The Deadline for Opting into Home Base is Fast Approaching!

Coordinators and Technology Directors,

Please inform your district finance officers and charter principals/directors that the deadline for opting into Home Base is fast approaching!  Please have them opt into Home Base for the 2021-22 school year by June 15, 2021 to prevent loss of access to Schoolnet and NCEES PD.  

If you have questions pertaining to the Home Base Opt-in process, contact Yolanda Wilson at yolanda.wilson@dpi.nc.gov.  For complete information on opting into Home Base, visit our Home Base Opt-in page that includes the Home Base Pricing Memo, a link to the Home Base Decision Tool, and FAQs.

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
  
  

2021-22 CeCTO Program

Please see the 2021-22 CeCTO letter from Shannon Tufts, Director of the Center for Public Technology at the UNC School of Government, with information on applying for the 2021-22 Certified Educational Chief Technology Officer (CeCTO).

This program will be moving to a hybrid program, which means that you can register and attend the CeCTO program virtually and/or in-person as you see fit and you will be able to select those options each month, so you will truly have complete control and flexibility to meet your own personal or organizational needs. The school asks that all students attend at least 1/3 of the sessions in person, just to build community within the cohort.

We are pleased to share that the Department of Public Instruction will continue to subsidize and sponsor this program for the 2021-22 school year.

The application deadline is June 15, 2021.

Class Rank

According to NCGS116-11(10a) and SBE GRAD-09, Class Rank is required for the standardized transcript. Once grades are stored, and before transcripts are generated, the class rank calculation process must be run. Please see pages 3-4 of the Class Rank QRD for instructions on running the class rank calculation process.

Student Record Request

Please be reminded that during the school year student record requests shall be made within 30 days of the student’s enrollment.  Upon receipt of the request, the school from which the student transferred shall not withhold the student records for any reason (e.g., fees or non- returned tech equipment).  Failure to release the student records will result in displaying the student as enrolled in both schools which can skew state reporting and affect funding.

Home Base Maintenance Window Scheduled for June 25

PowerSchool and the NCDPI Home Base Team have scheduled a maintenance window for Friday, June 25 from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.  This additional maintenance is required to deploy critical state reporting updates. Currently, PowerSchool is the only known Home Base application that will undergo maintenance.  All other Home Base applications will remain available.

Please begin notifying your staff and teachers of this maintenance as soon as possible.  

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 2021-2022 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.

NCEES End of Year

NCEES End of Year (EOY) will take place after the close of business, 5 PM EST, on Wednesday, June 30.  Please plan to be completed with Evaluation and Professional Development Plans in the online tool prior to June 29, 2021. Once plans are archived by the vendor they cannot be updated or worked in.

The NCEES Tool is not taken down for EOY which means that participants of Professional Development Courses in NCEES may continue to access NCEES to work on and complete PD.

NCDPI will communicate later the date of when the new 2021-2022 plan types are available to be assigned to Staff.  More information can be found in the NCEES Updates Bulletin 5/14/2021.

Reminder:  Career and College Ready Graduates (CCRG) Program Coding Guidance for ELA and Math - April 30, 2021 Update

A new sqlReport5 report called CCRG Student List has been created and entered in all NC PowerSchool instances.  This report lists students enrolled in the special program for CCRG English or Math. Schools must assign a special program of NC-CCRG English or NC-CCRG Math at the STUDENT level for the report to run correctly. The report is located under the CCRG heading/folder.

All students in CCRG must be entered into the appropriate Special Programs indicator on the Special Programs student screen. There are two options for NCCCRG on the Special Programs Screen: 

• NCCCRG English 
• NCCCRG Math

Note: A student who participates in both CCRG Math and CCRG English would need to be put in both Special Programs.

The Special Programs must be entered when the student is receiving CCRG content for the particular semester/year. Students entered into the Special Program will satisfy the needed data entry if the student is receiving integrated CCRG content into an existing course, such as English IV, various math courses, or an intervention time. 

In addition to the Special Program, if the student is participating in the stand-alone CCRG Math Elective course, course code 201320X0, the student must also be enrolled in the course.

