ISES: Determining the Order of School Enrollment Records

January 2005

Individual Student Enrollment System (ISES) calculated fields/codes and validation messages associated with an individual student are based in part on the order of school enrollment records for that student. Each school enrollment period is stored as a separate record in the Wisconsin Student Number Locator System (WSLS). Because WSLS permits a short overlap between school enrollment periods, determining the order of enrollment periods within any given school year is a multistep process. Steps are provided below.

Identify all WSLS school enrollment records for school year X. These are records that meet both the following criteria:
- enrollment date before 7/1 of school year X+1 AND
- exit date on or after 7/1 of school year X OR no exit date
For students with multiple school enrollment records identified in Step 1, determine the order of these enrollment records from most recent to oldest, apply the following criteria in order:
- If there is a record without an exit date, then it is automatically the most recent (there should only ever be one).
- For all records with exit dates, sort these records by exit date.
- If multiple records have the same exit date, then sort these records by enrollment date.

For example, imagine a student with 4 school enrollment records during a school year. At the beginning of the school term, he was enrolled in school A and had an exit date of January 20. He enrolled in school B with an enroll date of January 12 and an exit date of January 20. He enrolled in school C with an enroll date of January 21 and an exit date of May 1. He enrolled in school A again with an enroll date of April 30 and no exit date. The order of the school enrollment records from oldest to most recents is school A record #1, school B, school C, then school A record #2.

If multiple records for an individual student have the same enrollment date and the same exit date, then ISES will sort these records by WSLS create date. Beginning in school year 2004-05, whenever a school enrollment record has an enrollment date that is the same as the exit date, then the record is ignored by ISES for reporting purposes.