NC SIS Weekly Email Bulletin
Topics in this issue:
1. Digital Device Survey is NOW LIVE!
2. Adding Grade Levels in PowerSchool
3. Course and Section Attribute QRD
4. CAST Lunch & Learn Promo
5. NCEES System Enhancements Survey 2023
6. SIS Upgrade Updates
7. PowerSchool Scheduler Needs
8. Preschool PowerSchool Technical Assistance Webinar FAQ
9. Home Base Meet Up Resources
10. Pre-Registering Students
11 Student Accounting and School Business
12. Portrait of a Graduate
13. OCR/CRDC SY2021-2022 - Letter to Superintendents and Next Steps Due April 01, 2023
14. Adaptive Keyboarding Contest
15. Early Grads Processing
16. Webinars, Recordings and Trainings
New Self-Paced PD Courses for Canvas
Schoolnet Self-Paced PD Course
Home Base Admin Course
17. Subscribe to Major Events Status Alerts
18. NCDPI Technology Support Center
19. Follow Us on Social Media
Digital Device Survey is NOW LIVE!
The Digital Device Survey was put into production this past weekend. The survey has been enabled by default for all. PSUs can disable the survey under Miscellaneous on the admin side:
Start Page > PSU Setup > Miscellaneous > Hide Digital Survey
If “Hide Digital Survey” is selected, it disables the survey, both in the Parent Portal and on the Admin/Student screen, for all schools in the PSU.
The QRD for the survey in the parent portal can be found below under Resources. If you choose another method to collect this data, and for those parents/guardians who may not have an internet connection, a copy of the questions in pdf format can also be found below under Resources.
Reminders:
The Digital Device Survey is optional in PowerSchool as there is no requirement to use it if you are gathering the data through an alternate method. The purpose of this survey is to fulfill session law "§ 115C-102.9 calling for the collection and reporting of data regarding all students access to digital devices and internet access at home.
If you use this survey, the data will be imported automatically into your PSU DLMI.
For those parents/guardians who do not have an internet connection and answer the survey on paper, the PSU can answer the questions for the student under the NC Information, Digital Device Survey.
Start Page > Student Selection > Digital Device Survey
Resources:
QRD for Parents
Copy of Questions
Adding Grade Levels in PowerSchool
Reminder: PSUs Can Now Add New Grades in PowerSchool SIS
The EDDIE process has been modified to allow PSUs to begin adding new grade levels without the EDDIE feed being disabled. This process temporarily pauses the feed to only the grade level fields located on the Schools/School setup page.
PSUs who need to add new grade levels for the 2023-24 school year may now do so in PowerSchool. Prior to adding these grade levels to PowerSchool, your EDDIE administrator must first ensure that the EDDIE “Approved” grade levels include the grades being added to the SIS. It is important that you remember to add these new grade levels to EDDIE “Current” grade levels after EOY. EDDIE “Current” grade level changes should not take place until then.
For assistance, please visit the PowerSchool SIS Administrator - School Information.
Course and Section Attribute QRD
The Course and Section QRD has been updated to reflect the recently implemented updates to the Course Attributes and the Section Attributes, as well as the updated required fields. The document link has been updated on the NCDPI site under SIS Resources > Scheduling
https://www.dpi.nc.gov/educators/home-base/powerschool-sis/nc-sis-resources#Scheduling-1845
The direct link to the document can be found here: PS QRD: Course and Section Attributes
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CAST Lunch & Learn Promo
The Counselor Advising and Scheduling Tips (CAST) for Arts Education Lunch & Learn is designed to guide school counselors and other course advisors in understanding North Carolina Arts Education programs, course codes, options, best practices, resources, etc., so that these educators can be best equipped to advise students on what courses to take to align with their future aspirations. We will specifically address the unique nature of these mastery-based standards, whether students can repeat the same course code (they can) and how to navigate the inherently honors structure with students of varying levels all in the same ensemble. Although this content is most relevant for high school counselors, any other school personnel are welcome to participate.
Wednesday, Mar 15 2023 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM
Register HERE
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NCEES System Enhancements Survey 2023
NORTH CAROLINA EDUCATOR EFFECTIVENESS SYSTEM (NCEES) SYSTEM ENHANCEMENT SURVEY 2023
This survey is for PSU (Public School Unit) District Administrators and Site Administrators of the NCEES system. District and Site Administrators are welcome to share this survey with other NCEES Admins in your district with a similar or higher role. This survey will be open from Mar. 1 - Mar. 17, 2023.
