| DATE: | January 12, 2023 |
| TO: | District Administrator/Agency Administrator/WISEstaff application contacts |
| FROM: | DPI Licensing, Educator Advancement & Development (LEAD) Team |
| SUBJECT: | 2022-23 School District Educator Licensing Audits |
The Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) LEAD team has completed its review of your school district’s WISEstaff data matched against educator licensing records. The corresponding WISEstaff licensing audit and reports are available for your review in the WISEstaff system by selecting the audit results link from the reports menu.
Districts can open/save each of the following reports in the WISEstaff system in the audit results page:
- Active Staff Report: Lists all your district’s reported staff in licensed positions for the current school year.
- Audit Error Report: Lists assignments/positions for which it appears the staff member is not fully licensed for their assignment. The report supplies information about the audit error with more information about possible audit errors below.
- Special Education Audit Error Report: Lists special education assignments/positions for which it appears that the staff member is not fully licensed for their assignment. The report supplies information about the audit error with more information about possible audit errors listed below. Please note that any errors that remain after the final audit may impact special education categorical aid or other funds associated with having an appropriately licensed staff person.
- Reject Report – Lists any licensed assignments which were not audited. This typically occurs because the educator did not have a DPI ELO entity number or because the educator has not applied for their DPI license. This also means this educator is automatically considered unlicensed for the reported assignment. The issue with this report discovered at the end of the 2021-22 school year persists, which means people with entity ids are included in error.
Using this report:
If using the .pdf report, you can search using CTRL + F using the word “reason” to identify those who were not audited because they have a missing entity number.
If using the CSV file, you can sort or filter your results to determine if anyone has a reject reason under column L – Long Description. The reject reason described will likely be “Entity Id must be a number > 0.”
To view those staff whose licenses will expire 6/30/2023 and/or lifetime license holder staff who are due to submit a background check by the end of the 2022-23 school year, you have two options:
1. Look for the new widget on the WISEstaff Data Quality Dashboard labeled: “Expiring Staff Licenses”.
If using the .pdf report, you can search using CTRL + F using the word “reason” to identify those who were not audited because they have a missing entity number.
If using the CSV file, you can sort or filter your results to determine if anyone has a reject reason under column L – Long Description. The reject reason described will likely be “Entity Id must be a number > 0.”
To view those staff whose licenses will expire 6/30/2023 and/or lifetime license holder staff who are due to submit a background check by the end of the 2022-23 school year, you have two options:
1. Look for the new widget on the WISEstaff Data Quality Dashboard labeled: “Expiring Staff Licenses”.
- You will see the number of licenses that will expire at the end of the current school year: if the number is zero, then the widget will be green; if there are one or more licenses expiring, the widget will be orange.
- Click the widget to generate a download of the staff whose licenses will expire.
2. View licensing details for all staff or to view expiring background checks by selecting the “Licensing Download” link from the Manage Staff Data menu.
o Choose whether to search for staff by ID number or see your full staff list from a working school year.
Optional: Select whether to filter the staff list by license expiration date or background check expiration year; select the year by which to filter.
Note: This is an optional step. You will still see the license expiration date and background check expiration year for each educator in the download if you don’t use the filter option and can sort the results by either expiration date column.
o Click the Download Report button to generate the licensing file.
Individuals with errors are flagged with one or more of the following:
o Choose whether to search for staff by ID number or see your full staff list from a working school year.
Optional: Select whether to filter the staff list by license expiration date or background check expiration year; select the year by which to filter.
Note: This is an optional step. You will still see the license expiration date and background check expiration year for each educator in the download if you don’t use the filter option and can sort the results by either expiration date column.
o Click the Download Report button to generate the licensing file.
- License Not Valid for This Current School Year: Educator does not have the correct license for their assignment or the license was not valid for the entire school year.
- Reported Grade Range Outside License Grade Range: Educator is reported in an assignment that includes a grade range that is above/below the actual license held.
- Educator Has No License: Educator was reported in an assignment that requires a license but they do not hold a DPI license of any kind.
- No Matching License: Educator was reported in an assignment that requires a license and while the educator holds one or more DPI licenses, they do not hold an appropriate license for the reported assignment.
- No Bilingual License: Educator was reported as teaching a bilingual program without the license.
- Sub License Not Valid for Assignment: Educator was reported as teaching in a regular assignment but only holds a substitute license.
- Under Investigation: Educator is under investigation by the Department. If you have any questions regarding any educator with this notation, please email Educator Licensing.
- Revoked: Educator’s license has been revoked by the Department. Here is more information about the misconduct investigation process.
You and your staff should now follow up and attempt to remedy all discrepancies.
If assignment coding errors exist (e.g., reported an incorrect position, subject, and/or grades), the district should make corrections in WISEstaff. If assistance is needed in making these corrections, request help using the WISEstaff Help Ticket.
If all staff assignments were coded correctly but there is still an audit error, the district must work with any educator who flagged on the Audit Error Report and/or Special Ed Audit Error Report to apply for the appropriate license. If an application has not already been submitted to the DPI, please have the educator submit an application immediately. In this situation, no additional changes to the WISEstaff report are needed. If the educator becomes appropriately licensed for this current school year’s assignment, they will not flag as an error again on the final audit.
Districts may confirm receipt of a current application by accessing the License Lookup. Type in the educator’s entity # or first name and last name, and click [Submit]. The “Most Recent
Application/Payment Received” shown in License Lookup is the date of the most recent application we have received from that educator.
If you have any other questions related to the licensing audit reports, please use the Contact LEAD form. In that form, please put the following in the BEGINNING of your description: Audit of [insert your district’s name]. For example, Audit of ABC School District.
If desired, feel free to download these reports and share them with other staff in your district.
If assignment coding errors exist (e.g., reported an incorrect position, subject, and/or grades), the district should make corrections in WISEstaff. If assistance is needed in making these corrections, request help using the WISEstaff Help Ticket.
If all staff assignments were coded correctly but there is still an audit error, the district must work with any educator who flagged on the Audit Error Report and/or Special Ed Audit Error Report to apply for the appropriate license. If an application has not already been submitted to the DPI, please have the educator submit an application immediately. In this situation, no additional changes to the WISEstaff report are needed. If the educator becomes appropriately licensed for this current school year’s assignment, they will not flag as an error again on the final audit.
Districts may confirm receipt of a current application by accessing the License Lookup. Type in the educator’s entity # or first name and last name, and click [Submit]. The “Most Recent
Application/Payment Received” shown in License Lookup is the date of the most recent application we have received from that educator.
If you have any other questions related to the licensing audit reports, please use the Contact LEAD form. In that form, please put the following in the BEGINNING of your description: Audit of [insert your district’s name]. For example, Audit of ABC School District.
If desired, feel free to download these reports and share them with other staff in your district.