By Brian Fraley, Dairyland Sentinel
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is returning to the Wisconsin Dells for its 11th annual WISEdata Conference on March 18 and 19. This gathering of school administrators and data coordinators comes as the agency tells state lawmakers in Madison that it is facing a dire fiscal crisis that could lead to staff layoffs.
The conference serves as a technical training site for DPI staff and the local school district employees who manage state reporting systems. While the agency calls the event a “community” effort, the choice of venue follows a pattern of spending that has already frustrated the Legislature. The DPI selected the same resort, Chula Vista, where it spent $368,885 on a four-day workshop in June of 2024.
For this month’s event, the DPI says the costs of rooms and travel are not covered by the state. However, that does not mean the public is off the hook. Local school districts often pick up the tab for resort stays using property tax revenue or federal grants.
The DPI’s affinity for the Wisconsin Dells, beloved here and beyond Wisconsin as the Waterpark Capital of the World, is not limited to Chula Vista. Just six days ago, the department concluded the 2026 Wisconsin Federal Funding Conference at the Kalahari Resort. This event, at which State Superintendent Jill Underly spoke, was held in collaboration with WASBO (Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials) and WCASS (The Wisconsin Council of Administrators of Special Services) featured a roster of DPI experts instructing school business officials on how to “maximize every dollar” of federal aid. Most notably, the DPI’s own website explicitly reminded attendees that registration and lodging costs could be reimbursed using federal IDEA and Title I-A formula funds, money the federal government earmarks specifically for students with disabilities and those from low-income families.
The “professional development” at these resorts includes more than breakout sessions related to data entry. The official WISEdata agenda promotes a “Seek and Find” gameboard, a scavenger hunt designed to lead participants around the waterpark property to win raffle prizes. A “Block Party” networking break is also scheduled for the Grand Lobby of the resort.
These activities move forward even as the DPI claims it is broke. In a memo to the Joint Finance Committee The Legislative Fiscal Bureau notes DPI stated that a delay in releasing $2 million in state funding could force “recruitment delays” and “staff layoffs.”
The department’s “Seek and Find” games at the Dells are a bitter irony for the public. Dairyland Sentinel has been thrust into our own game of seek and find with the DPI for more than a year now. The agency has repeatedly stonewalled our public records requests, including the refusal to release the signed contract with Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) , the vendor that facilitated the original 2024 “Waterpark Workshop.”
DRC remains deeply involved with the department, currently managing technical updates for the Wisconsin Forward Exam. It is unknown at this time if DRC is involved with either of these 2026 conferences or if any attendees were required to sign non disclosure agreements similar to those executed in the 2024 Waterpark Workshop.
The DPI claims the DRC contract which governed the 2024 junket contains “proprietary information” that justifies hiding how state proficiency standards were redefined during that meeting.
Whether the department will be more forthcoming to the lawmakers who hold the purse strings than they have been to the general public remains to be seen.
TheJoint Committee on Finance meets Tuesday at 10 a.m. to decide whether to release the $2 million. Lawmakers can now determine if the department’s habit of resort-based training is a necessity or a luxury the state can no longer afford to subsidize.
Note: We are not alleging wrongdoing on the part of the waterparks or any vendor with whom DPI has a relationship. We will, however, ask DPI if they considered cutting costs by utilizing Zoom or other remote meeting alternatives. In our next open records request to DPI, we are asking for details, contracts and itemized costs for both conferences.For a department whose own employees enjoy significant remote work privileges, they routinely hold large, and as we’ve discovered sometimes quite expensive, in-person meetings. If they ever respond, even if it takes a year (again), we will share what we discover.
Originally published Monday, March 2, 2026
Additional Links
Our previous coverage of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
