State Board of Education Vision:Every public school student in North Carolina will be empowered to accept academic challenges, prepared to pursue their chosen path after graduating high school, and encouraged to become lifelong learners with the capacity to engage in a globally-collaborative society.
State Board of Education Mission:The mission of the North Carolina State Board of Education is to use its constitutional authority to guard and maintain the right of a sound, basic education for every child in North Carolina Public Schools.
Friday, September 9, 2022
Highlights:
EdNC Cheyenne McNeill | : Safety and security: What are N.C. schools doing? - The state legislature allocated more money for SROs this year. This includes putting $32 million into the School Safety Grant program, including money for school safety training and safety equipment in schools. The legislature also added $15 million for the School Resource Officer Grant program. Another $26 million will go to an allotment to help districts provide one SRO for each high school.
NC DPI Press Release | September 7, 2022:NCDPI Receives $1.1 Million Federal Grant for Assessment Initiative - North Carolina is one of 10 states to share more than $29 million under the U.S. Department of Education’s 2022 Competitive Grants for State Assessments program to design new assessments that are more “high-quality, innovative, and authentic.” NCDPI will be partnering with the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) on the four-year grant initiative to create an e-portfolio that draws from multiple measures and sources to assess student academic achievement, focusing specifically on science instruction.
Dr. Trip Stallings Executive Director, NC Longitudinal Data System, NC Department of Information Technology
WCNC Charlotte Shamarria Morrison | September 6, 2022: 'We want to double down on that investment' | NC lawmakers looking to direct more funds to school support staff - N.C. Department of Public Instruction gave a report to lawmakers that listed just over 15,000 school employees as instructional support in North Carolina Schools. “Professional level positions that do not necessarily directly Instruct students on the standard course of study, but they provide instead of support to the classroom teachers and or to the students," Alexis Schauss, NC DPI Chief Financial Officer said.
1 nurse to every 890 students (recommended ratio is 1 in each school)
1 social worker to every 1,025 students (recommended ratio is 1 to 250)
1 psychologist for every 1,815 students (recommended ratio is 1 to 500)
“There is an undeniable important connection between the mental and physical health of students and their ability to learn,” the report states.
Schauss, in a presentation last week to the State Board of Education, offered this slide to clarify the roles of four specialized instructional support personnel positions:
LOCATION: Harding University High School Auditorium, 2001 Alleghany Street, Charlotte, NC 28208
PRESIDING: Representative John A. Torbett, Senior Chair
The views of interested parties will be heard concerning: ESTABLISHING A NEW EDUCATION SYSTEM
The first hour of the meeting will be presentations and question and answer. The second hour will be public comment. If you would like to speak, please sign up on the NCGA website portal, Speaker Registration: https://www.ncleg.gov/RequestToSpeak/68. You may also signup to speak the night of the committee, however, those that sign up online will be given priority.
Portal to submit comments online, Public Comments: https://www.ncleg.gov/RequestForComments/39. Written comments will also be accepted. Please mail to Representative John Torbett, 538 Legislative Office Building, 300 N Salisbury Street, Raleigh, NC 27603-5925
We are pleased to notify you that livestreaming of this meeting will be made available by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. To watch the livestream please visit www.facebook.com/cmsboe
The House Select Committee on An Education System for North Carolina's Future met on Monday, August 29th. The meeting was held at the Legislative Office Building in Raleigh. After calling the meeting to order, I gave opening remarks to committee members and attendees. During the meeting, committee members heard presentations from four alternative youth education programs in North Carolina.
Our first presentation was from Colonel (Retired) Edward Timmons, State Director of the Tarheel ChalleNGe Academy (click here to view the slide show). During his presentation, Colonel Timmons shared a video on the academy called "Red, White, and Beautiful" (click here to watch). The next presentation was on Edgecombe County Public Schools' (ECPS) HOPE Alternative Program. This presentation was given by Dr. Valerie Bridges, ECPS Superintendent, and Quarry Williams, Coordinator of the HOPE Alternative Program (click here to view the slide show).
Committee members then heard a presentation on Mooresville Graded School District's (MGSD) MIWAYE Program. Speaking on behalf of the program included MGSD Superintendent Dr. Jason Gardner, MGSD Assistant Superintendent Dr. Michael Royal, MIWAYE Program Principal Melanie Allen, MIWAYE Program teacher Tim Anselmo, and former program student Jakariah Miller (click here to view the slideshow). The last presentation of the afternoon was from Stokes County Schools'(SCS) Meadowbrook Academy. Speakers during this presentation included SCS Superintendent Dr. Brad Rice, SCS Chief Academic Officer Doug Rose, and Meadowbrook Academy Principal Paul Hall (click here to view the slideshow).
