NC Department of Public Instruction
Office of Civil Rights Data Collection – Status Update
October 21, 2014
F:
Female Speaker
F:
This is a status update on the project. We are mid-level in the project, and as you
know or may not know, this is something that’s new for DPI. So a little bit of
high-level info: OCR stands for Office of Civil Rights. Some of us are not
familiar with our acronyms, and every once in a while, I have a conversation
that’s nothing but, so I want to make sure that we’re really clear about what we’re
talking about today. CRDC is the collection by the Office of Civil Rights, so you
may see OCR or you may see CRDC. In this respect, for this collection they are
synonymous. Now, the Office of Civil Rights requests this data nationally every
two years, so every LEA [ph] in the nation participates in this data collection,
including charters. Like I said, the data is collected every two years, and the data
is collected for the previous year. So this year we are collecting for 13-14, and in
the next submission we’ll be collecting for 15-16.
Now, as some of you may be familiar with and some of you may not, this
is the first time that the state has collected this data for the LEAs. Initially, the
LEAs worked with the Office of Civil Rights to submit this data. There are
multiple states within the nation who have requested a state-level submission—
one of the reasons being is that in the future, the Office of Civil Rights will audit
this data against other nationally requested federal submissions that are always
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 2
done at the state level. So in order to satisfy those members [ph] and to ensure
that we have data integrity across the board, as well as—[AUDIO DROP]
Perfect, all right. I apologize for that.
So in order for us to have accurate enrollment counts across the board, it
behooves us to submit at the state level. Not only that, but my boss, Karl Pond
[ph], heard loud and clear out there that each year this had to be done by a staff
member who had to run around and collect this data from each of the various
departments. In the previous student information system, it was often difficult to
retrieve data from a previous year if you had not saved that data prior to the
process called YET [ph]. So the majority of this data is housed in systems that
the state level can access, and so we will be submitting the data for you.
However, as always, this [ph] is your data, and we would like you to validate.
So, looking at your screen right now, it’s really important that we refer to
the Office of Civil Rights forms when we’re trying to determine what the Office
of Civil Rights is looking at. So this is really the authoritative data; these are their
questionnaires. If you look at the screen, you see that there’s an LEA form—LEA
level form where my mouse is pointing, and then there’s a school-level form.
Below that are segments of—they’re [ph] files, they’re [ph] documents that are
split out based on this school form, that’s [ph] 2013-14. When I started this
project, I initially started reviewing school year 11-12 requirements based on the
Office of Civil Rights, and I can tell you based on the update that they provided I
believe in May for the 13-14 and 15-16 requirements, that their documentation
has dramatically improved. Now, in addition to the resources, they are working
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 3
on improving their submission tool as well. And in light that we have at least six
or seven states that are doing a state-level submission process, they’re in the
process of queuing [ph] their tool at this point, so their submission has been
delayed. Generally, we—they request the data or have a submission window that
opens somewhere around October 15th. Because of the nature of the project and
the fact that they are accommodating multiple states for that state-level
submission, they are a bit delayed; however, they wanted to stress to everyone
who has heard of this collection, whether it be at state level or at [ph] district
level, that they will provide at least the full 75 business days to complete the
submission. Now I have—I am a very optimistic person, and I’m hoping that we
as North Carolina will be done much sooner than that. So I wanted to talk to you
about where we were in the process and in the project.
Another piece of this that I would like to make sure that you understand is
that I have a side [ph] system that I house a primary and a secondary contact for
OCR. Now this is an Access database that I maintain in order to contact those
who have been designated—and you don’t see my air quotes—the [ph] OCR
coordinator. Now, not always is that complete, because we do have movement
within the districts, movement within the state, but the first submission of a
communication—that’s a really bad word to use during this webinar—but first
and foremost, the communication goes to those contacts. Now, I start initiating
contact somewhere in March. If you have a primary or a secondary that is not
listed, or you have made a change, then please do feel free to let me know, and I
will do my best to make sure that my database is updated. This database—and I
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 4
know I’m spending a long time talking about it—will be phased out once this year
is complete, and the reason is, if most of you have reviewed your CRDC screens,
which we’ll talk about in a minute, you will see that there are multiple contacts
within the state level CRDC screen. So I will be pulling those to communicate in
the future.
