|
OCS hopes you like the new newsletter format. We have added a section to share good news about our schools so please send your stories to Joseph.Letterio@dpi.nc.gov
We will be taking a break from the newsletter next week, resuming Tuesday July 16th. Happy Independence Day, and have an awesome summer!
Some Upcoming Dates of Note:
See below for details
|
|
|
The FBS website continues to be updated with information related to School Business and our ongoing operations. Please check the FBS homepage regularly for updates. Please review the upcoming deadlines for due dates.
Federal Planning Allotments
- The following FY2024-25 (Grant Year 2025) Federal Planning Allotments have been prepared by the Allotment Section and concurred by the program’s administrating office.
- Career and Technical Education (CTE) – PRC 017
- Consolidated Federal Programs - PRCs 047, 050, 051, 103, 104, 107, 108, & 109
- Things to consider regarding Planning Allotments:
- Some of the State Awards are showing a decrease in funding from prior year with Title 1 displaying a decrease of approximately $10M.
- The calculated planning allotments include the effects of the reported decrease in the State’s ADM in conjunction with the Census Data currently available.
- The approved Grant Year 2025 Planning Allotments will be published online, Friday June 27th under the What’s New Section.
- The published Planning PRCs should also be available for view in BAAS by Monday, July 1, 2024.
- IDEA Planning Allotments for Grant Year 2025 are still being reviewed by the EC Office and are scheduled to be published and posted next week.
- The CCIP system is not yet ready to accept those planning figures. We anticipate that system being ready by the middle of July.
- The applications for these Federal grants should be available in the CCIP system and those should be prepared and submitted.
- Remember these are for the GY 2025 funding which is not allocated until after October (Federal fiscal year).
If you have questions on the impacts to your financial software, please contact your vendor. If you have other questions, please contact your federal programs contacts or the Allotment Section at allotments@dpi.nc.gov.
Cash Reminder - All PSUs
Please request any state funds needed for July 3rd by 5:00 pm today, Friday, June 28th.
CLOSE-OUT REMINDERS – All PSUs
To ensure we have successfully received your required UERS Data File Submissions, your designated contact person MUST be available as early as 7AM on Monday, July 1, 2024. They will be released upon confirmation notification that your data has been received and verified. See the following items below to ensure we have current contact information.
Datafile Contact Listing - The latest contact listing for LEAs is located at School District Finance Operations | NC DPI and the latest contact listing for Charter & Lab Schools is located at Independent Public Schools Operations | NC DPI.
Please review and if there are any changes that need to be made, email schoolfinancialreporting@dpi.nc.gov. We need the primary and secondary contact names and numbers, especially if we have June 2024 datafile questions on Monday, July 1, 2024. Datafile contacts must be onsite July 1 and able to run reports as needed.
The correction period for Salary Audit is Monday, 7/1/2024 – Wednesday, 7/3/2024 for June 2024.
- Monday, 7/1/2024, An email blast will be sent to Finance Officers as soon as the correction period opens.
- Wednesday, 7/3/2024, If you discover issues with data and you need to resend your files, you must notify DPI by 7am.
- Friday, 7/5/2024 An updated MFR File must be sent on the morning of July 5th to ensure we have captured any and all corrections.
- Please have someone available on Friday, 7/5/24, to ensure we have received your final MFR files.
SBS Staff will be monitoring emails this weekend please let us know if you run into any problems.
Update: FY 2024-2025 Budget - All PSUs
The House and Senate agreed to authorize the salary increases that were “intended” for the second year of the biennium. This action took place in Senate Bill 332 and is awaiting the Governor's signature before it becomes law. These increases impact all public school employees.
The 2024-25 salary schedules are posted on our What's New page and the noncertified increase is 3%. The benefit rates would be those as presented in the biennium budget for FY 2024-25 [SL2023-134, section 39.26 (c, e)]:
- Retirement Rate: 24.04%
- Hospitalization rate: $8,095
SB332 also has a special provision modification to the PRC 071 supplant language that impacts only 3 LEAs and those LEAs are aware.
