Incidence
For the 2022-2023 school year, 25,457 students (3.1%) of total public school enrollment (822,804 students) were identified as having other an other health impairment. These 24,274 students with an other health impairment made up 19.9% of all students with IEPs (122,187). In Wisconsin, IEP teams are not required to identify secondary or tertiary impairment areas and are only required to submit a “reporting” disability and may also report an “other” disability category. Thus the number of students identified as having an “other” disability category of other health impairment is not reflected in this data. To view additional data including district level information, go to the WI DPI public WISEdash portal.
Disproportionality
In Wisconsin, like many other states, we see district data demonstrating race-based patterns of identification for other health impairment. Specifically, districts have identified American Indian, black, and hispanic students more than their peers with having an other health impairment. As an equity issue, we strongly encourage all districts to disaggregate their special education data to ensure evaluation practices and procedures are culturally responsive and address bias when conducting and analyzing assessments used to make eligibility decisions. Go to the DPI Culturally Responsive Problem Solving web page for more information.
