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May 8, 2024

SIS Weekly Updates

In This Issue:

1.  Data Conversion and Address Validation*
2.  Digital Leaders Exchange Recap
3.  Reminder: Home Base Opt-in Tool is Offline*
4.  Save the Date! - NCBOLD 2024*
5.  EOY Updates
6.  Dual Enrollment Healthful Living and Physical Education Reminder
7.  Discipline Report
8.  PowerSchool State Reporting Updates
9.  Parent Portal FERPA Opt-Out QRD's
10.  Tea w/Tessa Updates
11.  Reading Retained Policy Reminder
12.  Save the Date! - SIS Conference 2024
13.  2023-24 Home Base Maintenance Periods

*indicates new article this week

Data Conversion and Address Validation*

Address verification and validation are critical for the data conversion in Infinite Campus. As PSUs work to clean up addresses, they should collaborate with the transportation department to ensure the address changes won’t disrupt the current bus route information. 

When updated student information is loaded into the school bus routing system, any change in street address will remove a student from their bus route pending reassignment. Please coordinate closely with the transportation department to minimize disruption and use valid County GIS map addresses. Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, and other consumer mapping applications are more likely to provide invalid addresses in most PSUs.

Digital Leaders Exchange Recap The Digital Leaders Exchange Opening slidedeck can be found HERE.  PowerSchool SIS Updates | go.ncdpi.gov/AprilSISDLE Mastering the Finish: End of Year Closeout Best Practices | go.ncdpi.gov/NCSIS-DLE-Apr24 How to Support Teachers & Principals with the NCSIS Transition | go.ncdpi.gov/DLEICSupport Wrap It Up! Optimizing End of Year Processes For School Library Leaders | go.ncdpi.gov/wrapitup Preparing for the Digital Learning & Media Inventory | go.ncdpi.gov/23-24DLMItraining L.com EOY, Summer Learning,  Success Plans for 24-25 | go.ncdpi.gov/April24Lcom E-Rate Program Compliance, CIPA  & Asset Inventory | go.ncdpi.gov/4-24DLE-E-Rate End of Year Schoolnet | go.ncdpi.gov/SchoolnetEOY24 Management and Planning for your KnowBe4 Console | go.ncsu.edu/iu6jza7 Processes and Procedures for Essential Cyber Hygiene | Presentation End of Year Canvas go.ncdpi.gov/CanvasEOY24 End of year NCEES Guidance | go.ncdpi.gov/NCEESEOY2024 Backpack with EBSCO and Beach it up with  Britannica | go.ncdpi.gov/ebscobrit0424 Please bookmark these resources: DTL Hub Digital Leaders Exchange DLT Essentials Calendar Digital Learning Plan

Reminder: Home Base Opt-in Tool is Offline* The Home Base Opt-in Tool has been taken offline for preparation of the 2024-2025 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 May 31, 2024. 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.

Save the Date! - NCBOLD 2024* The Office of Digital Teaching and Learning (DTL) is excited to announce its new iteration of NCBOLD for this summer. At this 2 Day Event learn how to positively impact student learning through implementing the Digital Learning Competencies and Digital Learning Standards for students, learn more about the new SIS, attend Data Manager training, and dive into all of the cloud-based resources NCDPI has to offer. Join one of our locations for fresh ideas to immediately incorporate into your classroom and district practices! Registration opens May 15th! All sessions will be created and delivered by educators from across North Carolina. Concurrent sessions will support classroom teachers, support personnel, and school-level administrators in developing the capacity to improve instruction and provide digital leadership in classrooms and schools. For the most current details, visit the NCBOLD Professional Learning site.

EOY Updates

EOY Process Plan

The 2023-24 End of Year Processing (EOY) is scheduled to begin Friday, June 28, 2024, 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, 2024. The exact time has yet to be determined, but EOY Contacts will be notified once a time has been set. We hope all Home Base applications will return to service no later than Thursday, July 4, 2024.

Please note: The EOY process will be run by all PSUs on Monday, July 1, 2024.

Important EOY Reminders

• EOY Contacts must be up to date no later than June 1
• PS QRD: EOY Contacts Page
• New Schools and grade levels 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 - first and last in session days complete

Review the PS User Guide: End-of-Year Processing - Updated for 23-24!