Right after I send out any kind of communication to OCR contacts, I ask
that the NC district [ph]—distribution lists have that message sent out as well. I
didn’t put it here, but I also ask that the Office of Charter Schools send out the
information also, so hopefully the appropriate audience is being notified. So
please do make every effort to send these notifications to the staff that it would be
relevant to. If you have any questions about that, you are welcome to ask me or
contact me. There is no updated published contact list—that was one of the
questions that came out of Thursday—and so I will make every effort to do that.
However, what I do want to let you know is that if you were to look at the LEA
level CRDC screen—and again, we’ll go to that in a bit, Elise [ph] just wants to
show you something relevant to this project—you will see your OCR coordinator,
your OCR contact. So it may not be necessary to publish a list from that database.
At any point, though, you are welcome to contact me and ask me questions.
I see that we don’t have any questions right at this point, so I’m going to
keep going. We’re going to talk about the project tasks [ph] kind of as I see them.
There’s actually quite a bit of detail to this, and it’s been really interesting—and I
know I’m weird, but it’s been fun. One of the first things that we had to do was
we had to ensure that we were within the 13-14 requirements for the Office of
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 5
Civil Rights collection. So that was one thing that had to happen. Now in tandem
we found that ancillary questions from the Office of Civil Rights were not listed
within PowerSchool. So we requested that Pearson, our vendor, build CRDC
screens specific for those OCR questions that are not asked anywhere else.
Another thing that we have to do is load the data that is missing from
PowerSchool. So about 90% of this collection is a student information collection.
It deals with courses, it deals with attendance, it deals with disciplinary action.
The Office of Civil Rights is looking to our LEAs to ensure that there is equity
within our schools. Some of that data, as I am doing this research, does not exist
globally for the LEAs, and we’ll talk about that a little bit more. So that has to
happen in order for us to be successful with this project. We also have to develop
the CRDC report logic within PowerSchool so you can view and validate your
school’s and your LEA’s data—at least on that student side, and within
PowerSchool prior to us creating a state-level submission that would be sent to
the feds.
Speaking of the feds, we’re part of their state-level submission pilot, and
that should be kicking off this week. So once we go through that pilot, we submit
all of the LEAs’ and charters’ data to the Office of Civil Rights, we will then ask
that the LEA review the data through the tool, we’ll need to make any corrections
of erroneous data, and basically it’s a wash, rinse, and repeat—no, lather, rinse,
and repeat—so we’ll need to make some corrections if the data is in error and
then approve once our data is finalized at the LEA level from the federal tool—
and there will be more discussion on this in the coming weeks.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 6
Now, I don’t see that there are any questions. Please feel free to type them
in at any time. It would benefit us if you were to process the question with the
subject at hand, just to make sure that I understand what you’re asking if you do
in fact have any questions.
Let’s kind of go into a little bit more detail about where we are with all of
these tasks. So one and two were to evaluate the 13-14 requirements and to build
this CRDC-specific screens. These two tasks are complete. We have engaged
with OCR, the Office of Civil Rights staff, with our vendor for PowerSchool,
Pearson, as well as with staff to develop that state-level submission file. So we’ve
got the staff on hand who are developing and assisting with this effort. Also, in
light of the CRDC screens, those are now complete. We submitted our first—or
published our first pages somewhere around July, and they were in the 13-14—or,
I’m sorry, the 11-12 requirements, so they were a little bit different. Now, all
LEAs and charters should have completed their CRDC LEA-level and CRDCspecific—school-level screens.
Now, I just want to pause for one second, and I’d like to ask you if you see
a slide—by a show of hands—if your slide in front of you from MyWebinar [ph]
says “task one and two complete.” Okay, I just want to make sure. Okay. Great,
so I’m going to keep moving, and I’m also going to put your hands down.
