2023 - 2024 LEGISLATURE
LRB-2588/1
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2023 SENATE BILL 179
April 3, 2023 - Introduced by JOINT LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. Referred to Committee
on Education.
1 AN ACT to create 115.385 (1h) of the statutes; relating to: school and school
2 district accountability report for a consolidated school district.
Analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau
This bill is explained in the NOTES provided by the Joint Legislative Council in
the bill.
The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do
enact as follows:
JOINT LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL PREFATORY NOTE: This draft was prepared for the Joint
Legislative Council's Study Committee on Shared School District Services.
Current law requires the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to annually
publish accountability reports, or “report cards” for individual schools and school
districts. Report cards are issued for all public schools and school districts in Wisconsin.
Current law requires DPI to factor certain measures of a school's performance or district's
improvement into the report cards. Additionally, the report cards must include an index
system that creates five performance categories and assigns each school and school
district to one of the categories. Under DPI's current accountability formula for the report
cards, DPI needs at least two consecutive school years of performance data to calculate
a school district's improvement score and performance category. Under current law, on
the effective date of consolidation, the school districts that were consolidated cease to
exist. Therefore, a newly consolidated school district does not have enough performance
data for DPI to measure the consolidated school district's improvement. Under the
current framework, DPI assigns a newly consolidated school district a placeholder of
“N/A” on its report card until DPI has enough data to determine the consolidated school
 2023 - 2024 Legislature -2- LRB-2588/1
FFK:amn&wlj
SENATE BILL 179
district's improvement or assign a performance category for the consolidated school
district.
The bill specifies that DPI may not determine a consolidated school district's
improvement, identify the consolidated school district's level of improvement, or assign
the consolidated school district a performance category for the school year in which the
consolidation takes effect and the subsequent two school years. Instead, in the report
cards published for the school year in which the consolidation takes effect and the
subsequent 2 school years, DPI must include: (1) the following statement: “Due to recent
consolidation, necessary data is not available for this school district.”; (2) the first school
year for which a performance category will be assigned to the consolidated school district;
and (3) the performance category assigned to each affected school district for the school
year before the consolidation took effect.
1 SECTION 1. 115.385 (1h) of the statutes is created to read:
2 115.385 (1h) For a school district consolidated under s. 117.08 or 117.09, all of
3 the following apply to the accountability reports published for the school year in
4 which the school district consolidation takes effect and the subsequent 2 school
5 years:
6 (a) The department may not determine the consolidated school district's
7 improvement under sub. (1) (a).
8 (b) The department may not identify the consolidated school district's level of
9 improvement or assign the consolidated school district to a performance category
10 under sub. (1) (b).
11 (c) In place of a performance category under sub. (1) (b), the department shall
12 include all of the following:
13 1. The following statement: “Due to recent consolidation, necessary data is not
14 available for this school district.”
15 2. The first school year for which a performance category will be assigned to the
16 consolidated school district.
17 3. The performance category assigned to each affected school district, as
18 defined in s. 117.03 (1) (c), for the school year before the consolidation took effect.
19 (END)