Tonight's Home Base Maintenance Window

Tonight's Home Base maintenance window is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.  PowerSchool is the only Home Base application that will be unavailable.  A separate maintenance will occur with the  NCEES product.  More details for it are provided in the maintenance update for NCEEs message below.  All other Home Base applications will remain available throughout the maintenance window.

This maintenance period may extend longer than one night due to an Oracle upgrade and demographic updates that are scheduled to take place.  However, the PowerSchool application will be returned to service no later than 6 a.m. Monday morning, January 24. 

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.

PS 21.12.2.0 Maintenance Update for NCEES

From 10 p.m. Sunday, January 23 to 6 a.m. Monday, January 24, PowerSchool will be deploying version 21.12.2.0 to the Perform Enterprise/Professional Learning System. During this time, system availability will be limited so please share this with your NCEES staff.

Release notes can be found in the PowerSchool Community for Professional Learning and Perform Enterprise and also in Help.

Read-to-Achieve Update - 01/21/2022

Please read and share the latest Read-to-Achieve update dated 01/21/2022 and the DIBELS 8 Large Print memo also dated 1/21/2022.

Read-to-Achieve Update - 01/21/2022 

DIBELS 8 Large Print Memo - 1/21/2022

Reminder: 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.

Reminder:  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.

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.

Transcend Webinar Recording

In case you missed the informational webinars for Transcend, the recording is now available on the NCDPI YouTube Channel.

Transcend is a computer-adaptive interim assessment add-on for Schoolnet that will be available as part of the Home Base opt-in process for the 2022-2023 school year. Transcend provides tests for grades 3-8 ELA and Math and will be priced at $4 per 3rd-8th grade ADM. 

If you have any questions about Transcend or would like to learn more prior to the Home Base opt-in period, please contact john.mairs@dpi.nc.gov or jeffrey.hauger@pearson.com.

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.