All right, so all of you out there should have completed those screens; that
was the first task that we needed done at the LEA level. It’s really, really
important that you go back and ensure that all of those have been filled out
completely. And what I was saying was, we implemented our first screens in the
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 7
11-12 requirements, and then 13-14 had some really specific detail that was
needed, so we updated those screens. Now, communication was sent out to all of
our OCR coordinators asking that they re-verify that those screens were complete.
If you have not gone back—and I’m going to move forward to the next slide—if
you have not gone back and reviewed those screens and updated based on what
exists in 13-14, if you have a leading question—which I guarantee was added in
that last round—and it is “null” or “no,” it will report as “no.” So what I’m
looking to you to verify is to ensure that that field, that leading question like we
see on this screen, is not “null,” because any subsequent data after that that’s tied
to that question will report as “null,” and I don’t think that’s what you’re looking
for.
So I see that I have a question—excuse the wiggly mouse—and the
question is a fantastic question. It says, “I’ve added some information to my
screen since the deadline. Have you pulled the info since then?” We have not, all
right? And I’m going to get to that. You guys are welcome to make updates over
and over and over, but a key thing about that is if you wanted to review those
updates, then you would need to make sure—I will check here, excuse me for just
a second—you would need to make sure that you re-ran the LEA-level report to
include the changes that you’ve made to the data. So we have not pulled anything
yet, and I’m going to get to that.
Are there any additional questions? And I don’t see any at this point, so
I’m going to keep going. Now, I just want to let you know that we took about an
hour and a half with the last session. I feel like I’m talking very quickly, so if you
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 8
do have questions, please let me know, and I am happy to answer them. The
CRDC report—I will get to that, I see a question regarding the CRDC report, and
I’m going to answer that in just a minute for you.
So in regards to those CRDC screens, one of the things that we added that
was not OCR-specific but needed for our project was a question at the school
level, the CRDC screen, at the very top of the screen that said, “Exclude from
CRDC report.” So why did we do that? We did that because North Carolina
allows users—or allows LEAs to create schools under 300. Okay, so when I say
that, that includes your quote-unquote “program” schools, like your CECAS [ph]
school, your migrant school, your homeless school. You also as an LEA have the
ability to create schools that are below those 290s [ph] for any purpose that you
want. Now, the question that—as far as excluding the report that has come—or
excluding the schools from the CRDC report is whether or not the school should
be excluded and what are the parameters around that. I can give you some
guidelines, but I cannot tell you whether or not you should exclude the school as a
hard and fast rule. So you would include one of those under-300 schools if it
were a location or a center, like a pre-K, and that’s where your student’s record is
living. Another example might be a private student—private school student
who’s receiving services. That’s considered a location. Students who are
receiving services but not attending a public school, those would be our babies
like maybe in CECAS [ph] who are evaluated, they have an IEP, they don’t attend
the public school, but they do receive services from the LEA. Those are the
enrollment records that we’re looking to include in the CRDC report.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 9
How people are using those under-300 schools has been wide and varied,
so you would exclude if you were using that school for grouping, whatever
grouping purposes you have, and the student’s ADM [ph] is actually associated to
another public school within your system. If you’re using that school for
assignment or evaluation—one example I can provide from a district that I spoke
to last week is that they are using their CECAS program schools as an evaluation
bucket. So that student is not quite yet receiving services and is not attending a
public school. That is not something that we would want to be counted within the
OCR report. Your SBE [ph] school that was created by DPI to allow you to
update records for students who are coming into your LEA, that would be
excluded. And any unused program schools—so if you have zero enrollment in
homeless, in migrant, in CECAS, in More at Four—and I’d like to say that you
should most likely have zero enrollment in More at Four. That was a program
that was discontinued in the 09-10 school year—or, I’m sorry, 10-11 school year.