I want to thank the presenters who spoke in front of the committee and gave members such great information.
The next meeting of the House Select Committeewill be on Monday, September 12th, at 1:00 PM. The meeting will be held at Harding University High School (2001 Alleghany Street, Charlotte, NC 28208). Please check www.ncleg.govto see the meeting scheduled on the legislative calendar and for more information.
Our Education System: Standards - Part 2
This story is a continuation of the STANDARDS story from my previous newsletter. The State Board of Education (SBE) has categorized the process of revising STANDARDS into three phases: review, revision, and implementation. The process begins with the review phase, which takes approximately 12 months to complete. State law requires SBE to conduct “[a] full review of available and relevant academic content standards that are rigorous, specific, sequenced, clear, focused, and measurable, whenever possible….” An essential part of the review phase is collecting feedback from stakeholders. State law requires SBE “survey a representative sample of parents, teachers, and the public to help determine academic content standard priorities and usefulness of the content standards.”
These surveys are conducted online and made available to the public on the STANDARDS page on NCDPI’s website (www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/classroom-resources/academic-standards). Surveys are also sent to public school units (PSU) for local teams to complete. In addition to surveys, focus groups and interviews are conducted in which participants read the STANDARDS being reviewed. Participants then answer predetermined questions (you can find example questions on page 13 of the procedure manual linked above). Part of the review process includes NCDPI researching legislative requirements and best practices and reviewing national STANDARDS and STANDARDS of at least five comparable states. A Data Review Committee (DRC), comprised of education leaders and community leaders from across the state’s eight educational regions, analyzes all the data points for trends and themes and ultimately decides whether or not to make a recommendation for revision to the State Board of Education.
If the Data Review Committee recommends a STANDARD be revised, SBE will vote whether or not to approve permission to revise. If permission is granted, the revision phase begins, in which a Standards Writing Team is established and convened to review feedback and incorporate changes as necessary. These teams include classroom teachers, district and charter school curriculum supervisors, higher education faculty members, individuals with previous STANDARDS writing experience, and members of content-area professional organizations. Team members are trained and given guidance to adhere to during the writing process. The team writes three drafts: the first draft is sent to PSU teams for surveys, the second draft incorporates data collection analysis from the DRC, and the third draft is presented to the State Board of Education. All drafts are determined and agreed upon by the entire team before final submission.
If there is an area of our Education System you wish me to cover in a future newsletter, please get in touch with me at john.torbett@ncleg.gov.
Representative Torbett's entire newsletter can be read HERE.
The Teacher Assistants to Teachers Tuition Reimbursement Pilot Program (TAs to Teachers) was established in the 2016-17 fiscal year for select local school administrative units to assist teacher assistants who want to pursue a college degree that will result in teacher licensure. Tuition assistance awards under the program may be provided for part-time or full-time coursework. Each local board of education in the pilot program may grant a teacher assistant academic leave to pursue coursework that may only be taken during working hours.
A teacher assistant receiving an award under the program shall fulfill the student teaching requirements of an educator preparation program by working in the teacher assistant' employing local school administrative unit. A teacher assistant may continue to receive salary and benefits while student teaching in the local school administrative unit in accordance G.S. 115C-269.30(c). The local board of education shall set criteria for the application and selection of teacher assistants to receive tuition assistance awards.
The Hechinger ReportJaveria Salman | Can apprenticeships help alleviate teacher shortages?Tennessee embraces a new way of helping aspiring teachers get paid while earning a degree - it was expanding its “grow your own programs” to recruit and train teachers by developing the new apprenticeship model, which connects school districts and educator preparation programs. Tennessee’s department of education launched this program with the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System and Austin-Peay State University, making it the first registered teaching apprenticeship program in the country.
The Public School Forum of North Carolina has released the 2022 North Carolina Education Primer, which serves as a fact-based guide to public education in North Carolina. The Primer provides a comprehensive overview of how education policy is made, along with the current state of public education and the policies guiding it. The Forum produces this guide in order to inform current policymakers, candidates for public office, and voters.
Education policy involves a wide range of interconnected issues such as school finance and facilities, accountability and assessment, technology, teachers and so much more. In order to make well-informed and evidence-based decisions, policymakers and voters face the challenge of understanding complex educational issues.