The goals of this survey are to:
1) identify areas of enhancement in the online tool
2) inform the NCEES product Road Map on future enhancement's priority with the vendor, PowerSchool
3) improve the system user experience when using the online tool
Please review this Wakelet list of 10 enhancements that NCDPI has submitted to the PowerSchool Ideas Portal.
NCDPI is requesting survey respondents to rank the enhancements through this survey in order of importance 1-10.
Please complete this NCEES Enhancement Survey by close of business, 5PM EST, on Friday, Mar. 17, 2023.
Please send any questions to Home_Base@dpi.nc.gov.
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SIS Upgrade Updates
Reminder: Please review the following resources regarding updates to the SIS.
NCDPI is aware of the following statewide post-upgrade issues:
- The Discipline Reports did not auto run Monday - This should have auto run Tuesday night.
- Emergency/Medical screen is missing fields. The fix for this will be pushed to production tonight.
- Please contact vendors regarding your plugins. We are aware of the following plugins that need to be updated:
- Level Data
- BrightArrow - causing PT issues
- Meals Plus
- SwiftK12
- NCDPI Alert Icons (EC, AIG, 504 and EL) not displaying in PT student info. This should be fixed now.
- Character limitation error for users with 40 characters or more when running sqlReports - this issue is resolved.
- Group Function pop up window is small - Resolved
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PowerSchool Scheduler Needs
We are evaluating PSU needs for PS Scheduler for the Spring. Please complete the following survey by Wednesday, March 8, 2023. We will update you in the near future with support sessions once the survey data is reviewed.
Click HERE to access.
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Preschool PowerSchool Technical Assistance Webinar FAQ
The Office of Early Learning captured questions asked during both webinars and has compiled an FAQ document. Links to a copy of the slide deck and the resources that were shared during the webinar are also included in the FAQ document. If you have any additional questions, you can find the presenters’ contact information on slide 10 in the slide deck.
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Home Base Meet Up Resources
If you were unable to attend February 6-9, 2023 Home Base Meet Ups, check out some of the slides and recordings shared below:
The next set of HBMUs will take place May 1-4 face to face. Please visit our Events Calendar on the NCDPI website for future dates and locations. An HBMU registration invitation will be communicated closer to the event date.
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Pre-Registering Students
Reminder: Students should only be pre-registered if they are not currently active in any other NC PSU. Typically, only a subset of Kindergarten students will meet this definition — many Kindergarteners already have active NC PSU records due to public preschool services. Pre-registering students for the next school year who are active NC students during the current school year has negative impacts on the NCEdCloud IAM service, accountability, and ECATS.
Pre-registered students must have the scheduling setup page appropriately populated with the student’s next year grade and next school indicator. For pre-registered students, the next year grade must be the grade level that the student will be enrolled for the upcoming school year. For example, if a Kindergarten student is pre-registered for the next school year before running the End of Year process for the current school year, the next year grade for the student on the Scheduling Setup page should be 0 (Kindergarten).
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Student Accounting and School Business
Reminder: For questions related to the SASA Manual and student accounting, please contact the Student Accounting team in the School Business division at the following email. StudentAccounting@dpi.nc.gov
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OCR/CRDC SY2021-2022: Letter to Superintendents and Next Steps Due April 01, 2023
Dear Coordinators,
Please share with other staff as appropriate. Read this message carefully.
On February 28, 2023, the Office of Civil Rights messaged the public-school Superintendents and Charter School Directors across the nation regarding the SY 2021-2022 CRDC collection. For your convenience, the message is attached to this email. If you are unable to receive attachments, visit the recently updated Civil Rights Data Collection page on the NCDPI website.
The letter states that while there is no due date set at this time and no requirements published, we are encouraged to prepare for the upcoming collection. Also within the letter are instructions to contact CRDC Partner Support with updated CRDC Coordinator contact information.
There is no need to contact CRDC Partner Support. NCDPI will prepare the CRDC Coordinator Contact file and the CRDC Universe files for the collection.
Please ensure the following two tasks are complete by April 1, 2023:
- Verifying or updating the CRDC Coordinator contacts are recorded in EDDIE
- As a reminder, all PSUs must have at least one CRDC Coordinator contact in EDDIE.
- Ensuring Section 504 data for SY 2021-2022 been recorded in the Special Programs section of PowerSchool.
- Use the Enrolling Students in a Special Program guide to add student records.
- PSUs using third party applications for Section 504 will be required submit Section 504 data to the CRDC on their own if a record is not added to PowerSchool.
- Section 504 Designation guidance is provided at the local level. Please contact the PSU 504 Coordinator with any questions.