Then any unused program schools would be excluded. So what we’re looking
for—and it might seem kind of strange, because it will be a larger enrollment
count than I think you will have ever experienced at the LEA level—are students
who are attending a public school in your LEA for 50% of the day of the more
and then students who are receiving services but not sitting in a public school.
So a couple more things about those under-300 schools: so I’ve reiterated
this, but each school is using these program schools very different, and everyone
has an opportunity to create schools from 290 and below for their own-level use.
We just want to stress that we do at this point want those students who are
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 10
receiving services but not sitting in a public school included in the count. Now, it
used to be that this data was reported from the 000 school before, and it may be
data that you’re housing in your 000 school at this point. Again, those rules are
very fluid and very flexible. So, once we get those enrollment counts, once you
are satisfied that you have included the appropriate schools under-300 if you do in
fact use them, then we will work here at DPI with the Office of Civil Rights in
regards to how we report them and where we report them. There are a couple
schools of thought with that, is that maybe that would receive the NCES [ph]
number, which is the federal number that’s applied to our districts and to our
schools, and then there’s another camp that says we’ll report them in another way.
That’s kind of a pending item at this point, but we do want them included in the
count.
So this is not necessarily 100% applicable to the OCR process, but it’s
another thing that I need—that I feel the need to say, and that is if you choose to
use those schools that are under 300, they’re not connected to EDDIE [ph]. And
I’m hoping that everyone who is on the call understands that EDDIE is our
authoritative source for public schools, it’s our directory information. It’s where
our NCES number is housed for when the feds provide it to us for our LEA and
for our school. But these under-300s, they don’t have that NCES number, they’re
not considered public schools. So they’re not connected to EDDIE; you’re not
going to get a data feed into the school information screen from EDDIE, because
they will not be input into that particular system, into that authoritative source. So
it’s really important that LEAs fill out to the best and fullest of their ability that
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 11
school information screen in PowerSchool for any of these schools that are under
300. The reason is, if anybody is familiar with our CEDARS project, which is our
longitudinal data store, that system is dependent on that information to house the
content of the data for that school. And so because there are really tight
validations around CEDARS, our longitudinal data center where we house all of
that data that we’re referring to the feds, if those fields are not filled out to the
fullest extent, then they will be rejected. So it’s just another plug for making sure
that our school information is as tight as possible.
Okay, so I don’t see any questions yet. I am aware of the question about
the CRDC report, and I will answer that in just a minute, I promise. I also see—
we’re doing really good—excuse me for the wiggly mouse, I apologize for that.
So if there aren’t any questions about tasks 1 and 2, I want to flash [ph] up a poll
real quick, okay? So I want to ask, have you completed your CRDC screens? So
I’m going to launch this and I’m going to give you about 30 seconds, so, I mean,
you know, we shouldn’t—I’m hoping that most of you say yes, but if you don’t,
you know, I’m not going to hold it against you, nor am I going to call you out—I
promise. Now, while you guys are doing that, I’m just going to take a look at the
questions.
Ah, okay. So this question is very specific, and it’s in regards to the
program schools. Who enters neglected and delinquent, and who enters migrant
data? So my understanding is migrant data is done at the Department of Public
Instruction, and I don’t believe that anybody is using the NND [ph] program any
more. I understand where this question is coming from, but I thought that that
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 12
was disconnected for that LEA. Okay, so I’m going to talk offline about that, and
I’ll go ahead and contact you, but I don’t know whose responsibility it is to work
with the neglected and delinquent program school records. But thank you so
much.
Okay. So, I’ve put that poll out there for you. It keeps bouncing around,
and I’m going to kill it now and we’re just going to take a look at the poll. So I’m
going to close it and I’m going to share. And excuse me for just a second. Oh,
okay, you know what? My apologies. So, I think the question that was asked
before about migrant, neglected, and delinquent was, “Who needs to fill those
out?” Actually, you can do it at the LEA, and the reason that I’m saying that is
that for those program schools, those students are receiving services—none of that
really applies to them other than I think the grade levels, but I will still follow up
with the question.
