The Next Home Base Maintenance Window

The next Home Base maintenance window is scheduled to begin May 21, 2021.  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, May 21 at 7 p.m. and returned to service by 7 a.m., Saturday morning, May 22.  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.

The Home Base Opt-in Process is Open

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) is pleased to announce that the Home Base Opt-in Tool is now available for PSUs to opt into the  full suite of Home Base for the 2021-2022 school year at an opt-in price of $1/ADM.  Please notify your finance officers and principals/directors. 

Note:  Only finance officers and charter school directors/principals should opt in for the PSU.  Complete details are listed in the attachment below.

• hb_pricing_memo_2021-22vs2.docx

Reminder: Submitting Support Tickets for Home Base

This is a friendly reminder that PSUs should submit support tickets for Home Base using the appropriate support channel for each application. Recently, we received several Schoolnet tickets from other vendors such as PowerSchool and Identity Automation on behalf of PSUs who submitted tickets to the incorrect support channel. While our teams will respond to and work with tickets from any authorized submitter in any channel, support can be provided more quickly and effectively when there is a direct line of communication between the PSU and the affected application's support team. Below are the correct support channels for each application. We ask that PSU Home Base leads bookmark these URLs for future reference.

• PowerSchool: https://help.powerschool.com
• NCEES: https://ncgov.servicenowservices.com/sp_dpi
• Schoolnet: https://ncgov.servicenowservices.com/sp_dpi
• Canvas: https://cases.canvaslms.com
• #GoOpenNC: https://goopennchelp.oercommons.org/support/tickets/newLearning.com: 
• https://support.learning.com/contact-support-team/
• Imagine Math: https://help.imaginelearning.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

New Technical Contact PowerSchool IPT Certification in August 2021

In collaboration with PowerSchool, the Home Base Team will be offering virtual IPT certification training for new technical contacts from August 2-6, 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 who is replacing a certified technical contact for their PSU.
• A local charter school employee, not employed by a third-party company and has not previously attended IPT training.

Those who cannot attend this training are: 

• Third-party Charter school SIS management company employees
• PSUs wanting additional technical contacts above their desired allocation
• Anyone who has attended training previously. 

Note: Anyone who is not eligible for this training will need to arrange training and certification 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.

𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟔, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟏.

Graduation Date Extension

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has determined that students who graduate on or before August 6, 2021 can be included as a 2020–21 school year graduate. This is a change from the previously established July 15, 2021 deadline.

Students who graduate on or before August 6, 2021 should be added to the 2020–21 Final GDV (GDV2) report. The due date of the 2020–21 Final GDV submission has been extended to August 11, 2021, to provide time for these graduates to be included. All PSUs must submit the Final GDV by August 11, 2021, even if there are no changes.

Changes that could be made to the Final GDV by August 11, 2021:

• Adding students who graduate on or before August 6, 2021 not already included in the Preliminary GDV.
• Removing students who did not graduate but were entered as graduates in the Preliminary GDV process.

Students who graduate August 7, 2021 or later must be added to the 2021–22 Preliminary GDV report.

Reminder: Where to Submit Home Base Support Tickets

This is a friendly reminder that Schoolnet support tickets should be submitted to the NCDPI ServiceNow ticketing system at https://ncgov.servicenowservices.com/sp_dpi. Tickets submitted through ServiceNow are routed directly to the NC Schoolnet support team. Recently, the team has received tickets submitted by other product vendors including PowerSchool and Identity Automation on the behalf of PSUs. While the team will respond to and work with tickets from any authorized submitter, support can be provided more quickly and effectively when there is a direct line of communication between PSUs and Schoolnet support. We ask that all PSU Schoolnet leads bookmark this URL for later reference. Thank you!

Reminder:  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:  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.

Reminder:  Broadband Resources for Families

Broadband services are being made available to families with limited or no broadband resources through the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program.

The Emergency Broadband Benefit Program gives low-income households a discount on internet services. The program, administered by the Federal Communications Commission, opens for enrollment on May 12, 2021. 

Please spread the word by sharing this information with staff and others within your school district.  For more information and answers to frequently asked questions visit the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program site at https://www.ncbroadband.gov/assistance/emergency-broadband-benefit-program. 

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.