Educators, parents, students and other stakeholders of North Carolina’s public schools are invited to attend six public comment sessions that will be held across the state in April and May. Feedback will be used by NC Department of Public Instruction staff to help develop the plan to comply with the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which is a re-authorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

States are required to develop their own ESSA plan to comply with the federal law. The state plan will address issues of school accountability, student assessments, support for struggling schools and other elements.

The new law continues to focus on accountability and student-level assessments for all students in reading and mathematics in grades 3-8, science assessments at least once in the elementary grades and at least once in the middle grades, college and career readiness in the high school grades, and being accountable for all student subgroups.

The state’s accountability plan must include goals for academic indicators and a measure of school quality and student success. Participation rates on the assessments must also be included in the plan. More information on ESSA is available online.

Schedule of Public Input Sessions

Please note that each session will be held from 4-6 p.m. Anyone may attend a session in any region. Audience members who want to speak (up to 3 minutes) will be asked to sign in and are invited (but not required) to bring a copy of their remarks to submit into the record of the event. A recording and notes from each session also will be taken.

Wednesday, April 13:  Ashley High School, 555 Halyburton Memorial Parkway, Wilmington

Thursday, April 21:  Green Hope High School, 2500 Carpenter Upchurch Road, Cary

Tuesday, April 26:  Mallard Creed High School, 3825 Johnston Center Road, Charlotte

Wednesday, April 27:  North Pitt High School, 5659 NC Highway, Bethel

Tuesday, May 17:  East Forsyth High School, 2500 W. Mountain Street, Kernersville

Wednesday, May 18:  Charles D. Owen High School, 99 Lake Eden Road, Black Mountain

In addition, the public is invited to submit comments to the Department of Public Instruction through Let’s Talk. Simply click on the Let’s Talk link on the NCDPI website then select the Every Student Succeeds Act dialogue topic.

The U.S. Department of Education is allowing states to request a waiver from assessing speaking and listening as part of its Reading/English language arts assessments.

In June 2010, the North Carolina State Board of Education adopted Reading/English language arts content standards, which include standards for speaking and listening. Federal law requires assessments include all adopted content standards; however, measuring speaking and listening skills in a large-scale summative assessment is not practical at this time.

As a result, North Carolina is seeking a waiver from this requirement pursuant to section 8401(b) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act. Specifically, North Carolina is requesting a limited waiver of section 1111(b)(3)(C)(ii) of the ESEA, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, so that the state’s assessment system need not measure speaking and listening standards at this time.

The requested waiver would be effective through the 2016-17 school year. North Carolina will continue to develop best practices with respect to assessing speaking and listening on large-scale assessments, though it may request an extension of the waiver for subsequent years.

The public may submit input/feedback on this potential waiver online by clicking on the Let’s Talk icon on the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction website then selecting the USED Waiver as the dialogue topic to provide feedback. The feedback window is open until 5 p.m., Monday, April 4.

State Board of Education members approved their budget priorities for the 2016 North Carolina General Assembly's Short Session, which begins April 25. During the short session, lawmakers make budget adjustments for the biennium that ends in 2017.

State Board members identified six broad priorities: teacher salary increases, digital learning, teacher recruitment and retention, state agency support of public schools, general classroom support and residential schools. 

All of the budget request items are submitted to the Office of State Budget and Management for consideration to be included in the Governor's formal budget.

North Carolina's 2016 Teacher Working Conditions Survey (NC TWC) is currently underway.

Teachers, counselors, principals and other administrators in all 115 North Carolina school districts and charter schools have an opportunity to answer a variety of questions on such things as the adequacy of school facilities and resources, time, empowerment, school leadership, community support, student conduct, professional development, mentoring and student learning.

Each North Carolina school with a survey response rate of 40 percent or greater receives a results report. This data becomes part of the school's ongoing improvement planning process and an artifact in the North Carolina's educator and administrator evaluation processes.

Information gathered through the web-based survey is voluntary, anonymous and confidential. Data is used by School Improvement Teams 

The 8th biennial survey concludes March 25.