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Wilmot presenters say referrals are down but attendance remains a concern after coordinated senior skip day
Summary
Dan Bender told the board referrals and suspensions have declined after school-based classroom management and support services, but attendance remains short of the 93% goal; administrators described a coordinated senior skip day that left 157 students absent and prompted family outreach.
Dan Bender, the presenter of the discipline report, told the Wilmot UHS School District board that referrals across most categories have fallen since the district implemented a teacher-focused discipline chart two to three years ago. "Referrals have gone down in every category," he said, adding that "insubordination" referrals are "dramatically lower."
Bender walked directors through demographic breakdowns, saying males are proportionally higher in referral rates and that sophomores currently show the highest referral counts. He explained that entries labeled as "law enforcement" in the student information system often reflect routing to other supports — for example, Kenosha County youth outreach or juvenile intake — rather than immediate court referrals. "A lot of times, it goes to a different resource," he said.
The district continues to use outside and in-house supports, he said. The district refers students to Care Solace, a vendor that texts and calls families to connect them with counseling and therapy; Bender said the district has referred "about 50 or 60" cases this year and that the district renewed its Care Solace arrangement for two more school years. He also described SBIRT screening and brief interventions delivered by school social workers and the school resource officer as alternatives to suspension in some cases.
On attendance, Bender reported a current rate just over 91.9% (he said the number reached 92% that day) and reiterated the district goal of 93%. The district has held roughly 60–70 attendance-plan meetings with families this year to address habitual truancy and is using positive incentives such as weekly raffles to encourage on-time attendance. "The goal is 93 this year," he said.
An administrator told the board a coordinated senior skip day left 157 seniors absent; only 34 were marked truant because 119 parents called the school to excuse students. The administrator said staff responded by convening seniors in the auditorium, calling families and planning a follow-up focus group to understand students' reasons. "It tells us the story of what we're up against when it comes to attendance," the administrator said, urging a focus on family engagement and accountability.
Board members pressed for clarity about referral counts and whether multiple referrals could represent the same students; Bender said he will provide a ratio breakdown to show unique student counts versus repeated incidents. The report concluded with board praise for efforts to empower teachers in-class and for staff who have worked on attendance follow-up. The district did not take any formal votes on discipline or attendance in the provided excerpt; the report was informational and slated for future follow-up where noted.
