Nabnasset School Advisory Council
Meeting Minutes for November 29, 2016
Nabnasset Conference Room
Present: Mrs. DuBois, Mrs. Loughman, Mrs. Mallon, Mrs. Eckroth, Mrs. Boutet, Mr.
Hillam, Mr. House
1. Meeting Minutes – The minutes from the October 25th meeting were read and
approved. They are posted on the Nabnasset website.
2. School Update – We welcomed Mrs. Coulter last week. She worked with Mrs.
Scafidi in the classroom, and they conducted conferences together. We also welcomed
Mrs. Cafelle, teaching assistant, to Mrs. Scott’s classroom. The Halloween Carnival
drew a large crowd. It was extended by 30 minutes this year due to the popularity of the
tractor ride. The activities appear to be more popular than the parade. The profit from
the photos, tractor rides, and light up items totaled $550.00. The Kindergarten Sing-along had the largest crowd in 3 years. Bernadette Baird engaged parents and students in
singing, dancing and playing instruments. Pictures of both events are posted on our
Facebook page. The October 8th professional development day started at the Blanchard
Middle School. Mrs. Santelmann, Science Curriculum Coordinator, presented on the
importance of asking questions. We had the opportunity to be students by posing
questions and investigating the answers through experimentation. In the afternoon, we
returned to Nabnasset for a webinar on the DreamBox adaptive math program. Students
work on it every week. It starts with the basics, skills build, and are differentiated.
Teachers receive data on student progress. We are preparing for the second cycle on 10
week literacy intervention services by gathering data and observations from classroom
teachers and service providers. The following questions are answered:



Who has reached the benchmark?
Who has made progress but is not at the benchmark?
Who has made little or no progress
3. Meeting Changes/Training Opportunity – Some of the meetings needed to be
changed as they conflicted with the Abbot council meetings. Both schools revised their
schedules. Please note the following Nabnasset changes:


February 28th changed to March 1st
March 28th changed to March 29th
The optional council training for the 9 school councils will be on Thursday, December
15th at 6:00 in the Westford Academy café. Bill Olsen has asked Chuck Christensen,
Education Consultant, to present the School Council Overview. Mr. Christensen met
with the leadership team recently, and he indicated he would review the purpose, roles
and responsibilities of the councils and council members.
4. First Trimester Conferences – We discussed the changes and the feedback indicated:
 Online conference scheduling – positive comments from both parents and staff,
parents thought it was easier to have both Abbot and Nab following the same
process, a glitch to be corrected is that parents made changes after the deadline
and staff were not aware as they believed it was closed.
 Conferences without report cards – parents and staff liked it better without the
report cards because the focus was on the child, Mrs. DuBois received an email
from a parent stating she preferred having the report card for the conference
In March, the report cards will coincide with conferences.
5. SIP – We reviewed the school improvement goals and updated the status. We decided
to advertise again for parent facilitators for after school clubs. Also, it was suggested to
offer a Principal Hour in the evening as well as the morning.