Sent:	Wednesday, September 15, 2010 9:15 AM

Categories:	Important

To – District Administrators and Open Enrollment Coordinators
 
From—Mary Jo Cleaver and Merry Larsen, Open Enrollment Consultants
 
Subject—Keeping Track of Open Enrolled Students
 
There have been a disturbing number of situations this year where it was suddenly discovered that a student is 
open enrolled but was not reported as open enrolled last year (and sometimes for several years).  
 
The only way to fix this is to enter the student as open enrolled in the current school year.  We cannot go back and 
amend prior year open enrollment payments.  If the districts wish to correct past years, they must work it out with 
each other; both districts must amend their memberships (the state aids team will allow you to go back one year) 
and one district must pay the other.  
 
It is impossible to overstate how disruptive this is both for school districts and the DPI.  There is no procedure for 
doing this within OPAL, so we must take up Donna’s limited and valuable time to manually make this OPAL entry 
each time it happens.   If memberships are changed, the state aids team must recalculate the revenue limit and state 
aids for each affected school district.  
 
Please ensure that all students are properly reported as OE on the third Friday—both in and out.  Check and double 
check throughout the school year.  Resolve all problems as soon as they are discovered.  Ensure that all students 
are properly reported as OE on the second Friday and correct third Friday entries if necessary.  Check and double 
check throughout the school year and do a review about a month before the final state aid payments are made and 
at least one more time when I notify you that  they are going to be made.  It is impossible to be too careful about 
this.  
 
The goal is to not have any instances whatsoever of this problem in the 2010-11 school year.   We appreciate your 
attention to this.  
 
Mary Jo Cleaver 
Public School Open Enrollment Consultant 
Department of Public Instruction 
608-267-9101 or toll-free 888-245-2732 
fax:  608-267-9207 
email: maryjo.cleaver@dpi.wi.gov 
website: http://dpi.wi.gov/sms/psctoc.html 
 
Merry Larsen
Public School Open Enrollment Consultant 
Department of Public Instruction 
608-266-2146 or toll-free 888-245-2732 
fax:  608-267-9207 
email: merry.larsen@dpi.wi.gov 
website: http://dpi.wi.gov/sms/psctoc.html