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August 17, 2023
Greetings,
Welcome back to the third edition of our parent newsletter! Thank you for your continued interest in public education in North Carolina.
The end of summer and the start of a new school year can be a hectic time for parents. While new classrooms, new teachers and new friends are exciting, I know how much work it takes to ensure our children are prepared for their first day back to school.
I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge you all as parents and caregivers. This summer, you helped create unforgettable experiences for your children, and I know their new teachers and new school friends can’t wait to hear about all of their adventures over the last few months - adventures that have helped them to learn important life lessons outside of the classroom, which I know they will carry back into the school building this year.
In this edition, I wanted to catch up on some big things that have happened since our last newsletter and highlight some of our most recent and significant school safety topics as we head into the new school year because I know that, as parents, our children's safety is always at the forefront of our minds.
As we embark on the 2023-24 school year, my wish is that all of North Carolina's students, parents and educators are met with a year full of learning, good health, fun and excitement!
Sincerely,
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Catherine Truitt Superintendent, NC Department of Public Instruction
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School Safety in North Carolina's Public Schools
Center for Safer Schools Parent Engagement Committee
The Center for Safer Schools' Executive Director Karen Fairley said it best: it is vital for parents to be engaged in matters of school safety, and it is the agency and the Center’s responsibility to keep parents as informed as possible.
Because we believe this wholeheartedly, the Center for Safer Schools (CFSS) is launching a Parent Engagement Committee to elevate parents’ voice in their children’s safety in schools.
The committee will be a 24-member advisory board made up of three parents/guardians, two from school districts and one from charter schools, from the state’s eight educational regions. Members will share their aspirations for and discuss challenges within the K-12 public education system, helping to put together recommendations for elected officials and policymakers in our state, and provide direct input to the CFSS' Executive Director Karen Fairley.
Learn more about the CFSS Parent Engagement Committee here.
House Bill 605
House Bill 605 involves something I have advocated for since beginning my term as State Superintendent in 2021: threat assessment legislation.
HB 605 provides for threat assessment teams at all North Carolina schools beginning in the 2024-25 school year. Those multidisciplinary teams – which include people with expertise in counseling, instruction, administration and law enforcement – conduct threat assessments in a public school unit when threatening behavior has been communicated and when a student is engaged in threatening behavior that warrants further evaluation.
Learn more about HB 605 here.
RISE Back to School Safety Summit
More than 200 school and district safety staff and both community and state partners gathered in Gastonia the first week of August for the 2023 RISE Safety Summit. Sponsored by the Center for Safer Schools, participants spent three days training to support students on issues that impact school climate and school safety.
RISE – the CFSS’ signature event – focuses on the Resiliency, Information, Support and Empowerment needed when supporting children and adolescents in schools and communities. The training offers a range of sessions covering the issues of bullying, suicide, critical incidents and other vital information about trauma and victimization among children and adolescents, and how these various dynamics impact school climate and school safety. Scheduled trainings include child abuse prevention, gang awareness, human trafficking, School Risk Management Plans and suicide prevention.
Read and listen to more about the RISE Conference here. Watch news clips and read more here. Follow along with the Center for Safer Schools and check out some RISE 2023 highlights on the CFSS' Twitter.
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Below I've rounded up the top three events of note since our last newsletter!
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Testifying at United States House Hearing
On July 26, I was invited to testify on North Carolina's approach to COVID-19 pandemic recovery at a hearing convened by the United States House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.
Nationally, North Carolina is a standout in terms of pandemic-related learning loss recovery. In 2021, the agency created the Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration (OLR) to support local school districts and charters in their pathway towards recovery.
In my testimony, I focused on our state's research and data, and provided examples of how our state and districts have addressed lost instructional time, which included several comprehensive reports, produced by our OLR, that detail the impact of learning loss with analysis based on student-level test data.
While our state has more to do, North Carolina was unique and intentional in its approach to recovery and acceleration. We have been transparent, data-driven and research based every step of the way, and remain committed to working alongside our school districts and providing them with access to tools, data and one-on-one sessions that assist them in making informed decisions about how to best serve their students.
Read the full testimony here, and watch the testimony here. Here you can read research reports produced by the OLR in 2022 and 2023.
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Portrait of a Graduate Rubrics and Supporting Classroom Documents Released
Last fall, NCDPI launched the statewide Portrait of a Graduate to ensure that our students are exposed to key skills and mindsets during their K-12 education. These skills and mindsets, referred to as durable skills, were identified by educators, students, families, higher education and business leaders across the state to better equip students for success after high school and to prepare them for the pathway of their choosing after graduation: career, college or military.
The students sitting in classrooms today will be the leaders of tomorrow – whether in the workforce or in their communities. While a strong academic foundation is imperative, the durable skills incorporated into the classroom by way of the Portrait of a Graduate will help to prepare students for any threshold they cross and any path they pursue upon graduation.
This month, the agency released Portrait of a Graduate rubrics, "I Can" statements and suggestions for use to help schools and teachers successfully implement the North Carolina Portrait of a Graduate in classrooms.
These materials, created by over 120 stakeholders, including our educators who provided their invaluable classroom perspectives, are intended to serve as guides for developing, understanding, monitoring and measuring student progress from kindergarten to high school graduation.
Find these classroom-ready supporting Portrait of a Graduate documents here. Learn more about the North Carolina Portrait of a Graduate here.
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Recent Literacy Wins in NC
In my last newsletter I decided to spotlight something I'm intensely passionate about: literacy. Since the last edition of this newsletter in June, our state has made noteworthy strides in reading outcomes.
At the end of June, the agency recognized 29 school districts who were the first cohort to complete a rigorous professional learning program rooted in the science of reading, called LETRS, or Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling.
Cohort one includes nearly 10,000 K-5 educators, 870 Pre-K educators and over 500 administrators. The educators in this cohort worked tirelessly to learn new skills and master old ones so they could sustainably change the trajectory and outcomes for thousands of students across our state.
During the August State Board of Education meeting, I presented assessment results that showed North Carolina's early elementary grade students made strong gains in their literacy skills during the 2022-23 school year. The results of the final assessment of the year showed marked improvements from the start of the year, with the percentage of students who measured “on track” more than doubling in kindergarten, increasing by 22 percentage points in first grade and by 13 points in second grade.
Additionally, North Carolina’s statewide results show that fewer students at the end of the year were well below assessment benchmarks and in need of intensive intervention. Kindergartners, in particular, saw a steep decline in the percentage of students considered at risk of requiring such intervention, falling 38 percentage points, from 53% at the start of the year to 15% by year’s end.
I attribute these literacy achievements to the LETRS program and focus on literacy education based on the science of reading. Improving reading outcomes for students in our state has been a priority since I began my role of State Superintendent in January of 2021, so to say I'm thrilled to see this work beginning to pay off would be an understatement.
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