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Weekly Newsletter- August 3, 2021

Teammate in the Spotlight  With the new school year we are adding a new feature to our newsletter. Each month we will put a face to the name of one of the amazing staff at the Office of Charter Schools. First up is one of our newer consultants, Ms. Melanie Rackley!   Melanie joined OCS in October 2020. Prior to joining, she worked within the agency as an Education Licensure Specialist for five years. Melanie has held various roles at the Division of Child Development and Early Education including the NC Pre-K program. Melanie also brings Human Resources experience from private industry and UNC systems. In her spare time she enjoys travel, history and visiting museums. She is the reigning Jeopardy champion in her family. Melanie is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and the Executive Master of Public Administration program at North Carolina Central University. In her current role, she serves as Applications Team Lead for the Office of Charter Schools.

Upcoming Events and Reminders!

Save the Date!

2021 OCS Office Hours Are Back 9/20 at 11:30a.m.

REGISTER: New Technical Contact PowerSchool IPT Certification in August 2021

EL Stakeholders From: ESL/Title III Team - EL Program Quality

Inviting NC Public School EL Stakeholders including EL Coordinators, designees, and school leaders to join one session this fall.

Schedule and registration links

Bradford Preparatory Academy will be hosting an active shooter situation training November 22nd-23rd. If you are interested, please find details linked.

Follow-Up for Monthly NCDHHS Joint COVID Call

Additional resources referenced in the call:

8.3.21 DPI Slide Deck

8.3.21 DHHS Slide Deck

At Home Testing Guidance

CDC COVID Symptoms List

CDC Antigen Testing Algorithm

MEMO - Key Dates for 2020–21 Reporting and Updates for Spring 2021 and Fall 2021

School Business Division   Confirmation of Funds for Annual Financial Statement Audits by CPA firms   DPI is providing the appropriate reports to your independent auditors via the internet. These reports for FY21 are now posted in a public application at: http://apps.schools.nc.gov/auditorconfirmationreports  (Annual Reports). Please direct your independent auditor to the site provided.   Please contact Roxane Bernard at roxane.bernard@dpi.nc.gov with any questions.

Drivers Education Information

We hope your summer is off to a great start! At DPI, we are in the planning stage for our annual back-to-school stakeholder workshops being held August 10-12, 2021, which consist of useful information for all driver education stakeholders.

A detailed agenda and worksheet will be sent out to those who register just before the meeting. Although the workshops are geared toward local school leadership, the first hour of the administration session will be general info to be shared to all.

Tentative Agenda Topics 

Registration (click on the meeting date to register) 

Topic: Administration: (Register for one)* 

o   August 10, 2021 | 9:00 am – 11 am  

o   August 11, 2021 | 1:00 pm – 3 pm    

·                  Administration agenda  

o        DPI Leadership 

o        General overview of program administration

o        Legal requirements and SBE policies  

o        Local administrative requirements and recommendations 

o        Finance and business  

o        DMV collaboration  

Topic: Teacher Certification/Student Learning  

o   August 12, 2021 | 9:00 am – 11 am   

·                  Teacher Certification/Student Learning Workshop agenda

o        SBE and statutory compliance 

o        Teacher certification and recertification 

o        Education and training  

o        Driver Eligibility administration

                      Superintendents and Charter School Leaders,

We have great news! You may now designate ambassadors from your district and/or charter to participate in the Rethink Education Facilitator Badging cohort.

As a reminder, the Rethink Education program is a new statewide effort to strengthen remote and blended learning across North Carolina’s K-12 schools in response to COVID-19. Rethink Ed is specifically aligned to support K-8 learning and access to excellent instruction. The program will provide both professional development and high-quality online content for grades K-8 that will be available to all NC districts and charters.

The Rethink Education professional development is being developed through a partnership between NCDPI and NCCAT and is aligned to highly acclaimed research conducted by the Christensen Institute in partnership with Michael Horn and Heather Staker. The professional development is designed to prepare educators to become “Blended Learning Facilitators” in their district. They will receive training on the four blended instructional models and will receive a “Blended Learning Facilitator” badge upon completion of the professional development course.

Once badged as a "Blended Learning Facilitator," these facilitators will be equipped to lead professional development within your district/charter on blended learning models. In addition to earning a Facilitator Badge, they will receive a $500 stipend. The sessions they will lead within your district/charter will prepare other teachers to become badged as "Blended Learning Instructors." There is no cost to districts/charters for this training.

Rethink Education begins state-wide implementation in September 2021, with our first cohort of facilitators beginning on September 20th. Each district may submit the names of up to ten ambassadors to participate in this cohort. Each charter school may submit the names of two ambassadors to participate in this cohort. The visual included below outlines the Rethink Ed badging pathways.

We are currently collecting participation information from district and charter leaders. You may use the link below to submit your facilitator ambassadors for this cohort. Please submit these names no later than August 19, 2021.

Should you have questions about this, please reach out to Melissa Davis, Director of Rethink Education, or Rachel Wright Junio, Project Manager for Rethink Education.

Click here to submit ambassador names. 

IB Important Update - Invoices

Charter School Bus Inspections

DPI Transportation Services offers charter schools courtesy inspections of their school buses, just like they do at the county school bus garages.  Please send an email to Teresa.West@dpi.nc.gov in Transportation Services to request a courtesy inspection this summer. Please include your location, contact person, contact email, contact phone number, and how many school buses are in operation.

Questions can be directed to Transportation Services Section Chief Kevin Harrison  (984) 236-2932 or kevin.harrison@dpi.nc.gov.

OCR/CRDC - Office of Civil Rights Coordinator Contacts in EDDIE - Due Friday, September 24, 2021

Please read and inform other staff as appropriate.

