June 16 is Deadline for Home Base Opt-in

We are in the final stretch of the Home Base Opt-in period. As of Friday, June 9, 106 districts and 56 charter schools have opted-in for the 2017-18 school year. To ensure access to Schoolnet and local professional development components in Truenorthlogic by the start of the school year, a response in the Home Base Tool must be submitted by the June 16 deadline. Invoices are due Sept. 1.

K-12 Mathematics Survey Underway

Have you taken the K-12 Mathematics Education survey? Thank you for sharing the link with your staff and encouraging their participation. The survey takes approximately 15 minutes to complete, and includes questions about your role in mathematics education, your professional network, and your use of research and/or conceptions of mathematics teaching.

NCDPI K-12 Mathematics staff are interested in educator input to inform the design of resources for mathematics teachers. Approximately 1,000 educators have already taken the survey in the first 72 hours. Several hundred more are in progress.

Are your teachers, district personnel engaged? Anyone who is involved with mathematics education including superintendents and principals is encouraged to take the survey.

K-8 Mathematics Standards Adopted

As a reminder, NC State Board of Education members adopted revised K-8 Mathematics Standards to be implemented in 2018-19. The new standards and a listing of major changes can be found on the NCDPI K-12 mathematics wiki.

2017 Healthy Active Children Progress Report

NC Healthy Schools, within NCDPI, is in the process of administering the 2017 Healthy Active Children Policy survey. All local districts are required to report their progress on meeting the NC State Board of Education’s Healthy Active Children (HAC) Policy, SHLT-000 (formerly HRS-E-000). This survey is being conducted to address this reporting requirement. (The link to the survey has been sent to the person in your district responsible for its completion.)

The 2017 Healthy Active Children Policy survey, which must be completed online no later than Sept. 15, will take approximately 20 minutes depending on your feedback.

Your input is vitally important to this process. The results from this survey will be used to help inform state administrators about student health-related issues. If you have questions, please contact Les Spell (919.807.3939), Data and Policy consultant for NC Healthy Schools.

Multi-Tiered System of Support:
2016-17 Wrap Up

Integrated Academic and Behavior Systems (IABS) staff would like to thank all districts and schools for an incredible school year.

We now have 166 district or charter teams that have submitted Partnership Agreements to receive MTSS cohort support through the IABS strategic professional development and coaching plan. Also, more than 1,500 individual participants are enrolled in either Module 1 or Module 2 of the year-long blended learning course in NCEES.

We are looking forward to supporting strong implementation in the upcoming school year. In addition to the continued professional development and technical assistance for these cohort teams, we are excited about these additional supports in the 2017-18 school year:

*  MTSS Module 3 opened for Cohort 1 and 2 teams;

*  Cohort 5 opening for all un-cohorted charter schools;

*  Virtual training in the Early Numeracy Skill Indicators (ENSI) for interested districts; and

*  MTSS Module in ECATS for reporting on instruction and intervention.

We look forward to working with you in the upcoming year. For further assistance, please contact NCDPI Director of Integrated Academic and Behavior Systems Amy Jablonski.

NC K-3 Formative Assessment Process:
Success During the Kindergarten Year

Teachers, instructional coaches and administrators in North Carolina’s public schools are sharing how their engagement with the NC K-3 Formative Assessment Process is impacting teaching and learning in classrooms across the state.

Sampson County Schools’ Elementary Director Jeana Carr shared the following story from Clement Elementary. This story illustrates the importance of utilizing data from the Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA) portion of the NC K-3 Formative Assessment Process to make instructional decisions for children. The whole-child focus of the KEA provides teachers with valuable information to improve student performance.

During a coaching session, kindergarten teachers and curriculum coaches were reviewing Class Profile reports and thinking about next steps for instruction. It was noted that a particular student had a learning status of B in the Object Counting construct progression.

During discussions about possible next steps for this child, an “Aha!” moment occurred for the teacher, Susan McPhail. Susan’s instructional coach, Donna Jackson, pointed out that this same student was on the less complex end of the Grip and Manipulation construct progression. By interpreting the evidence, Susan was able to determine that the child was able to perform at a higher skill level when provided larger objects to manipulate during counting activities than when he was given smaller objects.

This cross-construct data analysis created change in Susan’s planning process as she adapted and responded to the child’s learning needs. Providing larger manipulatives led to a story of success for the child, in which he was empowered by his teacher to show what he knew about Object Counting. Susan attributes these successes to analyzing KEA data within a professional dialogue with her instructional coach.

For more information about the K-3 Formative Assessment Process, please visit the NCDPI K-3 Formative Assessment Process website or contact your regional K-3 Education Consultant.

2016-17 Curriculum Leaders Collaborative: Standards Implementation

The first annual Curriculum Leaders Collaborative (CLC) was quite a success! This optional four-day collaborative provided school district central office administrators who are responsible for the district implementation of content standards (NC Standard Course of Study) with a process for discussing how professional development, technical assistance/coaching, communication/visibility and research/evaluation support quality implementation can be sustained and monitored for fidelity.

The collaborative was a great opportunity for participants to connect with colleagues across the state. We know how busy educators are and it was not easy to do but our east cohort had seven LEAs (Brunswick, Edenton/Chowan, Craven, Granville, Onslow, Perquimans, Sampson) participate in all four sessions and the west cohort had 10 LEAs (Alexander, Iredell-Statesville, Lincoln, Person, Rockingham, Rowan-Salisbury, Rutherford, Mount Airy City, Wilkes, Yadkin) participate in all four sessions. One hundred percent of participants agreed that the sessions were relevant to their needs and met their goals.

Thank you for your commitment, and we expect you found the CLC to be helpful as you move forward with your implementation process.

Applications for Cohort II will be going out at the end of this month.

Superintendent Vacancy Announced: Camden County Schools

The Camden County Board of Education is seeking a superintendent to lead the school system in its continuing pursuit of excellence. Candidates must have or be qualified to hold a North Carolina superintendent license. Central office and building-level experience are preferred. A doctorate degree or progress toward a doctorate degree is preferred but not required. The individual chosen will be required to live in Camden County. The application deadline is July 17.

An electronic version of the application is available by going to the N.C. School Board Association's website and clicking on the appropriate link. Inquiries and requests for applications also can be directed to Allison Schafer, Legal Counsel/Director of Policy, North Carolina School Boards Association, PO Box 97877, Raleigh NC 27624-7877, telephone 919/841-4040, fax 919/841-4020, email. All inquiries will be kept confidential.