Audit of Staff data
Each year, the DPI Licensing, Educator Advancement and Development (LEAD) Team conducts an audit of all public school districts in the state of Wisconsin to ensure that all professional staff members are appropriately licensed.
Those audited include public school districts, Cooperative Educational Service Agencies (CESAs), County Children with Disabilities Education Boards (CCDEBs), the Department of Corrections, the Department of Health and Family Services, the Wisconsin Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired and all non-district sponsored (2R) charter schools are also audited.
WISEstaff Data Collection & Audit
Each fall, the DPI collects staff data from the entities listed above in the WISEstaff system, which is then used to conduct a preliminary of audit staff assignments that require a license through the department.
Once WISEstaff data is preliminarily certified, the staff assignment data are cross-referenced against educators’ licensing data using an audit program to generate the following reports:
- Active Staff Report: identifies all licensed staff.
- Audit Error Report: identifies staff where there are discrepancies between reported assignment and license(s) held.
- Special Education Audit Report: identifies special education staff where there are discrepancies between reported assignment and license(s) held. The information on this report is a subset of the Audit Error Report.
- Reject report: identifies staff who are reported in assignments that require a license, but do have an entity number.
LEAD staff reviews the Audit Error Report for each entity. Once this review is completed, WISEstaff contacts are notified of the preliminary audit results by email. Entities can find audit reports in the WISEstaff system under Reports /Audit Results.
Entity Responsibility
It is the entity's responsibility to ensure that all professional staff members have a valid license for their assignment(s) as required by law. School board specifically are required under s.121.02 to ensure appropriately licensed professional staff and under s.118.21 to file licensure timely at the time a contract is offered. The audit assists entities meet their obligations under law.
It is important to review these preliminary audit results to identify and correct any errors in reporting staff assignments. There is typically a two-month window after preliminary audit results are available before final certification of staff data is due. If errors in reporting assignments are identified after the preliminary audit reports are generated, the entity’s WISEstaff contact person should login to WISEstaff and make all necessary corrections before the deadline set forth by WISEstaff. A final audit of staff data is conducted in the summer, by which time licenses should be on file for the school year.