Dear Coordinators,

The Office of Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) window for the 2020-2021 school year data will begin in early 2022.  Note:  PSUs that were not open in the school year 2020-2021 are not required to participate in this collection. 

• The first step in preparing for the collection is ensuring the NCDPI has the most recent staff contact information.  
• PSUs must verify or update the EDDIE system with two Staff who have been identified as the 'Office of Civil Rights Coordinator'. 
• Delete any records in EDDIE for OCR contacts that are no longer with your PSU. 
• These staff personnel are the technical contacts for the CRDC and will be responsible for running the PowerSchool CRDC Preview Report, verifying data, correcting and adding data to the Federal CRDC tool, and certifying in the Federal CRDC tool when the collection is complete.
• PSUs are also strongly advised to verify or update the Student Information Coordinator contact as well.  Updates must be completed by the close of business, Friday, September 24, 2021. 
• If you are unsure who your EDDIE administrator is, please visit the Subscribed User List located at https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/district-operations/financial-and-business-services/demographics-and-finances/eddie#help-using-eddie

More information about the CRDC is located at https://crdc.grads360.org/#program.  Notice on the homepage that there is a timeline of the CRDC phases.  

It is important to keep in mind that the NCDPI assists all PSUs with the CRDC by facilitating the transfer of data to the federal submission tool.  No action other than to update your contacts in EDDIE is required at this time.  

For questions, please contact Terra Dominguez at terra.dominguez@dpi.nc.gov. 

MEMO: Science of Reading Professional Learning and K-3 Formative/Diagnostic Assessment

Timing of UID Export Uploads to Staff UID System:

For school HR/Payroll staff/management,

As a reminder, there should be a timely and accurate exchange of data between the PSU payroll system and the Staff UID System. This includes any new staff members who need access to K-12 related systems (i.e. PowerSchool, Schoolnet, NCEES, etc.). Additionally, new staff that have been hired but who are not yet receiving a paycheck can be added to the payroll system, and subsequently included in the Staff UID export file to receive a UID. Non-payroll staff members who work with a PSU but are not entered into the payroll system can still be added to the Staff UID System, via the ‘Add Staff’ feature. Documentation for adding non-payroll staff to the Staff UID System can be found at https://files.nc.gov/dpi/documents/UID/acquiring-uid-for-non-payroll-staff.pdf

ESSER Reminder

Dear Charter Directors,
This is a reminder that the 2021-2022 Eligible Schools Summary Report (ESSR) must be submitted in PowerSchool for all local education agencies (LEAs) and charter schools in North Carolina. All charter schools are required to report these data regardless of whether they accept any federal funds and the report is used to meet several requirements, such as School Report Card, CEDARS and Teacher Loan Forgiveness.  Thank you in advance for your support.

Information regarding the data collection can be found at  https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/federal-program-monitoring/federal-program-data-collection

School Mental Health Policy Report

Dear Charter School Leaders, 

As you may know, all charter schools are required to report their progress on meeting the guidelines set forth by the NC State Board of Education's SHLT-003:School-Based Mental Health (SBMH) Policy.  This is a new reporting requirement, and we have included the required reporting questions in the Healthy Active Children's (HAC) policy report.  You will be able to complete your report online. In the online reporting portal, you will indicate that you are a charter school, and you will be directed to the SBMH policy questions.  To make it easier for you to assemble your report information prior to going online, a Word version of the online survey is attached to this email. Please complete the online survey to submit your report.  

The information needed to complete the SBMH progress report will come from your School Mental Health Improvement Plan, which is required to upload and must include the mental health training program and suicide risk referral protocol.  

Please note the deadline to complete the HAC Progress Report / School Mental Health Policy Report is September 15, 2021. 

You can access the reporting portal through the link below.   

2021 Healthy Active Children Policy Report Survey

If you have questions or challenges in completing this online survey, please contact Les Spell at Les.Spell@dpi.nc.gov.  

We appreciate the time and energy spent in completing this report and look forward to reading each submission. The Healthy Active Children Report / School Mental Health Policy Report is a valuable tool in efforts to provide quality school health systems that will raise academic achievement and promote physical and mental health among North Carolina’s schoolchildren.  

Thanks for all you do.

Les Spell

Data and Policy Consultant

NC Healthy Schools

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction

984-236-2815

Les.Spell@dpi.nc.gov

School Mental Health Policy Report pdf

School Mental Health Policy Report doc

Resources Galore

School Business Website

School Business – July 30, 2021

NC SIS Weekly Email Bulletin

DTL INSIDER - JULY 23, 2021

Digital Learning Standards Course

Monthly Update: NC Healthy Schools

NC Center for Safer Schools NEWSLETTER - July, 2021

August First Tuesday Science Update

NCDPI Arts Education Newsletter - July 30, 2021

July 2021 K-12 Monthly Mathematics Update

STEMtastic News - July 2021

K-12 Education Office of Government and Community Affairs Update - Friday, July 9, 2021

CSADM Phase II Info

NCDPI School Counseling Updates

Opportunity: Announcing the 2021 Injury-Free NC Academy on Comprehensive Suicide Prevention

Let’s Get Ready! A Family’s Guide to Support Kindergarten Readiness

Resources for GLE, NC's Seal of Biliteracy

Digital Learning Standards Course for 2021

TD Bank grant opportunity - TD 2021 Ready Challenge

NC Lions KidSight Screening program

United States Senate Student Applications Available Until October 3rd

Please be sure to keep EDDIE up to date!

• OCS Guidance on Title IX-New Compliance Requirements
• OCS Guidance SB199 Sex Trafficking Prevention Training and SB476 Mental Health Plans
• OCS Guidance for Charter Schools SB681/Session Law 2020-78 Enrollment Priorities, Assessments Memo, and CARES Act additional funds available 7/17/2020 
• OCS Website Guidance for Charter Schools