Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 10:35 AM To – District Administrators and Open Enrollment Coordinators From – Mary Jo Cleaver, Open Enrollment Consultant Subject – More On Processing Open Enrollment Applications Please review this carefully. Following these instructions will save time and improve processing of applications! ENTERING PAPER APPLICATIONS If you have any paper applications that have not yet been entered into OPAL, please do so immediately. It is not necessary to send a copy of the paper form to the resident school district unless the resident school district requests it. If you need any assistance entering applications, please contact Merry Larsen or me. AMENDMENTS If a student did not apply to the correct nonresident school district, there is nothing that can be done. If the parent indicated the correct nonresident and resident districts, but reversed them (i.e. indicated the nonresident district as the resident district and vice versa), we will make that correction. We will make corrections to resident districts for about two weeks. For example, I just talked with a student who currently attends Pulaski High School in Milwaukee. He indicated a resident district of Pulaski instead of Milwaukee. We will correct that. After the end of next week, we will correct resident districts if the “new” resident district agrees to allow the open enrollment. You can amend any application you entered. All other amendments must be made by me or Merry Larsen. Please do not send individual emails for each amendment, please send a list. It is easier for us to make amendments at your request than at parents’ requests. For us to accept a parent’s request for amendment, we must have an email sent from the same email used to submit the application, we need the student’s name and birthdate and the name of the nonresident and resident school districts. REQUESTING RECORDS It is recommended that nonresident districts request special education and expulsion records for every student. Send the request to the student’s resident school district or the public school district the student is attending, if not the resident school district. Do not send requests to private schools; they will not have IEPs and you cannot deny open enrollment based on an expulsion from a private school. There is a form you can use at http://dpi.wi.gov/sms/doc/oerecreq.doc. We have not kept this form updated, so the dates are wrong. But it is not password protected, so you can correct the dates and use the form. Alternatively, you can create your own form letter (or email) based on the language in this form. Resident school districts must make every effort to provide the records to the nonresident district within 5 days. If you cannot do so, please let the nonresident know when you will send them. If you do not have special education or expulsion for a student (most students will not have either of these), let the nonresident district know this. SPECIAL EDUCATION ESTIMATES Nonresident districts must send estimates of special education costs to resident school districts by March 15 (provided you have the student’s IEP). Do not send an estimate without an IEP. If the student is referred for an evaluation that has not been completed, or if a student with a disability does not have a valid IEP (this should only happen if the student is home-schooled, in private school or not attending school), send a letter stating that without a valid IEP, you cannot provide an estimate. DELETING APPLICATIONS The only applications that will be deleted are those that should not have been submitted in the first place or that the parent requested be withdrawn. If the nonresident district required the student to reapply at middle school, junior high or high school, you should print a copy of the application for your records and request deletion. If the student is already open enrolled and does not need to reapply, request deletion. Do not request deletion because you do not offer the grade or program the parent requested unless you have contacted the parent and the parent requested to withdraw the application (in that case, indicate parent request as a reason for deletion). Instead, you should process and deny the application. Do not request deletion based on an application that does not make sense. Contact the parent, if you can, to clarify the situation and either correct it (if requested by the parent), or delete it (if the parent requests to withdraw it) or process (even if it makes no sense to you). To request deletion, click on Delete in the far right column on the All Applications list. Enter the reason for deletion and submit. It will not be immediately deleted. I will review the requests and do a mass deletion from time to time. Please do not submit the same request more than once. I will notify you if and why a requested deletion is not made. TUITION WAIVERS A parent can apply for open enrollment even if the student is eligible for a tuition waiver. You cannot refuse to accept such an application, and you cannot deny it except as allowed in statute and your policy. If the student is approved for open enrollment, then the open enrollment takes precedence. If the student is denied open enrollment, the student may still request a tuition waiver, but must then apply again for open enrollment the following school year. As always, if you have any questions, please contact me (information below) or Merry Larsen, merry.larsen@dpi.wi.gov, or 608-266-2146. 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