. Parentally-placed students attending these private on-grounds RCC schools may have Service Plans but do not have IEPs.)
- What happens if the student transfers out of state? 1 2
- How do we handle entering
kindergarten students?
- How will we track students who started in Wisconsin, moved out of
state, then moved back to Wisconsin? Any WSLS student search initiated after the student moves back to Wisconsin will search historical WSLS records so it is likely the student will be found in the WSLS data base. 1 2
- If the parent's address is out of
the district and the student attends school in our district, which district
includes the student? Your district.
- Our school district has a combined middle and high school. Is
this a problem since records are in same entity? No. This is OK as long as the school data submitted on WSLS are consistent with school data submitted on the PI 1280 (Public School Update).
- For Head Start students, do we include the student when he begins the
early childhood program or when he begins special education?
- Why can we not enroll until a student is exited elsewhere? Only one school at a time is held accountable for each student and generally this is the school responsible for supervising the student's primary educational services. You
may enter (or upload) data for an enrolling student prior to exit, but you will need to go
through the match review process and request an exit from the most recent
previous school. The enrollment periods between two schools will be allowed
to overlap by several days. 1
2
- Do speech students that come in for speech therapy but are not full-time students go into the system?
- For ELL and migrant students, should we include the actual enrollment
date in the district rather than using the default as certain DPI indicators
outside the WSLS require these data? If you have the student's enrollment date in your school, you
may include it. For the initial load the enrollment date has been made
optional to reduce the data reporting burden.
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Student Exits and Exit Confirmation
- Why must we report school level transfers rather than just district
level? Public reporting and accountability is required at the school level.
- Are there provisions for public grade school students to "exit" to
parochial high schools? 1
2
- What happens if the student transfers out of state? 1 2
- How do we know pending exit confirmation
requests exist?
- How is an exit from an out of state school confirmed? A student new
to the public school system in the State of Wisconsin will be assigned a new
WSN. The exit confirmation process within the WSLS does not apply to out-of-state schools.
- Do students need to be "exited" when transferring intra-district, for
example primary to middle or middle to high? Yes.
- If we have 3 schools in 1 building will we need to transfer students?
- Do we exit graduates? Yes, a batch exit process will be available in
the summer. This process may also be completed individually for each
student via the 'Individual Student Update' function.
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File Upload
- How often should we upload and
download?
- If we do a global upload, will the system automatically remove those
students who do not appear on the global upload? The WSLS upload process is
different than some existing DPI applications where you must upload all data
at one time. No existing data will be deleted during the upload process. New
information will be added.
- Are files submitted by school or by district? You may upload data at
the individual school or the district level.
- If our file has errors can we just resubmit it? If the errors are business rule errors or format errors, then yes. These types of errors cause files to fail so errors can be corrected and files resubmitted. Corrections of data in files that are successful can be made online or through batch processing. Online and batch correction options will be added to WSLS this summer.
- Which file would you select for the download
after the initial upload? From the 'Results - File Upload/Download &
Mass Entry' function, the WSN ID file will provide all WSNs which were
assigned to your district during file processing. To retrieve the WSNs of
student which required exit confirmation request or match review, go to the "Individual Student Update" screen or
request a file by assignment date from the 'File Download Request' function.
You may view this file online or download to your local computer.
- We can't just enter individual student's WSN into our SIS? If 1 enrolls,
we must download a file? That's one option. You can also view the WSN on the "Individual Student Update" screen. See above.
- May we upload all students in a district at once or does it need to be
done by school? You may upload all students in a district at once or
upload each school individually.
- Will a "subsequent load" include only new students or all students
again? After the initial load, 'subsequent loads' may include new
students or transfer students.
- What are XML files? Follow the link
and refer to page 5.
- If our upload file fails to process, must we resubmit all the student
records or only those which were in error? If the file failed (the
corresponding result report shows a status of FAILURE), you must correct the
errors and resubmit all records within the file. You may not reuse the file
name.
- How will we know about the WSN Match or Error reports? Will we receive
an e-mail or have to seek it out? From the 'Results - File
Upload/Download & Mass Entry' function, you will be able to view reports
generated during file processing.
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Information Release
- Will this information be available
to other government agencies like the military?
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Initial Student Load
- By what date must our
district complete the initial load?
- Is 2004-05 file upload also due June 30, 2004? No. After the initial load, there are no specific due dates. Districts need to keep WSLS data current.
