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Wilson Elementary reports big drop in office referrals, benchmark quality rises to 85%
Summary
Wilson Elementary staff told the Ottumwa school board they cut office discipline referrals from 518 to 109 compared with last year, implemented building‑wide behavior lessons and scales, and increased their benchmark of quality from 55% to 85%.
Wilson Elementary staff reported to the Ottumwa Community School District board May 12 that a set of behavior and instructional changes this year corresponded with large reductions in office discipline referrals and measurable gains on internal quality benchmarks.
Megan Versteg, behavior strategist at Wilson Elementary, told the board, "it's a difference of 518 office referrals to this year, we're at a hundred and 9," citing data through April that compared last school year to this one.
Why it matters: the school tied the decline in referrals to a combination of clearer minor-infraction documentation, a three-strike approach that keeps lower-level issues in the classroom, building-wide "Wilson Way" lessons for common areas, and small-group reteaching conducted by behavior staff. Those classroom and building interventions are intended to keep more incidents from escalating to office discipline referrals.
Details presented to the board included instructional and social-emotional work. The school used a new analytics tab in PowerSchool to track behavior referrals and ran a three-times-per-year benchmark-of-quality walkthrough. Staff reported the benchmark score rose from 55% at the start of the year to 85% at the end of the review period. The school also shared I-Ready diagnostic usage: staff tested about 300 students and said mid‑year results indicated growth toward end‑of‑year targets.
Examples of interventions noted by staff included posting common-area "scales" aligned with classroom rubrics, reteach sessions coordinated through PLC lists, student advisory activities to improve attendance and SEL visibility, and a weekly "slime" attendance challenge to encourage classroom attendance growth. Staff also described arrival and dismissal traffic challenges at pickup and drop-off, and said they had trialed changes including a request to make Plum Street one‑way during those times.
Board members thanked the students who attended the presentation and asked no formal actions on the item; the report was informational. Staff said next school-year goals include more targeted literacy intervention, routine building‑wide SEL time, continued work on arrival/dismissal procedures and updated signage for small staff parking lots.
