The 2015 School Report Cards were released online on Dec. 1, marking the 14th year that North Carolina has provided a comprehensive School Report Card for each public K-12 school. The Report Cards provide an important resource for parents and other community members to locate consistent information about your schools.

I hope you encourage your parents to use the Report Cards as a starting place to assess your school’s progress and for thinking about ways that they can help support the schools in their community.

To access the School Report Cards, simply visit its website. In addition to the Report Cards themselves, there also are informational resources to help you and your faculty learn more about what is included in each annual School Report Card data collection.

The Academic Standards Review Commission will finish its report in December. The State Board of Education will receive the Commission’s report, and then follow a process for evaluating the recommendations made by the Commission before making any decisions affecting the state’s standards. NCDPI staff also are getting feedback about math and ELA standards, their clarity and any needed changes. We will keep you informed as new information becomes available.

State Board of Education
Meeting Highlights

At this morning’s State Board meeting, members approved policy revisions addressing teacher evaluation and teacher observation requirements, school bus stop-arm camera allotment formulas, Read to Achieve legislative requirement for twice-retained students, and a number of reports to the NC General Assembly.

The Board also heard a presentation on the U.S. House of Representatives’ overwhelming approval of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization, “Every Student Succeeds Act,” which scales back the federal role in education and gives states greater control over accountability and school improvement. It also keeps in place annual testing and the focus on helping overlooked groups of students and failing schools. The U.S. Senate is expected to take action next week.

The Board also received a presentation on the Department’s District and School Transformation staff plans for supporting the 581 schools and 15 districts that were deemed low performing under legislation approved this summer.

The complete list of State Board actions will be available late this afternoon on the Board’s website.

Webinar Focuses on Meeting Participation Requirements and Alignment Study Report

NCDPI staff will host a webinar on Monday, Dec. 7, at 10:30 a.m. The target audience includes district-level leadership, testing/accountability staff, and curriculum and instruction staff.

The webinar will address two topics.

1. Participation requirements for state assessments including an overview of 2014–15 participation rates and a discussion of how to increase participation. Two districts also will share their approaches to meeting participation.

2. An overview of the Report to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction on the Alignment Characteristics of State Assessment Instruments Covering Grades 3-8, and High School in Mathematics & Reading.

In September 2014, NCDPI commissioned the Wisconsin Center for Education Research to conduct an in-depth, independent study of the alignment of the state’s newly developed end-of-grade (EOG) and end-of-course (EOC) assessments for mathematics, reading and science to the content standards.

North Carolina hosted a content analysis workshop as part of the alignment study in January 2015 in Raleigh. Subject-based teams of content analysts were formed from active North Carolina teachers and other content specialists and trained to conduct independent analyses of assessment forms for mathematics, reading, and science for all assessed grades. The resulting alignment report was presented to the State Board of Education on June 4.

Alignment results for the EOG science at grades 5 and 8 and EOC biology assessments were presented to SBE members at their meeting this morning (agenda item SLA 2). The alignment report including all appendices will be posted to the NCDPI/Accountability Services Technical Notes webpage prior to the webinar

Please register for Meeting Participation Requirements and an Overview of the Alignment Study Report online. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Questions may be directed to your Regional Accountability Coordinator.

Multi-Tiered System of Support:
Strengthening the Core

Defining the instruction that all students receive in a district or school is part of building a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS). District MTSS Teams or School Leadership Teams (not individuals) define and document essential elements of Core by grade level and subject area. In order to ensure a strong, differentiated Core, these teams define, analyze and adjust Core at predetermined times throughout the year.

As Core is explicitly designed, differentiated and implemented, teams will review data and ask the question: Is our Core strong enough to meet the needs of most of our students across all subgroups? Strengthening Core includes making instructional practices stronger through:

-  expecting high student engagement and eliciting frequent responses;

-  designing instruction which allows for explicit teaching and differentiation;

-  providing immediate feedback;

-  scaffolding instruction such as pre-teaching critical vocabulary; and

-  ensuring opportunities for deliberate, retrieval and distributed practice.

In an upcoming message, staff will discuss strengthening Core thru the lens of curricular and environmental components.

Fourth GTN Module Available

The fourth installment in a series of action research projects developed by teachers for teachers through the Governor’s Teacher Network (GTN) is now available through the Home Base Professional Development System.

Supporting English Language Learners (ELLs) in the Classroom: Action Research from the GTN Project focuses on instructional strategies for English Language Learners based on current trends in research. Participants will use data to identify the needs of their ELL students and learn about different instructional strategies that support reading, writing, listening and speaking skills for ELL.

This module should take approximately 10 hours to complete and offers 1.0 CEU. For a complete description of this module or more information about the entire series of GTN modules, visit http://rt3nc.org

NC Teacher Working Conditions Survey (NC TWCS) Launches March 1

Almost 90 percent (88.6) of all licensed North Carolina educators participated in the 2014 NC TWCS. Our goal, as always, is to have a 100 percent response rate from every North Carolina school.

For the past 12 years, the survey has been a platform used to amplify educator’s voices concerning working conditions in their schools and districts. It also is used to inform state-level policy decisions.

The window for this anonymous, online survey will run March 1-25. Please visit the NC TWCS website or talk to your school’s NC TWCS representative if you have questions about the survey process. If your school does not have a representative, please contact your Regional Educator Facilitator for assistance.

Guilford County Schools’ STEM Team Places Third in National Competition

Congratulations to Team AeroHead from STEM Early College NC A & T (Guilford County Schools) for placing 3rd nationally in The Real World Design Challenge. This annual high school STEM competition focuses on Unmanned Aerial Systems and precision agriculture. Teams representing 19 states participated in this year’s challenge. Visit the NCDPI newsroom to read more.

STEM Grant Opportunity for
Elementary Schools

During this time of the school year, give the gift of leadership and learning. FIRST North Carolina – the organization whose programming includes FIRST LEGO League, FIRST LEGO League Junior, FIRST Robotics Competition and FIRST TECH Challenge – is working in partnership with the LEGO group to provide grant opportunities for 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms with high populations considered underserved and/or under-represented in STEM.

Engage your students to solve real-world engineering challenges and develop important life skills in the classroom or other informal settings by using robotics through technological innovation. At the same time, you can bring communities together to celebrate the achievements of students working smart in science and technology.

To get started, LEGO Building Simple Machine Kits are provided FREE with potential grant funds for registration. For more specific details, including a grant application, please contact info@ncfirstrobotics.org or 336.375.3861.