SB 458

Current law establishes minimum age requirements for the admission of a

pupil into four-year-old kindergarten, five-year-old kindergarten, and first grade

but permits a school board of a school district to establish standards for early

admission into five-year-old kindergarten and first grade. Current law also

requires the school board of each school district to establish standards for admission

into high school.

Prior to the enactment of

2013 Wisconsin Act 20

(the biennial budget bill), the

law required school boards of school districts operating high school grades to allow

a pupil enrolled in a private school, a tribal school, or a home-based educational

program and who met the standards for admission to high school to take up to two

courses during each school semester if the pupil resided in the school district and if

there was sufficient space in the classroom. Act 20 expanded this opportunity to

permit any pupil enrolled in a home-based private educational program, and not just

a pupil who meets the standards for admission to high school, to attend up to two

courses during each school semester in any public school in any school district in the

state if the pupil meets the standards for admission to the course. Act 20 also

required school districts to determine minimum standards for admission to a course

at each grade.

This bill modifies the expanded program created under Act 20 to reflect the fact

that prior law permitted a pupil enrolled in a home-based educational program to

attend courses in the high school grades if the pupil met the standards for admission

to high school.