Next Home Base Maintenance Window

Our next Home Base maintenance is scheduled to begin Friday, December, 18.  PowerSchool is the only application that will undergo maintenance.  All other Home Base applications will remain available.

The PowerSchool application will be brought down on Friday, December 18 at 5 p.m., and returned to service no later than Monday, December 21 at 6 a.m.  This maintenance window has been extended a little longer than usual due to the PowerSchool 19.11.2.4 upgrade that will be implemented.  Details of what this upgrade will include are listed below in the PowerSchool 19.11.2.4 Upgrade message.  Once the upgrade has completed, PowerSchool will be returned to service.

Note: Each year, a list of scheduled maintenance windows are published by NCDPI.  This is published in advance to help teachers and administrators better prepare for temporary outages and loss of access.  Please review the 2020-2021 maintenance schedule and put these dates on your calendar. In most cases, the entire maintenance window is not necessary and we can return systems to service earlier than listed. If emergency maintenance is required in addition to these scheduled dates, all users will be notified in advance. 

If you have any questions pertaining to this maintenance, please contact the Home Base Team at home_base@dpi.nc.gov.

PowerSchool 19.11.2.4 Upgrade - Friday, Dec. 18

NCDPI’s statewide PowerSchool upgrade to version 19.11.2.4 is planned for the December 18-21 maintenance weekend.  The upgrade will include two new enhancements, as well as resolve several issues users may currently be experiencing. Beta testing for this release is in progress. Details of what this upgrade entails are available in the release notes for PowerSchool SIS 19.11.1.0 through 19.11.2.4.  The new enhancements include: 

• PowerSchool Admin – Demographics - Using the new Default Country for Student Demographics setting, you can choose a specific country and display only the states for that country.
• PowerSchool Admin – PowerTeacher Pro Settings -- Districts now have the option to hide the PTG links in the PowerSchool SIS Teacher portal. This setting can be found under the Start Page > District Setup > PowerTeacher Pro Settings > Default Gradebook Type page.

PowerSchool will be taken offline Friday, December 18 at 5 p.m. and will resume operations no later than Monday, December 21 at 6 a.m.  Questions pertaining to this upgrade may be addressed to home_base@dpi.nc.gov.

Annual Military Student Identifier Collection 

The military student identifier is a required annual collection of data on military-connected students.  The data collection should be updated by providing a form (paper or electronic) to the parent once at the beginning of each school year.  LEAs are required to enter and update the data from these forms into PowerSchool.  NC DPI recommends completing these updates by December 15, 2020.  A QRD is available for PowerSchool functionality on the military student identifier.  An updated sample form is also available.  

When reviewing this information please keep the following in mind.

IMPORTANT: The field options must be in place as described even if the form has been edited for local use.  There must be room for six relationships included on the local form. The form must also describe these specific values:

• Relationship: Mother, Father, Stepfather, Stepmother, Guardian, Sibling, Other
• Branches: Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy
• Status Options: Active Duty, Activated Guard/Reserve, National Guard, Reserves, Retired Military, Disabled Veteran, Veteran, Federal Civil Service, Deceased, Deceased – KIA, Foreign Military
• Pay Grade (Optional): Enlisted (“E 1” through “E 9” separately), Warrant Officer (“W 1” through “W 5” separately), Officer (“O 1” through “O 10” separately). E 1, E 2, E 3, E 4, E 5, E 6, E 7, E 8, E 9, W 1, W 2, W 3, W 4, W 5, O 1, O 2, O 3, O 4, O 5, O 6, O 7, O 8, O 9, and O 10 are the required value list names.  Previously, some systems interpreted this too literally, so we’re providing the value list.  Any dashes should be removed and replaced with the space.
• Military Installation (Optional): The facility where the service member fulfills their duty role in the military. [text field in PS]  (e.g., Fort Bragg, NG Raleigh Armory, Knightdale Reserve Center etc.)
• Unit or Squadron (NOT REQUIRED): This field will be repurposed as a “Note” labelled text field in a future version of PowerSchool and will still be optional.

Uncheck COVID 19 Codes in Special Codes Scale

Now that the 2020-2021 school year has begun, and the end of the 45-day period where students can decide whether they want a numeric grade or PC19/WC19 based on the COVID-19 grading policy has passed, corrections to the grade scale should be made to ensure COVID grading from 2019-2020 school year is not utilized moving forward. 

