NC SIS Weekly Email Bulletin
Topics in this issue:
1. Home Base Maintenance Window Starts Tonight @7 p.m.
2. April 2020-21 Home Base Meet Ups Invite
3. Guidance Chart for Social Studies Graduation Requirements
4. Graduation Requirements (GRAD-004) Updates
5. OCS Employment Preparation Update - 2021-2022
6. 2020-21 CTE Concentrator Reports and CTE Course Offering Reports Available in PowerSchool
7. Contact Update - 04/05/2021
8. The Spring Legislative Class Size Report Window is Open
9. 2021-2022 Home Base Opt-in Process is Scheduled to Begin in May
10. EOY Pre-Validation (EPV) Reports
11. Home Base Webinars
12. Virtual Ready, Set, App! Pitch Competition
13. Friday Wrap Up
14. Follow Us on Social Media
15. NCDPI Technology Support Center
Home Base Maintenance Window Starts Tonight @ 7p.m.
Tonight's Home Base maintenance window is scheduled to begin @ 7 p.m. Currently, PowerSchool is the only known application that will undergo maintenance. All other Home Base applications will remain available.
The PowerSchool application will be brought down for one night only, Friday, April 16 at 7 p.m. and returned to service by 7 a.m., Saturday morning, April 17. The application will be made accessible to all users once maintenance is complete.
EDDIE Feed Disabled
NCDPI will be turning off the Educational Directory and Demographical Information Exchange (EDDIE) feed to PowerSchool this maintenance period. All changes made in PowerSchool for the current year, before EOY and after the EDDIE feed is disabled, must be updated in EDDIE manually until the EDDIE data feed is restored. If the data is not accurately reflected in both PowerSchool and EDDIE when the feed is enabled, these changes will be overwritten by what is in EDDIE, since it is the authoritative source.
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 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.
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 April 2020-21 Home Base Meet Ups Invite
Please join us for the April 2020-2021 Home Base Meet-Ups scheduled for Monday, April 26 through Friday, April 30. These are great opportunities to collaborate, network and share with your peers.
Due to COVID-19 , we have shifted the Home Base Meet-Ups to a virtual format. Please link to the April 2021 HBMU Invitation for complete details. Click on the individual product meeting links to register for the meetings you plan to attend.
Guidance Chart for Social Studies Graduation Requirements
Attached to this email you will find a chart that you may find helpful as you make determinations about phasing in high school courses now that the standards have been approved. The information presented in the chart is reflective of the GRAD-004 policy. This chart is a graphic to help visually clarify the information contained in the policy.
Guidance Chart for Social Studies Graduation Requirements
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Graduation Requirements (GRAD-004) Updates
Due to COVID-19, the State Board of Education approved the following changes regarding graduation requirements for the Graduating Class of 2021; same as was approved for the Class of 2020.
- SBE waives the CPR graduation requirement for the graduating class of 2021.
- For Occupational Course of Study students, SBE reduces the graduation requirement of paid employment to 157 hours.
Please note these updates and share with pertinent staff.
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Contact Update - 04/05/2021
In January, the move to Core Contacts was delayed due to the push of relationship types and to ensure that all users understood the impact of these changes to the ECATS system. When NCDPI delayed implementation, PSUs were given the opportunity to utilize a plug-in that would turn off the NC Contacts screen as we worked through these issues.
To date, the relationship types have been pushed to all PSUs. Additionally, NCDPI has created a file on 3/5/2021 containing the contact information from Core Contacts and NC Contacts. The file is located in the EMFTS file location. This file will help users by displaying each contact in Core Contacts and the matching or not matching contact in NC Student Contacts.
Users may review these fields and the informational message associated with each contact (MATCHING_CONTACTS_LABEL) to determine if corrections need to be made and what those corrections are. In the “Contacts in ECATS” section below are the conditions which ECATS will use to determine if a contact should load into the ECATS system. Contacts not matching these conditions in Core Contacts will not load. The file will contain a line for each contact. Review the document and make changes as necessary.
