Home Base Maintenance Weekend - October 2023

The next Home Base maintenance weekend is set to begin Friday, October 20th at 6 p.m.  The PowerSchool system is the only application that will be taken offline for service.

PowerSchool will be down Friday, October 20th at 6 p.m. with an anticipated return of Monday, October 23rd, no later than 6 a.m. The application will be made accessible to all users once the maintenance is complete.  

Note:  Each year, a list of scheduled maintenance windows is 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.

PowerSchool Upgrade - October Maintenance Weekend

North Carolina SIS will be upgraded to PowerSchool version 23.8 this weekend beginning Friday October 20th at 6 PM with an anticipated return to service no later than Monday October 23rd at 6 AM.

The PowerSchool Release notes for versions 22.12.x - 23.8 are available in your PowerSchool instance under the System Help icon in the upper right corner.

• Click the ? icon in the upper right corner of the page
• Click the version selection menu and select 23.8
• From the left menu, expand the release notes for 22.x and 23.x

Guarding Privacy:  Why PII Should Never Be Shared via Email

Please be cognizant when sending emails and attachments that contain student PII. Attachments and screenshots of student records in emails should have identifiable information blurred out. 

Sharing personally identifiable information (PII) in email poses a significant privacy risk, as emails can be intercepted or hacked, leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data. Moreover, email recipients can inadvertently forward or share these messages, potentially exposing the information to a wider audience. To protect students’ privacy and comply with FERPA requirements, it's crucial to collect, share, and store personal information securely, outside of email communication. For information about how to share PII securely, please see the Best Practices for Handling Personally Identifiable Information document on the NCDPI Research Data Request site.

SparkNC Module Course Coding

Public School Units (PSUs) who are using SparkNC modules are to use the course code for local elective credit (96102X0) and title it locally with High-Tech Learning Accelerator.

• It is up to the PSU to determine how and when to schedule the course. 
• When a student successfully completes enough modules to earn an elective credit, it is to be entered into the SIS as a “Pass” and will not count in a student’s GPA.
• It is up to the PSU to determine when the student has passed enough modules with sufficient rigor, breadth, and depth to earn a course credit.  This may occur across grade-levels.

2024-25 Course Code Request

The window for requesting new 2024-25 Course Codes is open and will remain open until Thursday, October 19, 2023. If you have any specific course code requests for the 2024-25 school year or have general ideas for how we can improve the statewide course code system, please be sure to submit a response by the deadline. If you have any questions or concerns related to the survey, please contact Reenada Perez at reenada.perez@dpi.nc.gov.

Invitation for 2024 - 2025 Course Requests

SY2021-2022 CRDC Partner Support Announcement

Dear Coordinators,

Please inform other staff as appropriate.

Note: PSUs that were not open in the school year 2021-2022 are not required to participate in this collection.

The CRDC Partner Support Center (PSC) has announced the release of SY2021-2022 collection documentation.  Specifically, the LEA and School forms (links contained in this email).  All required  federal documentation is located at the Civil Rights Data Collection Resource Center.  PSC is still making updates to other supporting documents for the collection. The PSC message is attached and will be published on the NCDPI CRDC website.

OCR expects to announce the submission open date in Winter 2023.  NCDPI will notify PSUs with dates when the Federal Submission Tool is open when the information is available.   PSUs are encouraged to become familiar with the federal site prior to the opening of the Federal Submission Tool.

1.      Verify the PSU CRDC contact records in EDDIE by November 1, 2023. 

Staff documented in EDDIE for the CRDC as of November 1, 2023, will receive accounts to the Federal Submission and can provision accounts to others at the local level at the time of the collection.

 2.      Download and begin reviewing the updated required documents for CRDC Coordinators, which include:

·        LEA Form

·        School Form

These forms contain the complete set of survey questions that the LEA must complete for itself and its school(s).  

 3.      Begin gathering data not collected by NCDPI

More detailed information will be provided for data PSUs will be required to ­­collect on their own.

Examples include but are not limited to:

·        STAF-1: Teachers – FTE Count and Certification

·        STAF-6: School Counselors Number FTE

·        STAF-7: Support Services Staff Number FTE

·        SECR-1: Security Staff

·        OFFN-6: Offenses -Allegations Against School Staff (Resignation or Retirement) 

·        OFFN-7: Offenses -Allegations Against School Staff (Determined Responsible) 

·        OFFN-8: Offenses -Allegations Against School Staff (Determined Not Responsible) 

·        OFFN-9: Offenses -Allegations Against School Staff (Determination Pending) 

·        OFFN-10: Offenses -Allegations Against School Staff (Duty Reassignment) 

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. 

Has your PSU Opted into Home Base?

The NC Department of Public Instruction is pleased to announce that the Home Base Opt-in Process is now open.  Finance officers and charter school directors/principals may begin opting into Home Base for their PSU. Click on the following link to see the full announcement and share with the appropriate staff: hb_pricing_memo 2023-24.

Note:  Only finance officers and charter directors/principals should opt-in for their PSU.

This year, PSUs have the option of opting into Navvy, a Pearson computer-adaptive interim assessment add-on for Schoolnet.  Navvy both formatively assesses and tracks standard-by-standard learning to provide immediate, actionable results to correctly inform personalized instruction. Navvy is made available to grades 3 – 8 for Reading and Math at an additional cost of $8 per ADM. If you have any questions about Navvy, please contact Rebecca Stokes.

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

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.

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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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.

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