NC SIS Weekly Email Bulletin

Topics in this issue:

1.     Final Transcript Procedures for High School Principals, PowerSchool Coordinators,

        Data Managers, and School Counselors

2.     Still Time to Register for HBMU and PS Scheduler sessions!*

3.     Spring Legislative Class Size Report*

4.     Scheduling in Powerschool*

5.     Home Base Opt-in Tool Update

6.     2023-24 Home Base Maintenance Periods

7.     EOY Updates

8.     EOY Reminders

9.     Reminder: PowerSchool Years and Terms at the LEA Office

10.   April Maintenance Weekend & CRDC     

11.   NCDPI's Migrant Education Program (MEP) and PowerSchool   

12.   Pre-Registering Students  

13.   Adding Grade Levels in PowerSchool  

14.   Prep for On-Line Assessments 

15.   NC Computer Science Professional Development Trainings are Now Open for Registration   

16.   Canvas SIS Rollover 2023

17.   Webinars, Recordings and Trainings

          New Self-Paced PD Courses for Canvas

          Schoolnet Self-Paced PD Course

          Home Base Admin Course*

18.   Subscribe to Major Events Status Alerts

19.   NCDPI Technology Support Center

20.   Follow Us on Social Media

*indicates new article this week

Final Transcript Procedures for High School Principals, PowerSchool Coordinators, Data Managers, and School Counselors

NCDPI and CFNC Electronic High School Transcript System Protocols and Processing Start Date for EOY 2023

In an effort to allow additional time for schools to store final marks and ensure that “Diploma Issued Date” fields are populated correctly, NCDPI has requested CFNC to begin the electronic high school transcript system on Thursday, June 22, 2023. This will be the start date to release queued final transcripts. These queued requests are automatically created by the CFNC system for seniors who sent a non-final transcript earlier in the year. The CFNC transcript system will remain available for regular functions such as new transcript requests.

This schedule means it is critical that before June 22, 2023, all final marks are stored, and all graduates have their “Diploma Issued Date” field populated on the student academics screen within PowerSchool.

CFNC will automatically release queued final transcripts after June 22 based on the standard system protocol. As a reminder, the standard system protocol is for automatic release of queued final transcripts ten days after your school end date in the PowerSchool calendar when two conditions are met:

1. The PowerSchool “Diploma Issued Date” field is populated (not blank).
2. The PowerSchool “Diploma Issued Date” Is after your school end date in the PowerSchool calendar.

If either of the two above items are not met when the CFNC system attempts to release the final transcript, the e-transcript requests will go into a nine-day processing loop where it will make three additional attempts every three days until the above two items are met. If these two are met by the end of the nine-day processing loop, the final e-transcript will still be processed and released to colleges through CFNC. If these two items are not met by the end of the nine-day processing loop, then the final e-transcript request(s) will fail, and the student will be automatically notified by email.

Incomplete final e-transcripts result when final marks are not stored before the ten days have elapsed AND students have their “Diploma Issued Date” populated within PowerSchool. In order to avoid this, schools must store grades within the ten-day period to allow for proper processing.

Again, e-transcript services will continue as normal through CFNC, but in order to allow schools time to store final marks and ensure that “Diploma Issued Date” fields are populated correctly, the CFNC electronic high school transcript system will wait until Thursday, June 22, 2023, to start releasing queued final transcripts.

Still Time to Register for HBMU and PS Scheduler sessions!

Register soon for Home Base Meet Ups and PowerScheduler Help sessions to be held regionally May 1-4, 2023. 

The Home Base Team will begin the sessions in the western part of the state and travel east throughout the week. Click here for Participant Information location, parking and meeting rooms. Registration will remain open through May 3rd. NOTE: Catered Lunch choice not guaranteed if registering after April 21, 2023.

All New! Need help with 23-24 student schedules? PowerScheduler help sessions will run concurrently with HBMUs. Send your school scheduling staff to get the help they need directly from PowerSchool trainers! Due to room capacity limitation, please limit the number of attendees to no more than 2 staff from each school. Each staff member attending will need to register individually. Trainers will be onsite in each region for two sessions to attend 9am - 12pm and 1pm - 4pm for PSUs to send their schedulers for in person hands on support.

Calendar Meeting dates and locations are listed below:

• May 1 - NW/W - Wilkes County Board of Ed. - 613 Cherry Street, North Wilkesboro, NC 28659
• May 2 - PT/SW - Guilford County Schools - 7911 Summerfield Rd, Summerfield, NC 27358
• May 3 - NC/Sandhills - A.G. Glenn Bldg, Johnston CS - 501 S. 2nd Street, Smithfield, NC 27577
• May 4 - NE/SE - Grover C. Fields Middle School, Craven CS - 2000 Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd, New Bern, NC 28560

PowerScheduler help sessions will run 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. 