Be aware that records with the following informational message will load into ECATS as-is:
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Parent/Guardian Exists In NC Student Contacts and Contacts - These are matches where the ECATS conditions passed and Core Contacts will be loaded/updated in ECATS.
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Parent/Guardian with ECATS Specific Relationship Exists in Contacts and Missing in NC Student Contacts – These Core Contacts will be loaded as new additions to ECATS.
All other informational messages contain reasons for records to be reviewed and corrected in Core Contacts.
The file provided by NCDPI is a .txt file and it is best to import this file into Excel. This will allow users to see the fields more clearly and filter as needed.
ECATS will switch to the new Core Contacts on April 19, 2021. Any necessary changes should be completed in Core Contacts before this date to avoid issues within the system.
Contacts in ECATS
The EC process must adhere to a timeline. A student contacts file is pulled nightly and sent to ECATS. These contacts are used to alert relatives of upcoming meetings, to gain consent for various processes, and for notification of outcomes as a student progresses through the EC process. The PowerSchool Core Contact screen must contain certain criteria for a contact to be included in the nightly file. These criteria are as follows:
- The student must be enrolled in the current school year.
- The contact must be checked as 'Active' if the contact is a current contact for the student.
- The contact must have a First Name and a Last Name.
- The contact must have a Relationship type.
- The Relationship type must be one of the contact types listed below:
- Aunt
- Father
- Grandfather
- Grandmother
- Mother
- Uncle
- Foster Parent
- Guardian
- Stepfather
- Stepmother
Based on the data in the record for a contact, ECATS will make updates to its list of contacts. The system looks for an existing record that is an exact match to the First Name and Last Name of the contact in the nightly file.
- If ECATS does not find a match, it will add the contact and its associated information.
- If ECATS finds a match, it will update the other contact information like address, telephone number, etc.
- If ECATS finds that it has a contact that PowerSchool has not included in the nightly file, that contact will be removed from ECATS.
Additionally, contact records must contain valid data. The Lives With field should be checked appropriately, Phone Type should be selected (work, home, or cell for inclusion in ECATS), and Street Address should be entered. Also, a contact record will not load to ECATS if the Email Address is invalid. These types of data errors will cause contact records to reject and not load into ECATS. If they are existing records in ECATS, but are rejected in the load, these records will not update the existing contact information in the system.
Form for Questions If you have any questions, please enter them here.
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The Spring Legislative Class Size Report Window is Open
The Spring Legislative Class Size (LCS) reporting window is open. Pursuant to §GS115C-301 this data is collected two times a year and captures data from the end of October and end of February of each school year. Each local board of education, through the superintendent, shall file a report, based on information provided by the principal, for each school within the local school administrative unit with the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The due date for the approval of the Spring LCS Report and affidavit submission is April 30, 2021.
There are two parts to complete this process:
- Reporting the legislative class size in PowerSchool
- In PowerSchool, the submission window for the report will remain open through April 30, 2021.
- Submitting a signed affidavit
If there is a need to also submit an individual class size exception waiver use the form supplied by the Division of School Business. Waivers should be sent to StudentAccounting@dpi.nc.gov.
PSUs should begin running these reports as soon as possible to allow ample time to have discrepancies reviewed by the PowerSchool Support team. Cases submitted to PowerSchool Support will be escalated and reviewed on a daily basis with the Home Base team.
Again, the window to complete this process ends April 30, 2021.
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2021-2022 Home Base Opt-in Process is Scheduled to Begin in May
Please share with District Finance Officers and Charter School Directors/Principals
The NC DTL Home Base team is preparing to open the 2021-22 Home Base Opt-in Process during the month of May. District finance officers and charter school directors will receive further information as to when the system will be taken offline and returned to service for the opt-in process to begin. Please ensure all finance officer and charter principal information in EDDIE is up to date. This information is used to identify who is eligible to opt in for the districts and charter schools.
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EOY Pre-Validation (EPV) Reports
During the last maintenance window, a new set of reports were added to the North Carolina state reporting dashboard. These EOY Pre-Validation (EPV) reports are to assist users identify items that need corrected or reviewed prior to running EOY. Schools will have the ability to run these reports through June 28. Districts should continuously run these reports throughout the reporting window to capture any erroneous records that have been created since the last run date. These reports can be unapproved and rerun at any time to ensure the schools are ready for EOY.
