Sun Prairie schools will ask board to seek DPI waiver for Act 95 tie-breaking rules

Sun Prairie Area School District officials said they will ask the school board at a public hearing on March 10 to approve an application for a waiver from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction that would let the district use a three-step tie-breaking method to determine which students receive an Act 95 “top 5%” or “top 10%” notation on their transcripts.

The request follows changing guidance about Wisconsin Act 95, the so‑called Wisconsin Guaranteed Admission Law, and local procedure changes the district made last year. District staff said the waiver would apply only to tie-breaking for Act 95 determinations and that any approved waiver would require annual renewal.

“Act 95, or the Wisconsin Guaranteed Admission Law, was signed into law and it established that the Board of Regents at the University of Wisconsin system must establish a guaranteed admission program that would directly admit students in the top 5% to the University of Wisconsin Madison and students in the top 10% of their class to any of the other UW system colleges or universities based solely on GPA,” said Kurt Mould, director of digital media, innovation and strategy for Sun Prairie Schools, explaining the statute’s effect and the systemwide admissions requirement. He said district staff implemented a procedure last year (JIR3) that rounded up when fractional counts occurred so more students could receive the notation.

District officials said subsequent guidance from state education groups and the UW System advised that districts must break GPA ties and not submit more than the statutory 5% or 10% of a class for guaranteed admission, effectively requiring districts to round down to whole numbers when calculating who falls within the statutory percentage. To address the change and the lack of statutory direction on tie-breaking methods, the administrative team is proposing a specific, tiered tie-breaking formula and will ask the board to authorize a waiver application so the district may apply that formula for Act 95 purposes.

Assistant Superintendent Stephanie Leonard said the administrative tie-breaking criteria the district will propose are, in order: (1) total number of high‑school credits earned at the end of six semesters; (2) number of AP courses and/or dual‑credit college courses listed in the district course guide (or college/university credits earned through Start College Now/Early College Credit programs) at the end of six semesters; and (3) ACT score from the junior‑year spring state assessment. “We recommend that we begin with the first criteria of the number of high school credits earned by the students at the end of 6 semesters,” Leonard said.

Leonard and Mould emphasized that the district will not change its internal class‑rank calculation: students’ Sun Prairie class rank will continue to appear on transcripts per district procedure IKD. The proposed change affects only the separate Act 95 notation that indicates a student qualifies for guaranteed admission under the state law. District staff said Sun Prairie transcribes dual‑enrollment and college courses into its GPA, so those students are generally already included in GPA calculations and thus are less likely to require a waiver for non‑GPA grading systems used elsewhere.

District staff noted practical and legal uncertainties remain: the statute specifies GPA but does not prescribe a tie‑breaking method or how to handle nontraditional grading systems, so some districts without GPA‑based grading must seek waivers. The district also said the DPI has indicated waiver requests are an annual process and that the waiver, if approved, would apply to the current junior class after completion of the eleventh grade year.

The district plans to present the waiver request and accompanying revisions to procedures JIR3 and IKD during a public hearing and school board meeting at 6 p.m. March 10 in the Professional Learning Center boardroom. If the board approves the resolution to apply, the application would be submitted to the Department of Public Instruction for consideration.