Comment Now on Every Student Succeeds Act Draft State Plan
Public comment period ends July 27
 Educators, parents, students and other stakeholders of North
Carolina’s public schools are invited to comment on the draft North Carolina Consolidated State Plan for the Every Student Succeeds
Act (ESSA State Plan). The posting of the latest draft on June 26 marks
the official start of the public review and comment period.
As required by federal law, the state’s ESSA plan must
be open to public review and comment for 30 days. NCDPI will submit the draft
plan to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office for review after the comment period ends on
July 27. The governor has 30 days to review and sign the plan before NCDPI submits
it to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Education by Sept. 18. Additional
information and earlier draft plans are posted online.
Written comments may be submitted via email to Lou Fabrizio, NCDPI’s director of federal
policy, or to Donna Brown, director of the department's Federal Program Monitoring and
Support Division. Comments also may be mailed to: Lou Fabrizio, Director of
Federal Policy, NCDPI, 6367 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-6300.
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East Carolina and Western Carolina universities sponsor schools
State Board of Education members in
June approved two university-sponsored laboratory schools to open this fall.
East Carolina University is sponsoring
the East Carolina University Laboratory School within Pitt County Schools at
South Greenville Elementary School. Western Carolina University will operate
the Catamount School for Grades 6 through 8 located at Smoky Mountain High
School (Jackson County Schools).
These lab schools are authorized under
recently enacted state law that allows for UNC operated lab schools in districts
where at least a quarter of schools are identified as low performing under
state accountability guidelines.
Local school districts fund majority of costs
 School facility needs continue to be a
major concern for North Carolina school districts and communities. School
facilities are generally the responsibility of local school districts; 96
percent of funds for school facilities are raised locally, with state and
federal resources providing the balance.
Since 1995, 98 local bond issues passed
with a total value of $11.29 billion, and 21 bond issues were defeated with a
value of $2.05 billion. Recent state resources for school construction include
the Average Daily Membership (ADM) Fund, which last allocated $1.6 million in
2015-16 and the NC Education Lottery, which provided $105 million in 2015-16. A
blue ribbon commission established by recent legislation recommended that
the General Assembly should fund repairs and renovations in addition to new
construction, recognize hardships that rural communities face in funding
schools, and develop a uniform system to determine cost efficiency to build or lease
school facilities or renovate existing state buildings.
Several bills were introduced in the
2017 legislative session to address the issue of school construction, but the
most successful attempt was the inclusion of $30 million in the budget to
provide local grants to districts based on need. The $100 million lottery fund
for school construction will continue.
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Graduates to share knowledge with districts/schools
School nutrition managers from across the state are
participating in regional K-12 Culinary Institute workshops this summer. The
institute, designed to increase the availability of fresh, appealing,
nutritious meals for students, is funded in part by a training grant the North
Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) School Nutrition Services
received from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Lynn Harvey, section chief of NCDPI’s School Nutrition
Services, said appealing meals that are filling and nutritious help students
focus in the classroom.
“The North Carolina K-12 Culinary Institute provides school
nutrition managers with tools and information they can take back and implement
in their school nutrition programs to ensure students receive the meals they
need to do well in the classroom,” she said.
Instructional segments are planned for topics such as knife
skills, weighing and measuring accurately, preparing foods for just-in-time
service, work simplification and scheduling, effective use of equipment, and
quality food preparation and service for a variety of meats, grains, fruits,
vegetables, and condiments.
Upon graduation, these chef ambassadors and culinary
specialists will be well prepared to share their knowledge with other school
nutrition professionals in their districts and schools.
NCSU's Confucius Institute sponsors contest
 Congratulations to the 39
students who placed in the 2017 Chinese
Language Speech and Writing Contest sponsored by the Confucius Institute at North
Carolina State University. Six hundred total participants competed – 325 in the
speech contest and 275 in the writing contest. The speech contest drew contestants
from 32 different schools and organizations from 16 cities and 13 counties. For
the writing contest contestants competed from 27 different schools and organizations
from 14 cities and 10 counties.
Since 2010, more than 2,500 public
school and higher education students have participated in the statewide
competition. Participation has increased annually as the demand for Chinese
language programs nationwide has increased. Due to the growth of language immersion
schools, the Confucius Institute created an immersion and non-immersion contest
to better reflect students’ language ability.
The Confucius Institute provides
thousands of dollars’ worth of Chinese language and cultural resources to many
schools across the state for their support of this competition. Each year, the
Confucius Institute also honors Chinese language teachers who encourage many of
their students to enter the contest.
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Students demonstrate mastery of Word, Excel and PowerPoint
 Three students from Green Hope High School (Wake County
Public Schools) took top honors at the 2017 Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) U.S.
National Championship recently held in Orlando, Fla. The competition,
sponsored by Certiport, included more than 320,000 total entrants and 124
finalists.
Receiving top honors were:
* Dheya Madhani:
first place for MOS PowerPoint 2016;
* Forrest Liu: first
place for MOS Word 2013; and
* Ryan Catalfu: third
place for MOS Excel 2016.
Madhani and Liu currently attend Green Hope High, and
Catalfu recently graduated.
“Since 2010, thousands of North Carolina public school
students have been able to earn certifications through the state’s Microsoft IT
Academy,” said JoAnne Honeycutt, director of Career and Technical Education for
the N.C. Dept. of Public Instruction. “We were the first state to offer
Microsoft IT Academy in all of our high schools and students have benefitted
from these classes and the edge they give them in college and the workplace.”
First place winners received a $3,000 cash prize, second
place $1,500 and third place $750. Also, first-place winners (and a chaperone)
will fly free to Anaheim, Calif. where they will compete for the MOS World
Championship scheduled for July 30 – Aug. 2.
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