I want to be one of the first to say thank you to North Carolina’s public school teachers, just a few days away from the 2016 Teacher Appreciation Week that begins on May 2. I am sure that your students and their families thank you for your service and dedication in many ways each year, but as they do, I hope that the appreciation never becomes routine.

While you have taught many students in your careers, your students have not had so many teachers. They know that your dedication to them, your expertise and your interest in learning make a difference in their lives. You open doors to reading, to the universal language of mathematics, to history and connections across time, to the expressive permission of art, and to the skills of the workplace. You prepare our next generation to be good, thoughtful and productive people. So, thank you!

I hope your desk is covered in notes, pictures, flowers and treats next week. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! 

State Board of Education
Meets Next Week

The State Board of Education will hold its May monthly meeting next week, May 4-5, in the 7th Floor Board Room, Education Building, Raleigh.

Action items include final approval of School Reform Models, FY 2015-16 Final Allotment adjustments, and a host of consent agenda items including the Middle School Athletics Manual update. Discussion items include Digital Learning Competencies/Digital Learning Plan, Math I, II and III Draft Standards Revisions, and Career and Technical Education Licensure revisions. On Thursday, Board members will receive special presentations on The Military and Education Connection, Give Five – Read Five, and a Parent/Teacher Involvement program.

The complete agenda as well as supporting executive summaries are available online by clicking on the Meetings tab. The meeting is audio streamed for those who cannot attend. To listen, please visit the above link and click on the live audio streams link to the right.

Greetings from 2016 North Carolina
Teacher of the Year

From the moment Dr. Atkinson said my name on that stage, there has been a feeling I just couldn’t place always at the back of my mind. This feeling has driven every interview I have given, every word I have written since. It was not until this week that I was able to place the feeling. I am certain now that the feeling I cannot escape is a deep and overwhelming sense of debt.

From my very first teacher, Mrs. Gardener, at Wines Elementary who made me taste green eggs and ham, to my fifth grade history teacher, Mr. Reynolds, whose review game I used last week in my own class, to Dr. Kirk Melnikoff at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte whose graduate class in sonnets changed the way I taught poetry, the debt I owe to the teachers of my past has come for a reckoning.

I have benefitted immensely in life from great teachers and great schools. I am thankful for this, but I also recognize the debt I owe because of it. I believe it is the debt of those of us who were given so many opportunities to work diligently to ensure that all children are offered, equally, those same opportunities for generations to come.

As North Carolina Teacher of the Year, I feel I am finally in the position to be able to repay my debt to my teachers. I am grateful to everyone at the Department of Public Instruction for giving me the means to do so. I want to represent teachers well this year because I owe it to Mrs. Gardner and all the hard working teachers of my past to give them the chance to touch the future, just as I hope my own students will carry my voice into their future.

I am so grateful that I will get to speak for teachers across North Carolina, but more than speaking for teachers, I hope to listen to teachers this year. I do not pretend to know all that concerns every teacher, from the kindergarten teacher in Waynesville, to the AP Science teacher in Emerald Isle. I hope that by listening to teachers this year, I can become their voice in Raleigh. Whatever the next year brings, above all else, I hope I make my teachers proud.

Digital Learning Update

A goal of the State Board of Education is for very student in North Carolina to have a personalized education. The Department’s NC Digital Learning Plan addresses this goal; and the State Board of Education’s 2016-17 supplemental budget recommendation includes substantial support for digital learning.

Some highlights of staff accomplishments to date include the recent release of the new Digital Learning and Media Inventory, the development of an RFP to establish contracts that districts may use to procure devices such as Chromebooks, and the development of Digital Learning Competencies for School Administrators and Classroom Teachers. Where the competencies are concerned, staff are soliciting teacher feedback:

•  Draft Digital Learning Competencies for Classroom Teachers. Feedback Form

If you have specific questions about moving digital learning forward in your school, please feel free to reach out to the Department’s Director for Digital Teaching and Learning Verna Lalbeharie. Verna and her staff are available to provide guidance and support.

