Friday, April 18, 2025
Each school year, DPI receives questions related to transition aged students regarding the topics below. Spring provides a great opportunity to share information with adult students and/or their parents.
- Records for students who exit special education through graduation or “aging out”: Each local educational agency (LEA) must adopt a records retention schedule that should be made available to the public. These schedules specify how long the LEA is required to maintain educational records and when they are required to destroy them. Requirements vary based on the type of records.
- The Wisconsin Public Records Board recommends LEAs retain records of high school transcripts, grades, degrees, and awards permanently.
- Federal law requires LEAs take additional actions regarding special education documents including evaluation reports and individualized education programs (IEPs). While LEAs must eventually destroy special education records, LEAs are required to maintain certain records for a period of time for financial or program audit purposes. LEAs must inform each adult student with a disability and/or their parents when personally identifiable information is no longer needed to provide services to the student. LEAs often provide this information at the same time they provide notices regarding either graduation or ending of services due to age, including the student’s Summary of Performance. Additionally, LEAs may wish to develop systems or protocols to provide paper and electronic copies of the student’s last evaluation report and IEP to parents and/or adult students, and to provide tips or suggestions for how families might maintain these records so that they have them in the future.
- Resources related to pupil record retention include the publications, Student Records and Confidentiality, and the General Records Schedule for Wisconsin Public School District and Related Records found on DPI’s Confidentiality, Consent, and Student Records webpage.
- Participation in end of year graduation programs: Each school board determines local policy regarding which students may participate in graduation activities and ceremonies. LEAs may allow students who will continue to receive special education services or have received a high school equivalency degree to walk across the stage at graduation with their classmates to have their name announced but not receive a diploma. LEAs must take care to ensure students with disabilities have equal opportunities to participate in school-sponsored activities. For more information see Bulletin 10.08: High School Graduation and Students with Disabilities: How Students with Disabilities Meet High School Graduation Requirements as well as Transition Programming Beyond 18.
Thank you for all the support LEAs provide to students with disabilities as they graduate, exit, or continue onto Beyond 18 programs at the end of the school year.