Calendar Changes Due to Inclement Weather

Many of our NC Public Schools were compelled to close due to recent inclement weather events. As a courtesy reminder to our PSU partners that may need to make up school days, please review and forward to the appropriate staff this PS QRD: School Calendar Change Document. It includes instructions on how to adjust your school calendar during the school year to account for missed school days in the term or to adjust semester start dates and end dates. 

If semester start and end dates must be changed, this process may involve updates made by the PSU and PowerSchool. Therefore, once your updates are complete, you may need to submit a ticket to PowerSchool Support to complete the calendar update process. Please review the steps in the document for details.

When updating your school calendars, make sure that the in-session flags, bell schedules, and calendar day types are reflective of what occurred that day. If an In-Session day was changed to a Remote Instruction Day, make sure that it is listed in your calendar type setup. Make sure the calendar day type is not blank.

Major Events Status Alerts Subscription

If you have not already subscribed to PowerSchool’s Major Events Status Alerts notification system and you would like to receive notifications for major SIS-related events that take place in the state of North Carolina, please complete this subscription form. Notifications will be received for all PSUs in the state and cannot be limited to a single PSU. Notification types will include outages, wide-spread performance issues, downtime for maintenance, and high impact application issues that affect all instances.

Read-to-Achieve Update - 02/04/2022

Please read and share the latest Read-to-Achieve Update dated 02/04/2022 and the PRC 085 Memo which contains important information about the PRC 085 funds.

• Read-to-Achieve Update - 02/04/2022 
• PRC 085 Memo

OCR/CRDC NCDPI Upload Status - Uploads Complete

Dear Coordinators,

Please share with other staff as appropriate and read this message carefully.

Note:  PSUs which were not open in the school year 2020-2021 are not required to participate in this collection.

The NCDPI has completed the HIBS data set upload to the CRDC Federal Submission Tool. 

The NCDPI upload process is complete.  PSUs must resolve errors in the Federal Submission Tool and certify the collection by February 28, 2022.

Documentation and instructions for the tool are located at https://crdc.communities.ed.gov/#program. 

NCDPI will host a webinar session to assist in understanding the Federal Submission Tool.  Please see the information below for joining.

OCR/CRDC - Exploring the Federal Submission Tool

Date and time:

Friday, Feb 11, 2022 10:00 am | (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Join link:

https://ncgov.webex.com/ncgov/j.php?MTID=m3287f653992ec13ced861663fc59f027

Webinar number:

2425 035 6285

Webinar password:

CRDC2021 (27322021 from phones)

Join by phone

+1-415-655-0003 US Toll

+1-904-900-2303 United States Toll (Jacksonville)

Access code: 2425 035 6285

Please contact Terra Dominguez terra.dominguez@dpi.nc.gov with questions.

Reminder:  School Start-Time and End-Time Spring Collection 

The School Start-Time and End-Time Spring Collection period began on Feb. 1 and is set to end on March 1, 2022.  Please remember to review the school start-times and end-times in PowerSchool and make adjustments, if needed, prior to running the report. 

For assistance with this collection, please link to the quick reference document, School Start-Times and End-Times.

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:  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.

Canvas Teacher Webinar

Our next Canvas Teacher Webinar will be held on Thursday, February 10, 2022, from 7-8 p.m.  The topic of discussion will be Course Accessibility.  Attendees will receive 0.1 DLC CEU.

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

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.

• 2/15/2022     
• 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.

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