All PSU's should navigate to their Special Codes scale that's attached to their NC 10-Point Grading Scale and remove the checkbox next to the COVID 19 codes for Use As a Final Grade to prevent teachers from erroneously assigning these codes. See navigation and screenshot below.
 

LEA Office: Start Page > LEA Setup > Grade Scales > Grade Scale: Special Code Scale

Attendance Expectations for Remote Learning

With learning occurring in remote settings this year, it is important that teachers and administrators maintain and submit accurate attendance records for state reporting and funding purposes. A new attendance code was created for tracking students who are participating in remote instruction. In addition, the default present code description has been modified to specify on-site attendance. 

With the potential for attendance data to be included in analyses, it is important to verify and review frequently for accuracy. Attendance records should be audited every 20 days as part of PMR reporting.

Thank you for your attentiveness to this process.

New Student Learning Preference Page and Student Transfer

The NCDPI Home Base Team has learned that the data on the new Student Learning Preferences page transfers with the student records when a student moves to another district. All PSU staff responsible for transferring students out should clear the data from that page prior to releasing the student.

We are updating our QRDs with this reminder, but until we move to PowerSchool version 20.4 or higher, these records will continue to be included in the transfer process.

Reminder:  NC Contact Page

The Home Base Team would like to remind PSUs that the NC Contacts screen in PowerSchool will be retired in favor of the new Core Contacts screen.

On January 29, 2021, the NC Contacts page will be disabled, and the data will no longer be visible to PSUs.  All NCDPI integrations (see below) that rely upon the NC Contacts page will instead rely on core Contacts. Please also be reminded that third-party integrations installed by PSUs should be reviewed to ensure they are not pulling data from the NC Contacts page any longer — for example, many SchoolMessenger customers are currently pulling data from this custom page. PSUs will need to reach out to their vendors to initiate any changes to their data integration configurations.

The following NCDPI Integrations are affected by this change:

ECATS

*TIMS

*There is an update to the TIMS extract using the core contacts. Further information and documentation will be provided early next week to explain how PSUs will set up the extract via Data Export Manager to pull the necessary transportation data.  

In the 2019-2020 school year, a PowerSchool upgrade deployed the new Core Contacts page into NC PowerSchool instances and migrated data from core Demographics (mother and father) into the new Contacts page. Data from the custom NC Contacts page was not automatically migrated into the new Core Contacts page and must be moved manually.  Information on Core Contacts was provided during the September 2019 Home Base Meet-Ups, and many PSUs have finished manually moving data from NC Contacts to the new Core Contacts page.

Navigation Paths

NC Student Contact Screen

Start Page > Student Selection > NC Information: NC Student Contacts

New Core Contact Screen

Start Page > Student Selection > Information: Contacts

For PSUs who have not completed data migration from NC Contacts to Core Contacts, the resources below from PowerSchool Support may assist in this process. A PowerSchool Community account is required to access the linked resources. 

• Getting started with Contacts Guide: (Includes Importing/Exporting and field mapping information) https://help.powerschool.com/t5/PowerSchool-SIS-Administrator/Getting-Started-with-Student-Contacts/ta-p/79724 

PSUs requiring additional assistance with this data migration process should log a ticket with PowerSchool Support by calling the NC-specific support number 1-855-339-4790 or by visiting https://help.powerschool.com.

Reminder:  PowerSchool IPT Certification in February 2021

The Home Base Team will be offering a virtual IPT certification training from February 1-5, 2021.  This training will span five full days. Participants will have 90 days to take and pass the certification test after training. Each PSU is allowed a certain number of technical contacts based on their ADM. If you are unsure of your current technical contacts, please contact PowerSchool Support at 1-855-339-4790. 

NCDPI has created an IPT FAQ document  to help answer questions you may have. Please review this document for frequently asked questions about the training and certification.

Those who can attend the DPI offered IPT Training include: 

• Anyone replacing a previous technical contact from their allotted number.
• A local charter school employee who is not employed by a data management company. 

Those who cannot attend this training are: 

• Charter school data management company employees
• PSUs wanting additional technical contacts above their desired allocation
• Anyone who has attended training previously and failed the certification test. 