Dual Enrollment Healthful Living and Physical Education Reminder

• There is no community college course that meets the Healthful Living and Physical Education content standards for the high school graduation requirement
• NCDPI recommends that high schools offering dual enrollment, including Cooperative High Schools (CIHS), and their LEAs work together to offer the applicable high school courses for all students to address the comprehensive Healthful Living and Physical Education standards.  This ensures that the Standard Course of Study is taught in completion.
• The State Board of Education Course for Credit policy (CCRE-001) does allow for local adaptation and flexibility of courses available at the local higher education partner.  CCRE-001 states, “For courses not addressed by NCDPI guidance, a principal may award dual credit for a college course if an evaluation of the course content against NC Standard Course of Study requirements demonstrates that the college course offers substantial coverage of the high school course standards.”  

If you have questions about NCDPI Guidance for Health and Physical Education, please contact Isaac Lake or Sneha Shah-Coltrane.

Discipline Report

Discipline Reports Should Auto-Run Every Saturday Night

A state-reporting fix to autorun Discipline reports in all PSUs was installed during the March Maintenance Window. Many PSUs recently informed NCDPI that the state report has not been automatically running every Saturday night since then. Please check your Discipline reports' status at the beginning of each week and follow the below steps if it is not running automatically on Saturday nights.

1. Take a screenshot of the state reporting dashboard showing the last run date of the report.
2. Submit a Case to PowerSchool support w/the screenshot
3. Once you have submitted the PowerSchool case, please forward the PowerSchool case follow-up email to Amy Powell Moman and Tessa Hine, including the PowerSchool case number. This will ensure that the issue is escalated and addressed promptly. 
4. Run the report manually.

PowerSchool State Reporting Updates

Navigate to Reports > State Reports (run and approve at school level and final approval at PSU level)

• Preliminary GDV Due 6/28/2024
• EPV Report - run it now and continue to run until 6/28/2024
• Discipline Report - should be run weekly Due 6/28/2024

Parent Portal FERPA Opt-Out QRDs

There has been some recent confusion around the parent portal FERPA Opt-Out screen in PowerSchool. This screen was updated last year to lock for parents after submitting answers. This update was due to parents changing answers throughout the year and schools not being notified of these changes. This was previously communicated, but we wanted to share this information again w/the QRDs. Please review the QRDs below to understand better how this screen functions in the admin and parent portals.

This will also be covered in the SIS DLE updates in April.

Parent Portal FERPA Opt-Out Screen QRDs:

• QRD for Parent Portal
• QRD for Admin

Tea w/ Tessa Updates Tea with Tessa is being restructured Meetings will no longer be regional. They will be reformatted to an open forum for all SIS coordinators to ensure everyone gets the same information. They will be twice per month. Typically, the first week and the third week of the month. Each session will have a registration link. This will help ensure communication with any reschedules or cancellations.  Dates and times are posted to the DPI site with registration links. https://www.dpi.nc.gov/educators/home-base/current-professional-learning#Tab-PowerSchool-4891

Reading Retained Policy Reminder

The “Retention - Reading” label should not be used for students at the end of kindergarten, first, or second grade. The “Retained-Reading” label should only be set in PowerSchool in the following circumstances:

1. Third graders who were non-proficient in reading only and retained in a third grade class.
2. Third graders who were non-proficient in reading only, promoted to the 4th grade through the End-of-Year process, and placed in a 3/4 transition class should have their promotion status updated with the “Retention - Reading” label.
3. Third graders who were non-proficient in reading only, promoted to the 4th grade through the End-of-Year process, and placed in a 4th-grade accelerated class should have their promotion status updated with the “Retention - Reading” label.

Students who demonstrate third-grade reading proficiency during summer reading camp should have the “Retention - Reading” label removed at the end of the summer. 

Please see the updated Quick Reference Document for the full guidance.

Save the Date! - SIS Conference 2024

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.

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 follow these steps: Log into my.ncedcloud.org Find the Blue Canvas icon and click to launch it. Agree to the Canvas use policy question and Blue Canvas will open.  If you have any questions, please contact Rebecca Stokes.   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

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)

Submitting a ServiceNow Ticket How to Document

Technical support for SIS needs is handled directly by PowerSchool Support using chat, phone, or by opening a case ticket. 

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