PowerSchool is developing a second series of reports that will be considered as the “Final EPV Report” and will have a submission window of June 28 – June 30. Once that report is moved to production, the existing reports will be renamed to “Preliminary EPV Report”. The Final EPV will be an exact copy of the Preliminary EPV, but will only be available at the district level, not at the schools. The purpose of the Final EPV is to capture any last minute errors that exist on the day of EOY. More details will be released once the final package is ready for production.
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 Pre-Recorded Webinars
Spring 2021 Course Code Webinar Series
Please join the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) for a Spring 2021 course code webinar series. PowerSchool Data Managers, PowerSchool Coordinators, School Counselors, Career and Technical Education Directors, Career Development Coordinators, CCP Coordinators, and Curriculum and Instruction/Academic Leaders are encouraged to join the conversations. Please see details below and we look forward to seeing you (virtually) soon!
SAVE THE DATES!
Time: 2 - 3 p.m. EST
Platform: Webex
Dates and Registration Information:
Completed Webinars and Slides can be viewed at SIS Resources
- Course Codes General Overview - Part A
- Course Codes General Overview - Part B
- CAA vs. Non-CAA Courses
Questions? Please enter your questions in the Question Collection Form.
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GoOpenNC Accessibility Series
Registration is now open for our upcoming Accessibility Series on #GoOpenNC. Designing and procuring accessible digital materials is essential for some but research shows it benefits all learners.
Join us for this free two-part webinar series to learn more about designing accessible digital Open Education Resources (OER) based on the Universal Design for Learning framework. Participants can earn 0.3 CEU credits, recommended for Digital Learning Competency Credit.
Register now at: http://bit.ly/goopenncaccess
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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
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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
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 Join us for the Virtual Ready, Set, App! Pitch Competition
Saturday, April 17 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Register HERE
Ready, Set, App! is a mobile app-building competition for NC high school students. The top 6 teams from across the state will present their apps and compete for the chance to win awesome prizes courtesy of Lenovo! This live stream is free and open to the public! So, share with your family, friends, teachers, anyone!
Following the announcing of the winners, we will have three hours of breakout sessions for educators and students! These free sessions will cover topics such as Careers in Tech, Integrating Tech into the Classroom, and much more! If you’re an educator, you will even receive professional development (CEU credits) for attending. To sign up for the sessions, just make sure to indicate so on your registration form.
Meet the Student Teams
GoCompost - Chapel Hill, NC
The GoCompost app promotes composting as an actionable solution to today’s food waste crisis. Its intuitive UI design features four pages, titled Check, Map, Impact, and Community, to target the common needs for our community members to get started and motivated with composting. Leveraging smartphone and cloud technology, GoCompost enables instant and positive engagement to help users build composting habits.
Pantry Patrol - Enloe Magnet High School- Raleigh, NC
Pantry Patrol is a versatile app that simplifies the daily operations of food pantries, with a special emphasis on tracking, monitoring, and eliminating food wastage in collaboration with food banks. Pantry Patrol also provides great visualizations of food waste data for pantries to take action. The application simplifies sharing of waste data between food pantries and food banks.
GoRecycle - Providence High School- Charlotte, NC
GoRecycle is an innovative app that demonstrates a more nuanced way of efficient recycling. Through the scan function of the app, users will be encouraged to sort their trash, thus greatly minimizing recycling costs and increasing the efficiency of recycling to a higher degree.
Furthermore, this application can be used at any scale, from small communities to entire nations across the world.
College Atlas – NC Virtual Public Schools
College Atlas is a college exploration app that allows students to easily navigate through college choices as they prepare to pursue their post-secondary endeavors.
To use the app, students will input their preferences by answering a series of questions and allowing the app to determine the best college(s) based on their responses.
