Frequently Encountered Error and Warning Message in the ISES

2006-07

The following list provides a summary of frequently encountered error and warning messages in the ISES. If your district does not correct errors prior to the final submission deadline, then DPI may estimate certain data using data available from other collections or other records. Estimation may generate data which is not representative of your district and is not the preferred solution to filling data gaps.

1. Missing ISES Count Date records or missing Count Date Status codes (e.g. E97 and E19a).
   These errors are serious in that they will result in enrollment counts that are lower than actual counts. Enrollment counts are used for public reporting, calculating a wide range of rates and ratios, some grants, and more.
2. Missing or invalid Exit Types, missing Expected Transfer Districts, or missing Expected Transfer Response (e.g. E45, E41, E109, E108, E50, E51, E52, E53, E127, W44).
   In most cases missing/invalid data will be interpreted as evidence of dropout status possibly resulting in very high dropout rates and/or very low high school completion rates for your district. These errors and warnings, unless addressed by your district, will affect AYP and public reporting.
3. Missing Promotion indicator (e.g. E80).
   Unless this error is addressed, affected students will be interpreted as evidence of retention on the ISES Retention Report and will tend to increase retention rates for your district. (ISES calculates this field based on other ISES data only if specific criteria are met. Otherwise districts must provide data for this field, or they will get the error message.)
4. Illogical or invalid Completed School Term indicators (e.g. W116, E114).
   If your district submitted Ns that should be Ys, then these mistakes are likely to result in higher dropout and retention rates for your district.
5. Missing or invalid Grade Level Placement (e.g. E19d, E140, E141, E142).
   This field is key because it is not only used for disaggregated reporting but also to calculate various fields (promotion/retention), to include records in various reports (dropout, truancy, retention) and files (WSAS roster), and more. Note that grade must be within the appropriate range for the Accountable School and Expected Transfer School/District as well as the Submitting School.
6. Missing or invalid Attendance data (e.g. E19g, E19f, E61).
   Of particular concern is that in many cases the attendance days far exceed the number of days in the school term. The attendance of affected students will have a disproportionately large effect on the attendance rates for your district. Excessive attendance days appear to be associated with more mobile students who tend to have lower attendance rates so this means not only bad data for your schools but lower attendance rates. Missing attendance data will be interpreted as zero attendance.
7. Missing data required for NCLB disaggregation (e.g. E19b, E19c, E19e, E26).
   We are particularly concerned about missing English Language Proficiency, Economically Disadvantaged Status, and Primary Disability codes. Wisconsin is required to report these disaggregated data in exchange for receipt of NCLB funding (a few hundred million dollars annually for WI school districts), but can't comply without complete data from all districts.
8. Missing or invalid Payer and Third Party Provider (e.g. E123, E133, E134).
   Third party provider codes are used to produce required summary data about students receiving their primary educational services directly from providers other than school districts. These codes may also be used for other purposes such as to flag atypical attendance situations or to provide more meaningful student to staff ratios. Refer to the following link for information regarding Payer http://dpi.wi.gov/lbstat/datapayer.html. Missing and invalid Payer and Third Party Provider data will be interpreted as 'NONE', no payer or no third party provider.

Districts are also strongly encouraged to review their ISES progress and summary reports because ISES-generated errors and warnings cannot identify all possible district data issues and because these reports provide a preview of draft public reports based on the data you have submitted to date.

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Last updated on 2/28/2008 7:42:35 AM