Thank You for Attending the April 2021 Home Base Meet-Ups!

Thank you for attending the April 2021 Home Base Meet Ups!  Your attendance and participation is what makes these meetings so valuable to us and your peers!  If you were unable to attend a session or would like a refresher, links to the slides and recordings are listed below:

NCEES Presentation Slides - bit.ly/aprHBMUncees2021

NCEES Webinar Recording - https://youtu.be/0qM_jRdWBAQ

Schoolnet Presentation Slides - bit.ly/snHBMU421

Schoolnet Webinar Recording - https://youtu.be/swFmdc_ZX7A

PowerSchool Presentation Slides - http://bit.ly/aprilHBMU

PowerSchool Webinar Recording - https://bit.ly/3eIOeXb

Learning.com Presentation Slides - https://bit.ly/LCOMHBMUApril21

Learning.com Webinar Recording - https://bit.ly/3331Ff5 

Canvas Presentation Slides - http://bit.ly/hbmucanvasapr21

Canvas Webinar Recording - https://youtu.be/jUXtAzEoba8

GoOpen Presentation Slides - http://bit.ly/hbmugoopenncapr21

GoOpen Webinar Recording - https://youtu.be/qlCasw4aDPQ

Questions pertaining to the HBMUs may be addressed to home_base@dpi.nc.gov.

Spring Legislative Class Size Collection Due Today!

This is a reminder that the Spring Legislative Class Size Collection is due by close of business today, April 30. Along with the submission of reports within PowerSchool, local Superintendents are also required to submit the signed affidavits and waiver requests if necessary. Affidavits are to be sent to classsize@dpi.nc.gov. Waiver requests should be submitted to studentaccounting@dpi.nc.gov.

During the PowerSchool Home Base Meet-up session, NCDPI shared a known issue related to staff social security numbers. We have found that staff members who do not have an SSN in PowerSchool are excluded from certain LCS reports. The missing SSN does not impact the accuracy of the K-3 average reports, as those reports are only looking at the count of lead teachers (TE1, TE2, etc.) and students associated with each section. Where you will notice the exclusions are on the Class Size Report and the Enhancement Teacher Report. Districts are asked to ignore the case of missing staff members and submit the reports and affidavits by the standing deadline of 5:00 p.m. today.

The reports are generated from a combination of section (class) rosters and the February payroll file. The SSN field is the key field that connects the payroll data to the section data.

PowerSchool and NCDPI have been thoroughly investigating how to address this problem, knowing that many teachers do not prefer to have their SSN kept within the SIS. It has been determined that the spring collection will be accepted, as-is, with the exclusion of these teachers. Reporting changes are underway to match the UID rather than SSN. Implementation of these changes is expected by the Fall Legislative Class Size for 2021-2022.

Districts are asked to ignore the case of missing staff members and submit the reports and affidavits by the standing deadline of 5:00 p.m. today. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact PowerSchool Support.

New Unique CAA Course Codes Now Available

The North Carolina Comprehensive Articulation Agreement (CAA) is a statewide agreement governing the transfer of credits between NC community colleges and NC public universities. On March 25, 2021, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) released Numbered Memo CC21-012.  As per action of the Transfer Advisory Committee (TAC), three courses have been added to the CAA as pre-major/elective courses. For the latest version of the CAA, please visit the NCCCS Comprehensive Articulation Agreement (CAA) webpage.

These courses are now available in PowerSchool for use for the 2021-22 school year. In accordance with SBE policy GRAD-009 these courses receive the added equivalent of one (1) quality point to the grade earned in the community college course. See below the corresponding NCDPI course codes:

• BX555X0 CJC212 Ethics and Comm Relations
• IJ045X0 CSC249 Data Structure and Algorithms
• IJ055X0 CSC251 Advanced JAVA Programming

CTE Concentrator Calculation Report

This past Thursday, April 22nd, the Home Base team collaborated with the NCDPI CTE team to deliver a webinar around the new CTE Concentrator Calculation state report. This is a new state report that will significantly improve the CTE reporting and concentrator calculation process. If you missed the webinar, the recording and associated Quick Reference Document (QRD) are linked below. From a PowerSchool perspective, this report does not differ significantly from other state reports. As always, if you encounter any technical issues with this report, please submit a ticket to PowerSchool Support. If you have any questions about the CTE process, please contact your local CTE Director.

• Recorded Webinar on YouTube
• CTE Concentrator Calculation QRD

EDDIE Feed Update

Please be reminded that the Educational Directory and Demographical Information Exchange (EDDIE) feed to PowerSchool was disabled as a follow-up to this past weekend's maintenance. PSUs may now begin submitting cases to PowerSchool support to add new schools and grade levels to their PowerSchool instance in preparation for the 2021-2022 school year. All changes made in PowerSchool for the current year, before EOY and after the EDDIE feed is disabled, must be updated in EDDIE manually before the feed to PowerSchool is reenabled. If the data is not accurately reflected in both PowerSchool and EDDIE when the feed is enabled after EOY, these changes will be overwritten by EDDIE since it is the authoritative source.

If you have any questions concerning EOY, please contact the Home Base Team at home_base@dpi.nc.gov.

Reminder:  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: 

1. Reporting the legislative class size in PowerSchool 

• In PowerSchool, the submission window for the report will remain open through April 30, 2021.

2. Submitting a signed affidavit 

• Each local superintendent completes a sworn affidavit (form) attesting that the superintendent has complied with the maximum class size requirements and the reporting requirements. Affidavits should be sent to classsize@dpi.nc.gov.
• Class size AFFIDAVIT 2020 Update.pdf

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. 

Reminder:  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.

Reminder:  EOY Pre-Validation (EPV) Reports

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.

New NCEES Professional Development Resources

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

• 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
• Exported list of Published NCEES DPI Self-Paced Courses
• NCVPS - Check out the new site for DPI PD courses managed by NCVPS which replaces the rt3nc.org site.
• https://ncvps.org/professional-learning/

Do You Have Questions About Peer Observations? 
NEW! NC Teacher Evaluation: Completing the Peer Observation

• Link to Presentation
• Link to Recorded Webinar  
• Password: HjkW5tyG
  
  
  

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

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

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

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

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.