ConnecTeen - East Chapel Hill High School- Chapel Hill, NC
Online school changed education in many ways. Some of them were positive, others more negative. ConnecTeen aims to mitigate the negative effects that the online schooling environment created such as a lack of socialization, organization, and anxiety. This is achieved through features like the Assignment Tracker, Course Planner, Clubs, and Events Calendar.
Ready, Set, Route! - Pitt County Schools Early College
"Ready, Set, Route!" is an app that serves as a communication tool for bus drivers, students, and school/county representatives. In the app, students or parents can indicate their daily attendance which will then update and compute the best bus route for that day. Representatives of the educational transportation system will have instant access to the entirety of the transportation system.
Friday Wrap Up
The Friday Wrap Up contains quick "Did You Know" tips that were shared with our social media audience during the week. Would you like to get these in real-time? See our next article below on how to join us on social media.
HomeBase
Rekindle. Reflect. Reconnect. Renew. Come join @nck12artsed for the SELf Care Series for ALL @NCPublicSchools educators starting on 4.20 Register: bit.ly/SELfCareSeries
@suzanne.o.dailey @ncsymphony @ophelia.staton @n2art @TriadStageLearningProgram @ncartmuseum @theinspiredclassroom @aplusnc #NCSEL
Schoolnet
Teachers can design interactive tasks in Schoolnet by linking multiple different question types together to create one interactive task for their students. For example, a teacher might create a Schoolnet task as a project-based assignment or lab activity.
#GoOpenNC Accessibility Series
#GoOpenNC will be the permanent home for all of the At-Home Learning Lessons - a partnership between the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, PBS North Carolina, and the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation. Lessons are available for grades PreK-K, 1-2, 3, and 4-5 in Literacy and Math. Check out the collection of lessons (more will be added this month and next): https://goopennc.oercommons.org/curated-collections/245
CANVAS
Instructure - the parent company of #CanvasLMS has an official product podcast called The tl;dr. This podcast contains some awesome tips for using Canvas and exciting updates. Check out the latest episode at https://community.canvaslms.com/.../The-tl-dr.../ba-p/451846
Learning.com
Learning.com has a new report. The DISTRICT ACTIVITY REPORT allows you to:
- Choose a date range
- See district activity broken down by skill.
- Explore high level data for the district and by school including Active
- Students and Tech Quest vs Teacher Assigned Launches
- Click on a school with data to filter or sort further by Teacher
- Name, Class Name, and Grade
You have an option to print report or export school activity to CSV.
https://www.learning.com/online.../district-activity-report/
NCEES
You can learn about Open Educational Resources in NCEES and earn DLC credit!
Navigate in NCEES to Professional Development and search for these Self-Paced mini-courses:
Educators can learn about Schoolnet in NCEES and earn DLC credit! Navigate in NCEES to Professional Development and search for these Self-Pace mini-courses:
- Course #18356 Keeping It Simple in Schoolnet NCDPI Mini Course 1
In this course, participants will learn: What is Schoolnet? How do teachers and students access Schoolnet? How do teachers create Schoolnet assessments using readily available questions? How do teachers analyze the results of Schoolnet assessments?
Register in NCEES here: https://ncees.homebase.ncpublicschools.gov/.../pres.../29246
- Course #18612 Collaboration in Schoolnet NCDPI Mini Course 2
In this course, participants will learn: The ways Schoolnet can be used collaboratively across a school or district. How teachers, administrators, and other school personnel can collaborate on classroom assessments and school or district benchmarks. How educators can collaborate on shared item banks. How these concepts may be applied in a school or district.
Register in NCEES here: https://ncees.homebase.ncpublicschools.gov/.../pres.../29684
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Follow Us on Social Media!
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and begin receiving "Did You Know" tips featuring each Home Base product.
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
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NCDPI Technology Support Center
NCDPI's Technology Support Center continues to meet your support needs for:
- Schoolnet
- NCEES/Unified Talent
- 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.
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Remember to visit the NC SIS website for additional information including webinars and training documentation. Follow us on twitter @NCHomeBase.
NC SIS
NC Department of Public Instruction
Education Building, 7th Floor North
301 North Wilmington Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Email: ncsis@dpi.nc.gov
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