Martin Luther King, Jr. State Holiday

In observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, which is a state holiday, NCDPI will be closed on Monday, January 17, 2022.  

Next Home Base Maintenance Window Set for January 21

The next Home Base maintenance window is scheduled to begin Friday, January 21 at 7 p.m.  PowerSchool is the only Home Base application that will be brought down for one night only.  All other Home Base applications will remain available throughout the maintenance window. Please share this message with other staff as appropriate.

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.

PowerSchool Years and Terms at the LEA Office

At the LEA Office level in PowerSchool, the Years and Terms start and end dates MUST encompass the start date of the PSU’s earliest starting school and the end date of the PSU’s latest ending school. This also includes all Program Schools. The start date for Years and Terms at the LEA level should be 7/1 and the end date should be 6/30.

This information has been updated in the PS User Guide: End-of-Year Processing and can be found under Creating Years and Terms in the user guide.

2021 Social Studies Standards in Schoolnet

The updated 2021 Social Studies standards are now live in Schoolnet! For the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year, educators will be able to see both the old and the new Social Studies standards in Schoolnet.

NCDPI is working with its content partners to realign and update Social Studies content for the 2022-2023 school year. The existing content aligned to the old standards will remain available for the remainder of this school year.

In the meantime, PSUs may choose to begin realigning local content now at their discretion. The old standards and aligned content will be retired over the summer and will no longer be available in 2022-2023.

Please reach out to John Mairs if you have any questions.

Read-to-Achieve Update - 01/14/2022

Please read and share the latest Read-to-Achieve Update dated 01/14/2022.

Read-to-Achieve Update - 01/14/2022

MEMO: PSU COVID Reporting

Education Leaders, 

During the month of January 2022, the state has experienced a severe increase in COVID-19 cases which is impacting personnel and some schools’ ability to operate. As a result, many PSUs have been required to close classrooms, grade levels, or entire schools. This has also led to an increase in the required reporting and questions regarding the proper path for deciding how, when, and what to close.

This communique will provide a refresher to PSUs on how to decide and report incidents.

Reminder:  Attendance During Exam Week(s)

To be considered in attendance, a student (except for hospital/homebound or staggered kindergarten) must be present in the school for the school day or at a place other than the school with the approval of the appropriate school official for the purpose of attending an authorized school activity. Such activities may include field trips, athletic contests, student conventions, musical festivals, or any similar approved activity.

Except as noted above, a student must be present at least one-half of the school's instructional day in order to be recorded present for that day.

NC General Statute 115C-378 states in part that no person shall encourage, entice, or counsel any child of compulsory school age to be unlawfully absent from school.

If a student is exempted from an exam and is not present in the school for the school day or not at a place other than the school with the approval of the appropriate school official for the purpose of attending an authorized school activity, the student is absent.

For questions or concerns, contact Student Accounting at studentaccounting@dpi.nc.gov.

Reminder:  New Technical Contact PowerSchool IPT Certification in March 2022

In collaboration with PowerSchool, the Home Base Team will be offering virtual IPT certification training for new technical contacts from March 7-11, 2022: 

• This training session does have limited capacity and seats are based on eligibility.
• 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 NC 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 eligible to attend the DPI offered IPT Training include: 

• Anyone who is replacing a certified technical contact for their PSU as of 7/1/2021.
• 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 Form: https://bit.ly/FebIPT2022 

**Registration will close COB Friday, February 18, 2022 or sooner if the max number of attendees is reached.

2022 Canvas Teacher Webinar 

Our first Canvas Teacher Webinar of 2022 will be held on Thursday, January 20,2022, from 7-8 p.m. We will be talking about course design including modules, homepage, and rich content editor (RCE). Attendees will receive 0.1 DLC CEU.

Click on this link  to register for the webinar. If you have any questions, please contact Corey McNeill.

Webinars for Pearson Transcend

Pearson Transcend is an optional add-on component of Schoolnet that enables computer-adaptive benchmark testing customized to local pacing guides. Currently, Transcend offers benchmarking tools for grades 3-8 ELA and Math.

After a two year pilot period, NCDPI and Pearson are excited to announce that Transcend will exit the pilot stage in the 2022-2023 school year. Transcend will be available to NC public school units for $4 per 3rd-8th grade ADM (Home Base opt-in required).

If you or other leaders within your PSU would like to learn more about Transcend, we have one more informational webinar coming up. A recording will be posted for those who are unable to attend. Please see below for registration information. Feel free to reach out to john.mairs@dpi.nc.gov or jeffrey.hauger@pearson.com if you’d like to speak to someone about Transcend for your PSU in detail.

• Tuesday, January 18th, from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.
• Registration

NCEES Winter/Spring Webinars

Please click on the titles below to register for the upcoming NCEES Webinars which are held most Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m.  A certificate to turn into your PSU for approval of .1 -.15 CEUs will be provided to participants that complete the feedback survey at the end of each live session.

• 2/1/2022        
• District Admin Creating Ad-Hoc Reports (1.5 hr)
• Target Audience: Staff with NCEES District Administrator Admin type
• 2/15/2022     
• Deep Dive into PD Playlists in NCEES (1.5 hr)   
• Target Audience: Professional Development leads with access to NCEES. Staff assigned in NCEES as PD Playlist Moderators.
• 2/22/2022     
• Export a Plan to PDF reports for District Administrators in NCEES (1.5 hr)
•  Target Audience: Staff with NCEES District Administrator Admin type.
• 3/4/2022  NCTIES    
• Presentation: Growth, Goals & Credits in NCEES
• NCTies Registration    
• Target Audience: Staff in NCEES
•  3/8/2022        
• End of Year Principal Evaluation Processes (1 hr)
• Target Audience: Superintendents/Directors (evaluators of Principals) Principals, APs, Evaluators
•  3/15/2022     
• End of Year Teacher/Support Staff Evaluation & PDP processes (1 hr)
• Target Audience: Teachers and Support Staff. Evaluators and Observers of Teachers/Support Staff.

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
• IAM/SSO (NCEdCloud) 
• 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.