No additional budget action is anticipated in the near term and in the event that SB 332 is signed into law, School Business staff will begin our process to execute the State Initial Allotments with the second year items. Information will be sent out next week with the timelines of budget implementation items that impact LEAs, Charter Schools, and Lab schools, including ABC transfers, NCVPS reductions, restart transfers, and IFE conversions.
Federal balances by Grant Year from June 30th will be allocated as soon as we complete the close-out process and complete calculations. Our target date is no later than July 11th. Reminder: the balances through May expenditure data are posted on our What's New page.
Invalid Account Codes (Monitoring Reports) - All PSUs
There are still many Public School Units (PSUs) who are reporting invalid account codes in their monthly financial data. Review your latest May 2024 Monitoring Reports that list your invalid account codes.
All expenditures must be coded to valid account codes. The PSU must reclassify any invalid account codes prior to the fiscal year end close out. Failure to correct invalid account code postings may result in incorrect data file postings and the pulling back of state and federal funds during the year end zero out process. The results will be that your PSU will lose their ability to receive the cash for the expenditures coded to invalid account codes.
If you have any questions about the invalid code information on the Monitoring Reports, please contact Roxane Bernard at roxane.bernard@dpi.nc.gov or Tina Moore at tina.boyce@dpi.nc.gov.
School Business Services Summer Conference - All PSUs
Reminder to register for our Summer Conference. We have the draft session topics as well as the registration and payment links under our What's New section. We look forward to seeing everyone there.
All registered participants will receive an email with an opportunity to see all sessions in the conference app, sign in to receive SBE finance officer CPE credit and provide feedback on the conference. No paper packets will be provided at the conference, and you will only pick up a name tag on the day of the
conference.
|
|
2024 School-Based Mental Health Policy Report
Dear Charter School Contact,
In accordance with North Carolina SL 2019-245 and SL 2020-7 and with State Board of Education Policy SHLT-003, each K-12 school unit is required to upload a copy of their School Mental Health Improvement Plan and answer questions in the School Mental Health Policy Report.
In the online reporting portal, you will indicate that you are a charter school, and you will be directed to the SMH policy questions. To make it easier for you to assemble your report information prior to going online, a Word version and PDF of the online survey is attached to this email. Please complete the online survey to submit your report.
The survey platform is setup to allow respondents to leave the survey and resume their progress later, so long as they return on the same browser where they started the survey and do not wait longer than a month to return to the survey. This feature works by placing a cookie on the respondent’s browser that keeps track of the survey progress.
The information needed to complete the SMH progress report will come from your School Mental Health Improvement Plan, which is required to upload and must include the mental health training program and suicide risk referral protocol.
Please note the deadline to complete the HAC Progress Report / School Mental Health Policy Report is September 15, 2024.
You can access the reporting portal through the link below.
2024 Healthy Active Children Policy Progress Report / School-Based Mental Health Policy Report
If you have questions or challenges in completing this online survey, please contact Les Spell at Les.Spell@dpi.nc.gov.
We appreciate the time and energy spent in completing this report and look forward to reading each submission.
RISE 2024 Registration
Registration is open for the 2024 RISE Back to School Safety Summit. The Center for Safer Schools’ signature event will be held from Monday, July 29 to Friday, Aug. 2 at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington.
RISE training focuses on the Resiliency, Information, Support and Empowerment needed when supporting children and adolescents in schools and communities. This training offers a variety of information sessions to participants covering the areas of bullying, suicide, opioid and substance use, 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.
New for RISE 2024 is a parent/student component, which will be held (by invitation only) during the last two days of the summit. Training sessions will not be recorded and are closed to the media. However, media representatives are invited to attend on the opening day.
Follow the CFSS on social media for more details as they become available.
|
Charter School Virtual Math Standards Focus Group
The Home Base Opt-in Process is Open
The NC Department of Public Instruction is pleased to announce that the Home Base Opt-in Process is now open. Click on the following link to see the full announcement and share with the appropriate staff: hb_pricing_memo 2024-25.