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Preferences
- We're a single school district, do we still need different contacts for
the district and school? Our school and district are located in the same
building. You must have a primary and secondary contact at the district
level and a primary contact for each school. The district and school
contacts may be district employees, if such a scenario works best for your
district. The primary contact may be the same for all schools but must be
different than the primary contact provided for the district (school code
0000).
- Our district does not have school contacts in the summer and we do not
want school level employees to be authorized within the WSLS. Why must we
provide contact information for each school? see above
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Privacy
- Does our district need to change our annual
notification to parent to specifically address the release of student
information for the WSLS?
- Will schools have to send out privacy
disclosure forms to parents?
- How do I complete the privacy indicator based
on the information I collect from my annual notification to
parents?
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Student Demographic
- Is the parent / guardian used for
identification or is this the person with whom they live?This information will not be used for any purpose other than to help schools identify a student as a match.
- Can we report the Parent/Guardian as a group home or jail rather than a person? No. Unlike parent/guardian information, providing information about residence in a group home or jail would often be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy. It is not directory data.
- Will race be reported under only 5
categories? If so, when does the DPI intend to move to the multi-race
model?
- What if you know that two students
in the district have exactly the same name, including middle name? Matches are based on names, birthdates, and other directory data..
- What are the requirements and/or guidelines for making a student name
change? Are we requesting a legal document?Often we have parents request a
last name change for a student simply because they (the parent) has
remarried. Is it legal to request a copy or to make a copy of a child's
birth certificate to make sure the information the parent is giving you is
correct?
- Why can't we use social security numbers when there are only one
assigned to each person and there will be no duplication? There are several reasons but here are a few. Some students don't have social security numbers. Many people object to their use for security and privacy reasons. State law prohibits the the assignment of identification numbers by schools that incorporate social security numbers.
- How do I report the birth location for a Student who has a birthplace of
Thailand? 'Out of Country' is a valid choice for the field 'Birth
State'. Note that reporting birth location is optional.
- Will contact information such as
address and phone number be reported in the WSLS?
- If you enter a middle name, for example, for some students, do you have
to enter it for all? No.
- Why are the names matched
phonetically? Phonetic matching may help prevent a student from being
assigned multiple WSN IDs.
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Technical Support
- Is there a manual for this whole
system?
- Is there any plan for training for the
office administrative assistants to learn the program?
- Does the program time out if the user fails to log out properly? The
application will time out after 20 minutes of inactivity. To properly exit
from your Wisconsin User ID session, we recommend that you click the 'Exit'
icon within the WSLS and close your web browser.
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URL / Web Site
- How do I access the Wisconsin Student Number
Locator System?
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Web Access Management System (WAMS)
- Is
technical support available for the WAMS?
- I have completed Step 1 of the registration process, but have not
received an email such that I may proceed to Step 2, what should I do?
Some users have experienced problems receiving the email from
WAMS@wisconsin.gov and HELP@wisconsin.gov due to email filtering at their
school or district. Check with your email support staff. If you are unable
to resolve this issue, please contact the WSLS Help Line at 800 507
5744.
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Wisconsin Student Number (WSN)
- What will the WSN ID consist of - letters, numbers? Will common names
cause a problem? The WSN ID will be a 10 digit
number with no embedded meaning.
- Do you have plans to eventually bring in the private school students?
No.
- It is my understanding that Home Schooled students make application to
home school through the DPI. Will you be assigning WSN numbers to these
students? No.
- Would you advise districts to
provide the student number to parents?
- Why are you not advising districts to share WSN with parents? Districts are expected to treat WSNs as confidential to help keep other more sensitive data about students confidiential. Parents have access to confidential data about their children, but since WSNs are used only as data base keys in our system we see no need to share WSNs with parents unless there is a request.
- Why would we bring the WSN into our system? You will need the WSN in
your system to report data for the Individual Student Enrollment System in
the fall of 2004.
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WSLS / ISES Administrator
- Can we have more than one WSLS administrator? No, there may be only
one WSLS / ISES Administrator per district and non-district charter
school. The WSLS / ISES Administrator can use the Delegated Authority Application to appoint an Assistant WSLS / ISES Administrator
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Wisconsin School Performance Report
- How will the WSLS affect the expulsion data used for Wisconsin School Performance Report purposes?
- How will the WSLS affect
attendance data used for Wisconsin School Performance Report purposes?
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Submit questions, comments, and suggestions about the WSLS or ISES to *dpistats@dpi.wi.gov or call 800-507-5744.
Submit questions regarding the ESEA Report Card Requirements to *dpieseadata@dpi.wi.gov.
Last updated on 2/28/2008 7:42:34 AM
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