Home Base meetings will begin at 10:00 a.m. and end at 3:00 p.m.  You are free to attend any of the meetings according to your availability and proximity.

Spring Legislative Class Size Report

This is a reminder that the Spring Legislative Class Size (LCS) Collection window is now open for all PSUs. Pursuant to §GS115C-301, this data is collected two times a year and captures data from the end of October (Fall) and the end of February (Spring) of each school year.  Each local board of education, through the superintendent, shall file a report based on information provided by the principal for each school within the local school administrative unit with the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The due date for the approval of the Spring LCS Report, affidavit, and waiver submissions, is April 30, 2023. PSUs should begin running and reviewing their reports to allow ample time for cases to be submitted and reviewed if necessary.

Affidavits are to be sent to classsize@dpi.nc.gov. Waiver requests should be submitted to studentaccounting@dpi.nc.gov.

Important:  Before filing a case to PowerSchool support for missing FTE/Funding type, PSUs should verify staff pay and licensing status as of 2/28/2023 with their HR Licensure staff.  Please include this information when submitting a case to Powerschool support.

Please note:  LCS is optional for charter schools.

Scheduling in PowerSchool

It is important to ensure Student and Teacher schedules in PowerSchool are reflective of their real-life schedule as closely as possible. Improper scheduling in PowerSchool can cause errors in reporting numbers on state reports, legislative data, and school report cards (as shown below).

See the example screenshot from last year's data below, teachers should not be scheduled into multiple sections of the same course, same period, and same term. Doing so will skew the class size averages as shown below.

Please Note: This is not pertaining to combo classes.

Home Base Opt-In Tool Update The Home Base Opt-in Tool will be taken offline Friday, April 28th for an upgrade in preparation for the 2023-2024 Home Base Opt-in Process.  The opt-in tool will not be returned to service until the start of the opt-in process, which is currently scheduled for Monday, May 15th.   Please visit the NCDPI Home Base Opt-in Website for detailed information concerning the Home Base Opt-in Process.  Questions may be directed to home_base@dpi.nc.gov or jennifer.causey@dpi.nc.gov.

2023-24 Home Base Maintenance Periods   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 2023-2024 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.

EOY Updates EOY Process Plan The 2022-23 End of Year Processing (EOY) is scheduled to begin Thursday, June 29, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. The PowerSchool SIS maintenance page will go up at that time for all users. PowerSchool will begin the Pre-EOY tasks and backups at that time. EOY Contacts will regain access on the morning of July 1, 2023. The exact time has yet to be determined, but EOY Contacts will be notified once a time has been set. It is our hope that all Home Base applications will be back online no later than Wednesday, July 5, 2023.   Please note: The EOY process will be run by PSUs on Saturday, July 1, 2023.

EOY Reminders EOY Contacts must be up to date no later than June 1 New Schools must be added to EDDIE by July 7 Start Running EPV (EOY Pre Validation) Reports now Students should only be pre-registered if they are NOT active in any other PSU Calendar Setup should already be complete Review the Pre-EOY User Guide Checklist

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.

April Maintenance Weekend & CRDC

April Maintenance Weekend

During the next maintenance weekend, the CRDC Setup Screens, CRDC EDDIE Grade Levels screens and the PowerSchool CRDC Preview report will be hidden from user view.   

NCDPI will communicate a new procedure for reviewing CRDC data prior to upload.

April 1st Deadlines

Section 504 updates for the SY2021-2022 were due April 1st.  PSU that elected not to update student records with Section 504 data prior to April 1, 2023, will be required to submit data on their own after NCDPI completes the state level submission.

EDDIE CRDC Contacts can still be updated in EDDIE.  To-date, 80 PSUs do not have a CRDC Coordinator recorded in EDDIE. 

An updated CRDC Contact file is located on the recently updated NCDPI CRDC webpage under the NCDPI CRDC Files section.  Review the red tab titled ‘Missing Principal Contact’.  ‘Principal Contact and Alternate Contact’ are terms used by the OCR for the CRDC technical contact (CRDC Coordinator).

PSUs with no CRDC Coordinator will

•       not receive timely communications from NCDPI, such as federal opening, the completion of the state level submission on behalf of NC PSUs and the federal close due date.
•       be required contact the federal PSC to receive accounts to complete the collection, after the federal Submission Tool is open.

