Our Accomplishments

WCRIS advocates for over 600 member schools and the families they serve. We continuously assess and align our goals to the needs of our schools to help them provide the highest quality education possible.


Since our founding in 1974, the Wisconsin Council of Religious & Independent Schools (WCRIS) has:

  • Helped amend the state constitution to provide equitable busing for private school children;
  • Generated the idea to use federal pandemic aid (EANS funds) for covering labor costs for windows and HVAC updates and successfully lobbied the DPI and U.S. Department of Education to approve the idea, which was subsequently implemented at private schools nationwide;
  • Advocated for the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to include religious schools and to expand vouchers statewide;
  • Helped create a Wisconsin tax deduction for K-12 tuition expenses, saving private school parents an estimated $30 million annually;
  • Supported the creation of the state’s Special Needs Scholarship Program, which provides vouchers to parents of children with special education needs.

Daily, the WCRIS staff works to:

  • Provide technical support and professional development for private school administrators;
  • Prevent countless laws from being passed that hamper our schools’ independence with unneeded regulations and paperwork;
  • Protect private school students’ access to federal special education services;
  • Save our member schools money by negotiating discounts on products and services that help our schools fulfill their various missions.