Reminder:  New sqlReport5 Report - CCRG Student List

In order for the report to run correctly, the Special Program must be entered at the STUDENT level. See the Special Program QRD below for guidance. 

Mass Enroll Students into a Special Program QRD

Reminder:  Instructure (Canvas) Contract Extended

We are excited to extend our partnership with Instructure (Canvas) through 2023.  The SBE and NCDPI have entered into a 2-year contract extension that is in its final stages of the internal process at NCDPI.  Canvas costs will rise 5% to account for increases in operational costs. This is the first price increase for contracted users since the beginning of the contract in 2015.

New features for 21-22 include: 

• New K-5 dashboard to support elementary learners 
• Deeper integration with Microsoft including free access to Immersive Reader and Teams
• State negotiated volume pricing to our video engagement and analytics tool - Canvas Studio

The Canvas renewal process will continue to provide an easy and smooth process to purchase products and services. Here is a summary of how this amendment impacts your Canvas Contract:

• The amendment extends to June 30, 2023. Whenever your current contract ends, it will renew with an end date of June 30, 2023. 
• The cost of Canvas LMS + 24x7 Support Bundle is increasing 5%. This means if you were paying  $3.74, you’ll now pay $3.93, and if you are paying $3.92, you’ll now pay $4.12 (Previous price was dependent on when you opted into the Canvas State Contract Pricing).
• If you are just starting with a new Canvas contract, you’ll pay $4.12 (Minimum license amount of $3,500) and an implementation fee of $5,500.
• Tier 1 Support (24x7 access to support for all teachers and administrators) remains $1 per user. Tier 1 Support new users can be added with an additional $500 setup fee.
• Canvas Studio can now be added to your Canvas contract at $1 per user (Minimum license amount of $1,500), $1,500 implementation fee for new Studio users.

Please reach out to your Canvas Customer Success Manager with any questions about the renewal process.

Reminder:  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.

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 last month'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 in identifying 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.

Week Ending 6/11/2021

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.

#GoOpenNC

Want to learn more about Open Education Resources and #GoOpenNC?  We have 5 free, self-paced, one hour mini-courses that will launch July 1st for the 21-22 school year.  These courses show you how to use the platform to find supplemental instructional resources, save resources to folders or your LMS, and collaborate with other educators!  All courses are recommended for 0.1 CEU in Digital Learning Competency Credit.  Register starting July 1st in NCEES using the NCEdCloud.  

North Carolina Public School Educators will have full access to #GoOpenNC all summer long. Resources from GoOpenNC can be used to support summer learning or planning ahead for the next school year.

Visit GoOpenNC at: https://goopennc.oercommons.org/

#Canvas

NCDPI has 4 free, one hour, self paced mini-courses available on July 1st to help you learn how to use #CanvasLMS.  These courses will be available to register in NCEES and will help you design a more interactive and engaging course for the next school year. All courses recommended for 0.1 CEU Digital Learning Competency Credit are available for free in NCEES starting July 1!

#Canvas receives term dates from PowerSchool and by default, teachers do not have access to courses after the term end date.  Your Canvas Admin is able to adjust the term access dates so teachers can have access to their courses after the last student day to wrap up the course.

NCEES

Principals have a Dashboard Evaluation Process Report! Find out who is not meeting plan activity deadlines.  Get a quick look by plan type with overall percentages of plan activity completions or drill down by school to view individual staff statuses with the Evaluation Process :  GP Status report!

>>>Staff Evaluations will be archived on June 30, 2021<<<

Help Guide:  GP Status Report on Plan Activities v1 2021 (https://docs.google.com/.../1mGAySZhMrpByBC518bIW.../edit...)

#NCNCEES, @NCHomeBase, @nchbase, @ncdpiDTL, @ncpublicschools

It's time to finalize Evaluation Plans and PDPs in NCEES!  Follow your District Calendar Due Dates.

>>>Staff Evaluations will be archived on June 30, 2021<<<

Do you need help with final plan activity steps?

Find specific Plan Help Guides for both Evaluator and Staff in NCEES.  Navigate to the Help Guides tab - all guides have screenshots and step by step view and do instructions!

#NCNCEES, @NCHomeBase, @nchbase, @ncdpiDTL, @ncpublicschools.

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.