Multi-Tiered System of Support:
Examining Core Beliefs

Our beliefs impact the selection and implementation of practices and systems.  Practices are the things we do to support our students. The systems in place support our staff members. Belief work is challenging, incredibly rewarding and critical to implementing a Multi-Tiered System of Support. 

To empower you in this work, we need to acknowledge our beliefs about student learning, and what student learning looks like within the framework of MTSS. North Carolina MTSS has identified these four fundamental beliefs:

*  All subgroups can reach proficiency with current academic and behavior standards.

*  Core Instruction (Tier I) in reading, math, and behavior can be effective for the majority of our students.

*  Supplemental instruction (Tier II) can ensure students achieve grade level benchmarks.

*  Intensive instruction (Tier III) can ensure students are growing toward achieving grade level benchmarks.

How do existing beliefs in your school align with these fundamental beliefs? If you have additional questions, please contact Amy Jablonski.

Implementation Science:
The Formula for Success

The formula for success, illustrated below, highlights the components necessary to create positive outcomes for students.

*  Effective innovation/intervention helps us to know “what it is” we are implementing.

*  Effective implementation methods are the infrastructure and the “how” of the equation for success.

*  Enabling contexts within the organization includes ensuring a “hospitable environment” through building competency, organizing the system, and supportive leadership. 

NC Listens to Its Educators:
2016 NC TWCS Concludes

Thanks to all North Carolina educators who participated in the 2016 Teacher Working Conditions Survey (NC TWCS). The survey window closed April 4.

The official statewide response rate was 85.4 percent representing feedback from over 101,800 educators. Approximately 8,600 more educators participated in 2016 than 2014. Congratulations also to the 1,076 schools who achieved the goal of a 100 percent response rate! These schools will be eligible for incentives sponsored by BB&T, California Casualty, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Duke Energy, Lenovo and NCAE. Winners will be selected beginning May 23.

The NC TWCS results will be presented to State Board of Education members in June, and available for school districts soon afterward. For more information, please contact Yvette Stewart.

Give Five – Read Five Free
Online Literacy Tool

As part of the 2016 Give Five - Read Five campaign and through a partnership with myON, a division of Capstone, DPI is offering every student in the state access to the personalized literacy tool myON Reader. If your school has elected to participate, now is the time to ensure that students know how to access the online tool on their device. (Contact your principal to see if your school is participating and to get instructions for using the myON Reader.)

Many schools and districts also are beginning to wrap up Give Five – Read Five book drives and organizing books for distribution to students (program ends May 31). Please share what your school is doing to promote the campaign and summer reading with Diane Dulaney. And don’t forget to report your school’s final book collection total by June 17 by completing this three-minute online survey. The school with the overall highest total of books collected and schools that collect the most books in three size categories will receive a free one-year school-wide license to one of three outstanding online literacy tools.

Visit the NCDPI Give Five – Read Five website to see if your school is included on our final book collection total list!

Professional Development News

New Literacy Modules

NCDPI Educator Effectiveness staff have heard your requests for more courses that carry literacy credit. After careful review, two additional courses within the Home Base Professional Development System catalog have been added that meet the statutory description (115c-296(b)(1)b) of a literacy credit:

*  Supporting English Language Learners (ELLs) in the Classroom: Action Research from the GTN; and

*  The Reading and Writing Connection: Action Research from the GTN Project.

These literacy modules were produced by the Governor’s Teacher Network action research project.

For a detailed description of the course, please visit http://www.rt3nc.org/. For support on issues related to online professional development, please contact Geetanjali Soni.

Governor’s Teacher Network Action Research Projects Available

Have you ever wondered how professional development is done in districts other than yours? Are you looking for ideas that have been tested in North Carolina classrooms? Look no further. Over 200 action research projects created by members of the Governor’s Teacher Network Action are available for review. Many of these projects examined different types of professional development activities.

Brittany Guy, an action researcher in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, investigated a year-long personalized, blended professional development model for implementing technology in the classroom.

If you are interested in learning more about this model or finding Ms. Guy’s action research results, please visit the Online Professional Development Catalog and click on the Action Research tab.