NC SIS Weekly Email Bulletin
Topics in this issue:
1. Thank You for Attending the Home Base Meet Ups!
2. Daily Bulletin - Home Base Survey
3. FTE School
4. OCR/CRDC - SY2021 Getting Started Information - PowerSchool Setup
5. Read to Achieve Weekly Update
6. Reminder: Program Schools
7. Reminder: GPA and Grade Scale Automation (GPAA)
8. Reminder: Guidance for Attendance
9. Welcome to Home Base - A Quick Video of Who We Are
10. Pre-recorded PowerSchool Webinars
11. Now Available: Keeping It Simple in Schoolnet 23 Self-paced Course
12. 2021-2022 NCEES Webinars
13. Follow Us on Social Media
14. NCDPI Technology Support Center
Daily Bulletin - Home Base Survey
The Home Base Team’s mission is to provide digital tools to NC public school educators that will enhance instruction and learning. To ensure our products are meeting the expectations of our customers, we are requesting your feedback.
Next week, we will be providing a short Home Base survey for teachers and administrators in the PowerSchool Daily Bulletin. This survey will provide the information we need to determine what is working and what is deficient. We wanted to give you a heads up so that you can make plans to fit this into your schedule. The information received will be used in making key managerial decisions and/or enhancements to our products; therefore, it is imperative that you take the time to complete the survey.
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FTE School
NCDPI would like to inform all PSUs that the DPI FTE school should not be used as a holding school during the school year and there should not be any student records in this school within your instance. This school may be used as a temporary holding school during the EOY process, but students must be moved back to their previous school and transferred out as a no-show within your instance after EOY. Failure to remove these students causes double enrollment in ECATS, resulting in record transfer issues. Please see page 7 of the End-of-Year User Guide for instructions.
What is a No-Show student?
When a student is enrolled in a school but did not show up on the first day of school, they are referred to as a " No-Show". For the No-Show students to report correctly, the Entry Date must be equal to the Exit Date. Summer No-Show students should have summer entry/withdrawal dates after July 1 and before the first day of school. NCDPI recommends summer dates of 7/6 – 7/6 to avoid enrollment, reporting, and transfer student record issues. Always ensure student Entry Dates and Exit Dates in PowerSchool are correct. For example, the exit date should never be before the entry date.
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OCR/CRDC - SY2021 Getting Started Information - PowerSchool Setup
Please inform other staff as appropriate.
Note: PSUs that were not open in the school year 2020-2021 are not required to participate in this collection.
Dear Coordinators,
Thank you for submitting your contact information in EDDIE for the CRDC collection. EDDIE will continue to be the authoritative source for CRDC contacts moving forward. Please remember to update the system if the collection process has been assigned to another staff member. Contact information recorded in EDDIE as of September 24, 2021, for this collection will be sent to the federal partner support team for the first log-ins to the CRDC Federal Submission Tool.
SY20-21 CRDC Screens in PowerSchool are Ready for Update
All PSUs must perform specific functional tasks within the PowerSchool system prior to running the PowerSchool CRDC Preview report. These tasks can be performed by a single staff member with access to all entities within the PowerSchool instance or some school level tasks can be delegated. Update these screens before the PowerSchool CRDC Preview Report opens in October.
Download the ‘Setting Up PowerSchool for the CRDC’ on the NCDPI CRDC Documentation and Webinars page under the North Carolina Specific Process and Procedures tab. On this page you will also see NCDPI's timeline the collection process, links to federal resources, and NC specific documentation. Webinar events are still pending.
The OCR will Open the Federal Submission Tool in December 2021
For those of you who may not be aware, the OCR sent a communication on August 13, 2021, stating they will open the Federal Submission Tool to the nation December 13, 2021. Users across the nation will have 75 days to make corrections and must Certify the data in the tool by February 28, 2022. The OCR also announced there will be back-to-back submissions. The official OMB package has yet to be published for the school year 2021-2022 collection. You can read this message and others on the NCDPI CRDC Communication and Support page.
