Maintenance Set for Friday Night

The next Home Base maintenance is scheduled for Friday, April 16. 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, starting at 7 p.m. Friday, April 16, 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.

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.

April 2020-21 Home Base Meet Ups Invite

Please join us for the April 2020-21 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.

Targeted Audience: PSU lead contacts for PowerSchool, Schoolnet, Canvas, Learning.com, #GoOpenNC, and NCEES.

I’ve taught at Piney Grove Elementary in Kernersville for the past 15 years, and I can easily say there has never been a school year as tough as this one!

My students are AIG and LIFT fourth graders, and they thrive on consistency and challenge. Both those have been difficult to provide during a school year that has evolved from 100% remote to hybrid to now completely in person but socially distanced.

However, by heavily utilizing Canvas, I’ve been able to develop a system in which my students know what to expect each day so that they can be free to learn and grow even in uncertain circumstances.

I’ll admit I was a reluctant Canvas user at first.

I consider myself to be pretty tech savvy, and I still found it to have a huge learning curve. But it was so worth the effort! I’m so excited about the many lessons and activities I've digitized and organized on Canvas because I know they’ll continue to be useful to my new students each year.

While truly committing to Canvas requires a lot of time up front, it has saved me time in the long run because it provides systems that hold both me and my students accountable. Last summer, I never would have expected to feel “thankful” our district adopted Canvas, but I’m truly grateful for the ways this tool has helped us all survive, and even thrive, during this school year.

Schoolnet Transcend Pilot: Spots Available

In case you missed it, we are currently seeking additional participants for the Transcend pilot in the 2021-22 school year.

Transcend is a customizable and adaptive benchmarking platform within Schoolnet. PSU administrators select the standards to be covered for each of three benchmark administrations, and teachers receive rich reports after each administration showing student progress towards standards mastery. Each benchmark administration is cumulative, covering the standards of both the previous and current benchmarks. If your PSU would like to learn more or participate, please reach out to john.mairs@dpi.nc.gov.

3rd-9th Grade End-of-Year Math Sets Assessments

We have re-released the Math Sets assessments in Schoolnet as PSUs enter the final stretch of the school year. These are the same Math Sets assessments we released at the beginning of the year with two key differences:

1. The names are now consistent with the grade level standards assessed. At the beginning of the year, the names were incremented by one to allow PSUs to assess rising students — for example, the Grade 4 Math Sets at the beginning of the year were based on Grade 3 standards to allow rising 4th graders to show mastery of the 3rd grade standards. The Grade 4 Math Sets EOY are based on Grade 4 standards to allow current 4th graders to show mastery of the 4th grade standards.
2. Two questions on the Grade 3 Math Sets have been replaced based on your feedback.

This table summarizes the additional assessments now available. These have been recommended to all PSUs at the district level, so a user with a district Leadership role will need to recommend or assign these tests before they're visible or usable by teachers. See this video walkthrough to recommend or assign a test from the district level. Please note that these assessments are not enabled for Canvas linking and must be administered in Schoolnet directly.

As always, please log a ServiceNow ticket if you encounter technical difficulties utilizing these assessments. You may also contact john.mairs@dpi.nc.gov if you have any questions about these assessments.

New NCEES Professional Development Resources

NCDPI Home Base and NCVPS have newly updated Professional Development Resources as follows:

• NCVPS - Check out the new site for DPI PD courses managed by NCVPS which replaces the rt3nc.org site.
  • https://ncvps.org/professional-learning/

• NCDPI - Check out a new quick video and documents for educators searching and taking Professional Development in NCEES.
  • NCEES Quick Video - Finding PD
  • Accessing the Home Base PD System - NCEES 
  • Managing Courses in NCEES 
  • How to Access the NCEES My Transcript and Certificate

Focus 5: Governor Morehead School for the Blind (GMS)

Contributor: Sara McManus, Director of Digital Learning

1. Attention to Social, Emotional and Physical Needs to Help the Whole Child. It has been important to focus on more than just academic instruction. Students participate in events such as:

• bi-weekly Charger Connect meetings led by the school social worker and psychologist (“Chargers” is our school mascot);

• weekly Charger Workouts,
• virtual pep rallies, graduations, holiday parties, and celebrations of life, and
• motivational speakers such as Lex Gillette a gold medalist Paralympian and Jason Brown, former NFL player and local farmer.

These events were all virtual when students were remote, but students are now able to participate in person or remotely.

2. Teachers’ Abilities to Learn Quickly, Stay Nimble and Embrace Changes in Instructional Delivery and Manage Classes. During remote and blended instruction, teachers have been able to adapt their instruction and class management by:

• using Microsoft Teams to provide direct instruction,
• using Canvas to provide lessons and activities that students can access 24/7,
• sending packages of materials and instructions for students to engage in hands-on offline activities.
• designing creative ways for students to demonstrate learning such as a Facebook live performance of a Spanish play where students performed from home,
• utilizing large screen TVs in classrooms to provide instruction to students in person and to those who remain remote,
• using OneDrive to share and collaborate on student profiles to ensure all needs are documented and addressed, and
• using PowerSchool to take remote and in-person attendance.

While there have been challenges, the teachers are quick to help one another and share lessons learned.

3. Innovative Scheduling to Address the Individualized Education Plan Goals and the Expanded Core Curriculum for VI Students. Prior to the pandemic, students could be pulled from classes to participate in physical therapy, orientation mobility, Braille, and AT support, and many of the independent living skills were addressed by the Student Life staff during the evening program. The scheduling team and staff worked together to:

• involve the 2nd and 3rd shift Student Life Staff in the teaching of ECC skills during the day,
• make Braille and AT support available before school and during push-in and pull-out instruction,
• have Orientation & Mobility lessons provided virtually, at the students’ home, or during special sessions on campus prior to all students being offered in-person instruction
• time was available for weekly staff meetings to address student needs, and time allocated for Professional Learning Team meetings biweekly to focus on instruction and collaboration.

4.  Addressing the Technology Gap by Going 1:1 and Providing Mobile Hotspots. Using CARES Act money, donations from HP, and the NC Student Connect, all students and staff can receive the technology they need to engage in remote instruction. This technology includes mobile hotspots, iPads, laptops, Braille displays, screen reading software, and magnification software.

5. Overall Willingness and Desire of Staff to Collaborate and Communicate to Plan for Next Steps and Evaluate Implementation. Staff met in small and large groups to coordinate and plan for safety measures, develop toolkits and communication that aligned to the DHHS and DPI guidance, and meet student instructional and wellness needs. Information was provided in meetings, on the website, and through letters, email messages, and phone calls to the students, staff, and families.

Groups met often to evaluate decisions, determine changes, identify additional resources needed, and support one another. For example, staff coordinated to travel across the state to deliver meals, technology equipment, band instruments, instructional materials, and some social distance instructional support when it was determined students and families needed additional support to meet all their instructional and wellness needs. The School Improvement Team continued to move goals and planning forward. On-campus projects continued to get completed such as our reorganizing the library space, cleaning classrooms, and auditorium renovations.

Please help NCDPI give a shout out to the Governor Morehead School for the Blind for their awesome work!

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