Federal CRDC Timeline

To date, the Federal government has not published an official start date or requirements for the collection.  The information from the Federal government may be published as late as the summer of 2023.  NCDPI will notify PSUs once an announcement has been made.  

More information will be provided on the collection as it is made available. 

Please email nc.ocr.crdc@dpi.nc.gov with any questions you may have.  

Want information about the CRDC, but are not the CRDC Coordinator contact?  Add your information here:  2122 CRDC – Info Only Contacts List 

NCDPI's Migrant Education Program (MEP) and PowerSchool

Please read the message below from the NCDPI’s Migrant Education Program (MEP) division for clarity on the definition of migrant students and who is responsible for handling their data in PowerSchool.

The Migrant Education Program (MEP) provides educational and supportive services to migrant children between the ages of 3 to 21 years old who are enrolled in your district.

Migratory children move from district to district and state to state with their parents, who typically work in agricultural-related jobs. To keep all their information and data in a centralized location, NC MEP at NCDPI created the Migrant School in PowerSchool (PS). This is not a “physical” school but a place to save all the students’ MEP information.

NC MEP has three regional data specialists responsible for entering all the information into PS. This information is given to them by one of the NC MEP regional recruiters responsible for finding eligible migrant families in your district. These data specialists continually monitor the information in PS, as it relates to migrant children only, for accuracy.

As a courtesy request, the NC MEP at DPI respectfully asks districts not to modify, add, or change anything in the Migrant School. If there are data entries that appear to be in error or are questionable, please get in touch with the NCDPI MEP department. 

This will prevent data specialists from having to correct erroneous data entries that may have been entered by district personnel. If there is a migratory student that needs to be transferred from the migrant school to a school in the PSU, the data manager at the enrolling school will need to request the student record transfer to Dr. Heriberto Corral, NC MEP Program Administrator, or directly to the NC MEP Data Specialist (please see map) who is responsible for the district and cc Dr. Corral. 

EOY - Migrant consultants will handle EOY processing for Migrant students in PowerSchool. Migrant EOY processing typically runs mid May to beginning of June. Migrant students in grade level -6 are not moved to another grade level at EOY. 

If you have any questions about MEP or the Migrant School in PS, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Heriberto Corral at Heriberto.corral@dpi.nc.gov, (984) 236-2798. NC MEP team at NCDPI will happily answer all your questions about MEP and the Migrant School.

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).

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.

Prep for On-Line Assessments Many districts and schools have been using online assessments for years, but students are struggling with how to complete the assessments online. Enter Prep for Online Assessments Unit where students will receive instruction on valuable digital literacy skills that take the “technology” out of the assessment equation.   Key Points: Prep for Online Assessment Unit contains skill lessons focused on the types of skills students need to answer questions on an online assessment including keyboarding. Prep for Online Assessments Skills Practice provides practice on the types of questions students might encounter. Question types include clicking, dragging, selecting, typing, plotting, highlighting, and more.  Adaptive Keyboarding is an ongoing recommendation. To see an increase in accuracy and WPM, we recommend 10 - 15 mins at least 2-3 times per week. And remember, this can be done at school, home or anywhere the student can access the internet. 2 Strategies to Remove Digital Barriers from Online Assessments   Prep for Online Assessment Unit (see Prep for Online Assessments Units attachment for a closer look) Open the Prep for Online Assessment unit and open the grade level needed Assign all or select items from the curriculum listed Students may have completed these items earlier in the year, so they would be a review Have all students complete the Online Assessment Skills Practice  Adaptive Keyboarding for everyone. Assign Adaptive Keyboarding to all students K-8 even if they are not in a technology class OR have them complete it from their TechQuest pathway Encourage students to practice their keyboarding skills at least 3 times per week for 15-20 minutes per session Consider a district wide keyboarding contest. Prep for Online Assessments in the EasyTech Library for Grades K-8   Please contact Tiffany Kinney with any questions.

North Carolina’s Computer Science Professional Development Trainings are Now Open for Registration These FREE trainings are intensive, supportive programs designed to prepare educators who might not have taught or studied CS before.   Learn more: go.ncsu.edu/nccs

Canvas SIS Rollover 2023 This week an email from the CSM Team was sent out regarding rolling over your Canvas instance for this summer. To prevent interruptions to your scheduled SIS sync processes, you will need to fill out your pause and resume dates in Canvas to allow us to pause and update your rosters for the 2023-2024 school year.   If you have questions about the rollover process, please reach out to your CSM or the Priority Services Team.

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.

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

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 **Click on the new SIS Conference icon on the home page to access the SIS Conference 2022 Presentations.

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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.

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

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