Note: Anyone who is not eligible for this training will need to arrange training and/or certification directly through the vendor, PowerSchool, and cover the cost incurred. To do so, please reach out to the PowerSchool training team, training@powerschool.com.   

Those who are eligible for this training session, please fill out the registration form.

Reminder:  The 2020-2021 NC Purple Star Award Application Process is Now Open!

Applications for the 2020-2021 NC Purple Star Award are now being accepted through February 1, 2021.  The Purple Star designation is awarded to schools that demonstrate military-friendly practices and a commitment to military students and families. For more information, visit the site at https://www.dpi.nc.gov/students-families/student-support/nc-supports-military-children/purple-star-award.  To apply, click on the link below:
  

• Purple Star Award Application

Upcoming Canvas Professional Learning Courses: 

The Home Base Team is excited to announce a change in our upcoming webinar formats. As of November 2, a new monthly self-paced training course will be available for Canvas. This course will be designed to be completed in one hour and will be linked to NCEES for automatic CEU award upon completion of the course. This course will take the place of our currently offered monthly webinars to provide a more flexible and accessible format for all. If you registered for a November or December webinar, you should have received an email when the first monthly course was made available on November 2.

To register for our Canvas webinars, please visit: bit.ly/nccanvaswebinars.

New Self-Paced Course on Curating Content in #GoOpenNC

We are so excited to try something new with our monthly webinars for #GoOpenNC. The webinar is now available on-demand in a mini Canvas course (you will need to login to NCEES via NCEdCloud to register).

The course is designed to be completed in one hour and NCEES will apply 0.1 CEU of Digital Learning Competency Credit to your transcript within 48 hours of completing the course.  The course is available until May 31, 2021

NCEES Tuesday Webinars in Dec.

Click here for a full list of NCEES webinars. Don't forget to check out our NCEES YouTube Playlist! 

Please click on the following titles to register:

• Admin Reporting in NCEES - Tuesday, Dec. 15, 4-5 p.m.
  • Administrators learn how to create a local library of NCEES Ad-Hoc reports to support your PSU evaluation and professional development reporting needs. (This is for NCEES District Admins: It is informational for Superintendents and Principals.)

NCWiseOwl EBSCO Webinars 2020-2021 

PSUs, please share this message with your teachers.

Want to love and utilize NCWiseOwl even more?  Attend the upcoming webinars available from our database vendors! 

Britannica School: REGISTRATION and RECORDINGS

• Britannica School for Remote Learning 
• Britannica School for Parents 
• Britannica Basics for Elementary Educators 
• Britannica Basics for Secondary Educators 
• Sharing Britannica Content on Google Platforms 
• Preparing Digital Content Sets for Instruction 
• Britannica Tools to Support Reluctant Readers 
• Britannica School - STEAM in Focus 
• Britannica School - Arts & Humanities in Focus 
• Britannica Tools to Support English Language Learners 
  
  

EBSCO: REGISTRATION and RECORDINGS

• EBSCO Reference Center Exploration 
• EBSCO Online Classroom Tools and Integration Tips 
• EBSCO Accessibility and Usability Features within EBSCO Resources
• EBSCO Working with EBSCO eBooks
  
  

Please visit the NCWiseOwl  Toolkit  professional learning section for detailed descriptions and registration links.  www.ncwiseowl.org

DID YOU KNOW?

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These messages will include upcoming changes, tips and even hidden treasures within each product to make your job easier.  If you are not following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, click on the links below and begin today!  Make sure you share this information with other staff within your school.

Instagram:  @nchomebase         Facebook:  @nchomebase       Twitter:  @nchomebase

NCDPI Technology Support Center

NCDPI's Technology Support Center continues to meet your support needs for:

• Schoolnet 
• NCEES/Unified Talent
• IAM/SSO (NCEdCloud) 
• Staff & Student UID (eScholar)

Support availability:

Web (NEW URL):  https://ncgov.servicenowservices.com/sp_dpi   -  24/7

Phone:  919-716-1840, Monday - Friday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. (excluding state holidays)

Technical support for SIS needs is handled directly by PowerSchool support using chat, phone, or by opening a case ticket.