There is no need to run the PowerSchool CRDC Preview Report for this collection.
There is no need to complete the CRDC setup screens in Power School for this collection.
More information will be provided on the collection as it is made available.
Want information about the CRDC, but are not the CRDC Coordinator contact? Add your information here: 2122 CRDC – Info Only Contacts List
Please email nc.ocr.crdc@dpi.nc.gov with any questions you may have.
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Adaptive Keyboarding Contest
Do you want to help your students win special recognition for practicing essential keyboarding skills while having fun? Would you like to run your own competition? Learning.com can show you how!
In every educator's account, the Online Training Center is available. We have added new content in the form of Implementation Kits. One available kit is the Adaptive Keyboarding Contest. Run your own district competition utilizing all of the data and lessons provided from Learning.com.
If you would rather just be part of our statewide competition, please share the attached flier with your teachers who use Learning.com or want to introduce Learning.com’s keyboarding exercises into their curriculum. Keyboarding skills are essential in all learning environments and important for investing in future careers. This contest is a fun way to promote ongoing keyboarding practice with your students to develop fluency and accuracy.
This contest is open to students in grades 3-8 and starts on February 1, 2023. Winners will be announced mid-April. More details are in the attached flyer.
Tips for the contest:
- Encourage students to practice their keyboarding skills at least 3 times per week for 15-20 minutes per session
- Recommended practice:
- Bell ringer activity, early-completer activity, independent practice, during center time, at home
- Remind teachers and students that it’s flexible! Learning.com lessons can be accessed anywhere and at any time!
Check out this short video for more on Adaptive Keyboarding and Online Test Prep- https://vimeo.com/790894649
Lastly, please share your district’s participation by promoting on Twitter and mention @learningdotcom!
Type On!
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Early Grads Processing
The Home Base team has updated the Early Graduate Process QRD due to recent system changes with the transfer out process. Please be sure to review the updated QRD when processing your early graduates. PS QRD: Early Grauate Process
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New Self-Paced PD Courses for Canvas
Digital Teaching and Learning is excited to share two new self-paced professional development courses on the LMS, Canvas.
- Growing with Canvas - The Growing with Canvas course is a “Level 1” introduction to all things Canvas.
- Diving Deeper with Canvas - Educators more familiar with the LMS can utilize the Diving Deeper with Canvas course for specific training on personalized learning, feedback, and course design.
If you are interested in these PD opportunities, enrollment information can be found in the NCEES Self-Paced PD Guide.
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Schoolnet Self-Paced PD Course
The Continuing to Keep It Simple in Schoolnet 24 course is a “Level 1” introduction to all things Schoolnet. If you are interested in this PD opportunity, enrollment information can be found in the NCEES Self-Paced PD Guide.
Home Base Admin Course
Feedback from PSUs identified a need for resource hubs for the Home Base products. The product managers have created Admin Resource Courses for each area. These resource courses are located in the NCDPI Canvas instance.
Please visit these courses. Below are the steps to enroll:
How to access these resources:
- Sign in to the Blue Canvas icon within NCEdCloud
- Using the Global Navigation (on the left), click the Home Base Resources button
- On the menu that opens, select the course(s) you would like to enroll into
- After enrolling, the course will appear on your Canvas Dashboard
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Access for PSU PowerSchool SIS Admins
Any PSU PowerSchool SIS admin who does not have access to the NCDPI “Blue” Canvas located in the NCEdCloud portal and would like to have access or grant access to data managers within their PSU, please complete the form below. In this form, you can enter up to 5 accounts manually or upload a CSV/Excel file if you have more than 5 account requests.
If you have any questions, please get in touch with Corey McNeill.
Link to Form
Other Information:
- Feel free to provide feedback on these courses. They all contain a feedback button on their homepage.
- We will continue to update these courses as more product information becomes available
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Subscribe to Major Events Status Alerts
Click the following link to subscribe to the Major Events Status Alerts and receive notifications of outages, wide-spread performance issues, downtime for maintenance, and high impact application issues that affect all instances.
Note: Notifications will be received for all PSUs in the state and cannot be limited to a single PSU.
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NCDPI Technology Support Center
NCDPI's Technology Support Center continues to meet your support needs for:
- Schoolnet
- NCEES/Unified Talent
- 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.
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
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Remember to visit the NC SIS website for additional information including webinars and training documentation. Follow us on twitter @NCHomeBase.
NC SIS
NC Department of Public Instruction
Education Building, 7th Floor North
301 North Wilmington Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Email: home_base@dpi.nc.gov
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