PowerSchool CRDC Preview Report Opens October 25, 2021
To provide all PSUs as much time as possible to review data in the Federal Submission Tool, NCDPI will open the PowerSchool CRDC Preview Report Monday October 25, 2021. The PowerSchool report will close midnight of Friday December 1, 2021.
NCDPI has also been working with the PowerSchool vendor on improvements to the PowerSchool CRDC report. Most noticeably this year is that all views reside in one report. Also included are views at the LEA level that allow you as the data collector a more global view of the CRDC setup process within your schools. In addition, the student detail reports at the school level have been grouped by data set and the logic has been improved.
Thank you again for submitting your information. NCDPI wishes you a smooth collection year!
Please contact me (Terra Dominguez) at any time with questions.
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Read to Achieve Weekly Update
Please see the memo that was sent to Chief Academic Officers and Read to Achieve Contacts from Amy Rhyne, Ed.S., Office of Early Learning Director.
10.1.21 RTA Update Memo
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Reminder: Program Schools
In an effort to support Federal reporting as well as other PowerSchool functions, NCDPI has deployed the following Program Schools to every PSU:
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School Name
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Abbreviation
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SchoolID
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CECAS
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CECAS
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###292
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LEP
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LEP
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###293
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Migrant
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Migrant
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###294
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DPI FTE School
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FTE
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###296
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Homeless
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Home
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###297
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Note: The first three digits (###) of the SchoolID number will vary depending on the PSU. For further clarification, please see the examples below for non-charter and charter schools.
Scenario 1: Non-charter PSU
In a non-charter PSU, the first three digits will be the LEA number as seen on the LEA Info screen in PowerSchool. For example, the LEA number for Asheville City Schools is 111; therefore, the SchoolID for their CECAS school would be 111292.
Scenario 2: Charter School
In a charter school, the digits will be based on the SchoolID as displayed on the Schools/School Info screen in PowerSchool. For example, the LEA number for Woods Charter School is 19B which would not work as a SchoolID because it can’t contain letters. However, the SchoolID number for Woods Charter on the Schools/School Info screen is 17000. Thus, the SchoolID number for their CECAS school would be 17292.
The names and abbreviations of these schools should not be changed in any way. If you have made any changes to these schools, please revert your changes based on the above examples.
If you are missing any of the schools listed above, please open a ticket with PowerSchool Support to have the missing school(s) added to your instance.
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Reminder: GPA and Grade Scale Automation (GPAA)
Per the North Carolina State Board of Education Policy GRAD-009, all public school courses taken for high school credit must be graded using the NC 10 Point Grade Scale.
To assist PSUs with proper grade entry, DPI and PowerSchool have implemented GPA and Grade Scale Automation (GPAA) functionality on the Historical Grade entry screen. Automated functionality for course codes, grade entry, GPA, and credit hours are now in effect on the Single and Multi historical grade entry screens in PowerSchool. GPAA functionality will also be present when manually updating a stored grade that receives high school credit.
Please refer to the GPAA memo regarding changes with the automation of GPA and Grade-Scale. Reference the Adding Historical Grades QRD for instructions and information on adding or updating a grade manually with GPAA.
Please note: The NC 10 Point Grade Scale MUST be named "NC 10-Point Scale" exactly to ensure proper functionality. A grade scale with a name other than “NC 10-Point Scale” will cause the grade drop-down to not appear on the historical grade entry screen. A QRD for proper setup of the NC 10-Point Scale will be provided soon.
If you experience any technical issues, please submit a case to PowerSchool.
