Dan Bush and Roger Kordus from the DPI School Financial Services Team will present a webinar about ESSER II & III hours of instruction data collection on Monday, July 26 from 10-11 AM. The webinar will include about 35 minutes of information covering a summary of the data collection and examples of how to compile data, with an opportunity for about 25 minutes of Q&A.
Citing Wisconsin’s falling ranks in reading proficiency compared to other states, a number of state legislative Republicans have proposed a massive overhaul of the reading readiness program including a laundry list of stringent new state mandates relating to screening, assessments, interventions, parental notifications and reporting requirements.
The new mandates are very specific, even dictating what companies and products must be approved for use. The legislation is authored by Sen. Kathy Bernier (R-Chippewa Falls) and Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay). See below for a comparison of current law and what is required by the bill.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidance for COVID-19 prevention in schools today (7/9).
The updated guidance focuses on helping administrators in K-12 schools, along with state and local health officials, safely support in-person learning as well as sports and other extracurricular activities. The updates are based on the latest science and emphasize the COVID-19 prevention strategies most important for K-12 schools to support in-person learning.
Governor Evers vetoed Assembly Bill 383, the bill that would have prohibited a school district from being a member of an interscholastic athletic association (i.e., the WIAA) in the 2021-22 school year unless, for the 2021-22 school year, the association allows an exception to its transfer rules based on the manner in which educational programming was delivered during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years.
The governor indicated he vetoed the bill because he objected to the Legislature inserting itself into the decision-making process of a private membership organization. WASB members have gone on record in support of WIAA autonomy by adopting a resolution that supports the governor’s position on this issue. (more…)
Today, Governor Tony Evers signed the 2021-23 state budget with no major changes to the K-12 provisions as passed by the legislature, and also announced he would allocate an additional $100 million in one-time federal funding for schools from COVID relief funds under the governor’s discretion.
The governor said he was unwilling to risk the $2.3 billion in federal funds for schools with a full veto of the budget and also acknowledged that “Republicans and their allies” were careful with the language included in the bill and did not provide an avenue to increase school funding with a line-item veto as he did in the last budget. (more…)