Note: Only finance officers and charter directors/principals should opt-in for their PSU.
Please visit the NCDPI Home Base Opt-in Website for detailed information concerning the Home Base Opt-in Process. Questions may be directed to jennifer.causey@dpi.nc.gov or home_base@dpi.nc.gov.
Human Capital Monthly Webinars held by the Office of Licensure and Educator Preparation
Hosted by Dr. Tom Tomberlin, Senior Director, Educator Preparation, Licensure, and Performance, NCDPI
Dates:
July 16 (Tuesday)
August 5 (Monday)
September 6
October 4
November 8
December 6
Time: 10:30-11:30am
Virtual Link:
Kim Evans' Personal Room
Important MEMOs:
|
|
OCS & Charter School News
Several articles about of a different nature would fall here. We need to determine the number of sections they will need in the template. Writers cannot add sections, only text blocks into the sections. Only template creating administrators (Comms) can add sections.
6.10.2024; 29 students graduate from Pinnacle Classical Academy with over $3.1M in scholarship awards
Twenty-nine seniors graduated from Pinnacle Classical Academy on June 1, with over 65% concurrently earning an associate degree from Cleveland Community College, and 86% bound for college in the fall.
The seniors were offered a combined $3,109,430 in four-year academic merit and athletic scholarships.
Dr. Christine Boor, endowed Chair of Classical Education and director of the Master of Arts in Classical and Liberal Education at Belmont Abbey College, was the graduation speaker.
"I am here to tell you that I envy you -- what you have received here at so young an age," she said. "What has been entrusted to you here at Pinnacle Classical Academy is an inheritance and a treasure beyond what most young people alive today know even how to dream of."
"You are capable of being the person you wish to become," class valedictorian Daissy Soto told her classmates. "As a favorite quote of mine goes, 'Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.' I can’t wait to see the great things that you will accomplish and the incredible people that you will become."
"We have experienced the happiest times and, especially toward the end, the ones that brought the most tears," added salutatorian Lillie Bright. "As we reflect on these days, I know that my classmates and I will always be grateful for the place that has not only helped us grow intellectually but allowed us to flourish and become the people we are today."
The seniors selected Tatjana Ledbetter, a high school science teacher, to be their senior speaker at the senior sunset dinner prior to graduation.
"We are so proud of our graduating seniors, who persevered through COVID-related lockdowns as well as the normal challenges of school life and growing up," said Dr. Shelly Shope, the school's headmaster. "These seniors truly embody our school motto: dare to soar."
Founded in 2013, Pinnacle Classical Academy is a tuition-free public charter school that attracts 1,165 students from five counties. It is recognized as one of the best elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.
3 Pinnacle Classical Academy teachers honored at board meeting
Three Pinnacle Classical Academy teachers were honored at the school's June board meeting for being chosen as Senior Speakers by recent graduating classes.
Each year, the members of the senior class choose a current faculty or staff member to be their Senior Speaker. The Senior Speaker delivers a talk to the seniors at a semiformal sunset dinner during the last week of school.
In 2021 and 2022, the Senior Speaker was Cindi Welch, a math teacher; in 2023, James "Chip" Beam, an English teacher; and in 2024, Tatjana Ledbetter, a science teacher.
"We are so grateful to these teachers for the influence for the good they have had upon our students," said Dr. Shelly Shope, the school's headmaster. "The influence of knowledgeable teachers who are also examples of moral character can last a lifetime."
Founded in 2013, Pinnacle Classical Academy is a tuition-free public charter school in Shelby that attracts 1,165 students from five counties. It is recognized as one of the best elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.
[photograph attached, left to right: Angela Brooks (Dean of Secondary Education), Tatjana Ledbetter, Cindi Welch, James "Chip" Beam, and Jeff Ziegler (Dean of Academics)
|
|
 |
Charter School Job Postings
If you have current teaching/leadership positions open and wish to share them in this newsletter, reach out to Joseph.Letterio@dpi.nc.gov and provide a link to the posting/s.
Other Resources from DPI and beyond
|
|
|
|
|