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Reminder: PowerSchool Data Requirements for ECATS Spanish Language Translation
The ECATS team recently announced the launch of a new feature to automatically translate documentation into Spanish and give users the option to view and/or print this documentation. The ECATS system will automatically translate documents based on a student's "Home Language" field in PowerSchool. Communication about the new translation feature in ECATS can be found in the September 13th Monday Message and the ECATS Translation Quick Reference Guide. The "Home Language" field in PowerSchool is updated as part of the English Learner (EL) screening process and cannot be modified outside of that process. Please see the English Learner (EL) User Guide for additional information.
The authoritative source of Home Language is the EL screen in PowerSchool, which follows a specific process utilizing the state board approved W-APT screener. Additionally, while Pre-K students are not screened using the W-APT, these students may be considered EL following a local screening process. Please work with EL stakeholders in your PSU to ensure the EL screen is filled out accurately and according to the established process as this screen also has an impact on Title III funding.
For questions about ECATS, please log a Zendesk ticket within the system. For questions about the English Learner screening process, please email susan.walz@dpi.nc.gov. For questions about PowerSchool, please log a PowerSchool Support ticket. And for any other related questions or concerns, please email home_base@dpi.nc.gov.
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Reminder: Guidance for Attendance
Use of the 1R present off-site attendance code will continue to follow the guidelines as shown below from the SASA manual.
Initial Enrollment of Student
A student may not be enrolled in membership unless they are present on their initial date of enrollment.
- If a student is on-site on their initial date of enrollment and is present at least one-half of the instructional day, the student is “present on-site.
- If a student is scheduled for remote instruction on their initial date of enrollment, a positive two-way communication is required between the student/parent/family and a school official designated by the school. For instance, a documented phone call, electronic communication or meeting. If an email is used to communicate, the date of the response from the student is considered the date of the initial enrollment. The student is “present off-site.” An evidence of work is not sufficient for the initial date of enrollment.
Attendance
Attendance must be taken each day of the school year in PowerSchool for on-site and remote instruction days.
A student is considered present for the purposes of daily attendance during a remote instruction day and with the exception of the initial enrollment day as described above:
- If a student completes their assignments for each remote instruction day, either online or offline; and/or
- If a student has a daily check-in, a two-way communication, with the appropriate teacher(s):
- In grade K-5, homeroom teacher
- All other grade levels, each course teacher as scheduled
Public school units shall communicate the attendance procedures to students and parents/families before the first day of remote instruction begins. It is a local decision as to the method of this communication.
In order to be considered in attendance, a student must be present on-site for the school day or at a place other than on-site with the approval of the appropriate school official for the purpose of attending an authorized school activity.
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Welcome to Home Base - A Quick Video of Who We Are
Each year, PSUs experience an influx of new staff. The Home Base Team is aware of these changes and has created a short video to help acquaint and reacquaint users with Home Base.
Please checkout the "Welcome to Home Base" video which gives a quick overview of what Home Base is and how all its components work together. Feel free to share it with your peers and use it in your trainings.
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Pre-Recorded PowerSchool Webinars
Now Available: Keeping It Simple in Schoolnet 23 Self-Paced Course
The first self-paced Schoolnet course for the 2021-2022 school year is now available via NCEES, Canvas, and Home Base! This course is designed to be completed in about an hour and will award 0.1 Digital Learning Competency (DLC) CEUs. During this course, you will learn:
- What is Schoolnet?
- How do teachers and students access Schoolnet?
- How do teachers create Schoolnet assessments using readily available questions, including a look at the redesigned Test Details page?
- How do students take their tests?
- How do teachers analyze the results of Schoolnet assessments?
Complete the Canvas Studio video quiz as you watch, click Submit at the end of the video, and the credit will appear on your NCEES transcript automatically with a score of 80% or higher.
Register for this course: https://bit.ly/kisSN23reg
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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
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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.
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Remember to visit the NC SIS website for additional information including webinars and training documentation. Follow us on twitter @NCHomeBase.
NC SIS
NC Department of Public Instruction
Education Building, 7th Floor North
301 North Wilmington Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Email: ncsis@dpi.nc.gov
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