Davis on the need for reform: “Licensure demonstrates how we value the teaching profession. Today, licensure is a too-frequent barrier to teachers entering and staying in the profession. The current licensure system does not contribute to teachers’ growth and development but often limits the opportunity for students to have an effective teacher. … Superintendents often share that they have highly effective teachers that cannot stay in the profession due to licensure requirements. … This board determined that redesigning our licensure system is essential to delivering a sound basic education to all NC students.”

Davis on the solution: “The vision is simple: increase access to effective educators for all North Carolina students through a more effective licensure system that better supports teachers throughout their careers, both financially and professionally, and rewards teachers for creating better outcomes for our students. In short, we believe this initiative will: 

• Recruit great teachers in increasing numbers and keep them in the classroom
• Reform the licensure process to eliminate barriers and time delays.
• Increase levels of professional supports and opportunities for advancement for our teachers within their career.

And in reforming the licensure system, we will:

• Increase opportunities for candidate teachers to enter the profession, develop their skills and become fully licensed
• Support teachers throughout their career and provide opportunities for increased responsibility, make greater contributions to their students’ education, and to their profession, and be rewarded monetarily without having to leave the classroom and move into administration."

Truitt on the development process: “This process isn’t close to being complete, and we continue to be open, welcoming, and encouraging of your solutions for improvement. … Listening sessions have been held with teachers in all eight education regions to allow for stakeholders to offer their opinions on various aspects of the model …. At this time, thousands of teachers have weighed in on various aspects of the draft model. Further feedback continues to be encouraged … The Board has not voted. We are certainly not implementing anything. This is a process that will take time. It’s entirely possible that the model we voted on this fall will be a preliminary model.”

Truitt on proposed criteria for teacher advancement: “Teachers would choose how they demonstrate their impact on the students they teach, and the conceptual model will provide a menu of options. This means that if one of the options does not accurately reflect how students improved during the school year, teachers would have the ability to select another measurement option that does. … Neither student testing nor student academic growth, also known as EVAAS, is a required pathway to advancement. For each level of licensure, there are other options for a teacher to advance outside of testing.”

Board Approves Six-Month Delay for Revisions to Healthful Living Standards

The State Board of Education approved a request from Department of Public Instruction’s Academic Standards staff to extend the timeline by up to six months for completing a revision to the state’s Healthful Living standards. Revisions to the state’s science standards remain on track for installation in schools in 2023-24, with implementation for instruction in 2024-25.

Kristi Day, director of the Office of Academic Standards, told the board that the delay for the completion of the Healthful Living standards (which include both health education and physical education) is needed to solicit more responses from school districts to a survey about current standards in those subjects. So far, 44% of districts and other school units have responded, but the department has a goal of 80% response.

In addition, Day said, the additional time is needed to ensure broad regional representation on the Data Review Committee for Healthful Living standards, the members of which are drawn from educators across the state.

So far, she explained, the department has received nine applications for the committee for physical education standards, representing five of the eight State Board of Education regions, with six members selected. For health education, 17 applications from all but one region have been received, but the eight members who have been selected represent only three of the state board regions.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt said survey responses for Healthful Living standards have improved recently after department leaders reached out to districts for their feedback.

“We’re hoping that it will take just a couple of months to get the representation that we need and to get closer to that 80%,” Truitt said.

Updated Digital Learning Plan Gets Board Approval

The Digital Learning Plan for North Carolina’s public schools, included in legislation in 2015, has been updated and was approved this month by the State Board of Education.

Rob Dietrich, senior director of the Office of Digital Teaching and Learning, told the board that the updated plan is aimed at supporting growth and continued improvement in digital-age learning for all North Carolina students and schools.

“What we have seen is digital-age learning has evolved, especially over the last several years with a pandemic,” Dietrich said. “When the pandemic hit, it showed that as education needs to improve through digital-age learning, this plan also needs to evolve and improve.”

Ashley McBride, Digital Learning Initiative consultant, explained that while the initial plan was a state-level action plan, the updated version is intended to reflect all levels of the state’s K-12 system, including students, schools, public school units and the Department of Public Instruction.

A 54-member workgroup that developed the plan included a broad range of educators, McBride said, from all eight state board regions and representing district administrators to instructional technology facilitators to classroom teachers. Groups of parents, students and teachers were also interviewed as part of the plan’s development, she said.

The parents who were interviewed, McBride said, were most concerned about seeing their children engaged in various learning activities that appropriately blend the use of technology with hands-on and group activities to challenge them to think more critically and creatively. Elementary-grade students said they wanted more hands-on activities, less skill-and-drill instruction, and more focus on STEM learning, robotics and group-focused technology activities.

Middle and high school students said they want access to a combination of resources – from pencil and paper activities to internet-based digital tools, more opportunities to collaborate and less lecturing.

Teachers, McBride said, reported that they want technology that is kept up to date and more time to allow students to do more creative, project-based learning and more time for training and planning technology-rich learning experiences.

In addition to rubrics for schools and districts to guide their progress according to the Digital Learning Plan, the updated version includes a rubric specifically for the Department of Public Instruction.

“We’re very excited about the DPI rubric,” Dietrich told the board. “We believe that’s a good thing for us to do to make sure we’re staying on point with our mission and vision and to make sure we’re providing the right support and resources to help PSUs because that’s what we’re here for. It’s a growth mindset. We want everybody to grow.”

Science of Reading Initiative Boosted by New Statewide Coaching Model, Board Told

Mississippi’s much publicized gains in reading proficiency among younger students in recent years were the result of a unified state effort that included strong coaching for teachers across the state, a former leader of that state’s early literacy initiative told the State Board of Education this month. Now, North Carolina trying a similar approach with the hiring and deployment of 115 regional literacy coaches and specialists focused at the district level, 16 regional consultants and four state-level leaders.

Kymyona Burk, now a senior policy fellow in early literacy with Excel in Ed, led the implementation of Mississippi’s literacy coaching model. Burk told the board that support from well-trained coaches critically important for the gains that the state achieved – fourth graders reaching the national average on reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2019.

“It’s important to say, yes, we want all kids to be reading on grade level by the end of third grade,” Burk said, “but it’s also extremely important to say, “we’re going to help you get there.”

Passing a law is an important first step, she said, “but then the implementation is what is key. So, it’s going to take our department of education and our schools of education, district superintendents and leaders and of course our administrators and teachers all in collaboration with our parents who are at home.”

Burk also urged patience: “You will begin to see gains that are happening in schools at the local level and in some schools that may happen quickly, within a year or two, but at the state level, that make take a little time.”

Amy Rhyne, director of DPI’s Office of Early Learning, outlined the steps the department is taking to provide coaches across the state.

“This approach is slightly different than Mississippi because we’re deploying statewide and moving at a different pace,” Rhyne told the board. She said the state is trying to incorporate lessons learned by Mississippi, including an emphasis on strong communications and public relations. She also said she believes that North Carolina is in a good position to achieve strong progress.

“This would not have happened if we didn’t have bipartisan support, everyone on board, aligning our arrows, supporting with funding,” she said. “We’re fortunate in North Carolina to be heading in the direction we are. It’s exciting times.”