So 82% of you have filled out the OCR screens. 11% of you I’m shameshame-shaming you with a flat no, and then 7% said they don’t know where they
are. Okay, well I’m going to tab over—give me one second here—and I’m going
to log into a development database. Now I’m not going to show you any studentspecific data, so I’m going to cruise on by that pretty quick, and I’m going to
show you exactly where you’re going to find your CRDC screens. Now if some
of you are coordinators and you have administrative duties and don’t necessarily
work with PowerSchool, your PowerSchool staff should be able to help you
navigate to these specific screens. So give me just one second to log in—
sometimes I have to guess what password I put in—and I will do it one more time
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 13
and slowly—there we go. Okay. So from the LEA office, my mouse is pointing
to that area, you will access the LEA-level CRDC screen. On the left-hand side
of the screen, you’re going to navigate to the link that says “LEA” under “setup”.
Click the “LEA” link and the LEA Setup page opens up. You’re going to scroll
all the way down to the bottom, click on “Office of Civil Rights data,” and these
are the screens—and this is the screen at the LEA level that you’ll need to fill out.
Now, if I click on my school at the top and I choose a high school, I’m going to
follow the same navigation path, and that is “School,” right underneath “Setup,” I
click on that, I scroll all the way to the bottom, and I click on the “Civil Rights
Data Collection—CRDC,” and I fill out these screens.
Okay, so I’m going to back away from PowerSchool. Whoops—excuse
me. And I’m going to answer some questions—oh, I didn’t close my poll. Oh
my goodness, I’m so sorry—we’ll hide that. Okay, so I’ll do that again, my fault,
my apologies. Excuse me for just a second. And we’re going to navigate back to
my development. I’m going to go to LEA Office first, and on the left-hand side
of the screen, I’m going to select the link “LEA” right underneath the heading
“Setup,” and from the LEA setup page, I’m going to scroll to the bottom and
choose “Civil Rights Data Collection—CRDC,” make that selection, and then I
will fill out the data as relevant for my district. Then scrolling back up, I will
select my school and I’ll follow the same navigation path—which is “Schools,”
under “Setup,” and under school setup, I scroll to the bottom of the page and I
click on “Civil Rights Data Collection,” and I fill out these screens as well.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 14
Okay, so I’m going to go back, I’m going to check out—okay, so thank
you all for—I wish I—I almost wish I could hear you. My screen has not
advanced—sorry about that poll deal. Okay. Oh, great question: so someone
asked, “Should we exclude our graduate school or graduated student school?”
And the answer is no, that’s already hard-coded by design, so you don’t have to
exclude that. Thank you for the question.
Okay, so let’s talk about tasks 3, 4, and 5, because they’re kind of
happening in tandem. We are—we have notified our LEAs that use third-party
applications for some of the data where they house it outside of PowerSchool but
we need it—we absolutely need it—within PowerSchool for 13-14 to complete
the collection. So the LEAs have been notified and provided import procedures
as well as due dates, and we are trying to work with them closely on how to
import that data in preparation for our first submission to the feds. Now, there is
data—or there are data elements that are missing globally throughout the state,
one of those being LEP [ph], we’ll start loading that data this week, SAT and
ACT exams, and then AP exam qualifications. Now, just to talk about this a little
bit more, these are not things that you’re going to see on the interface. These are
strictly to satisfy the 13-14 requirements, and you’re going to be able to see these
in November on your reports for CRDC. So LEP will be pulled directly from the
authoritative source for 13-14, and I understand that LEP data is housed in
PowerSchool, but we’re going to take it based on the business owner’s request,
directly from the CFDC [ph] and import into your PowerSchool instance [ph] for
your student. SAT and ACT are coming directly from College Board; ACT is
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 15
also a test that would be or can be provided at the LEA, but we’ll get that
information from the College Board, that’s already been provided. And AP exam
scores have been provided as well, so we’ll start loading that data here in the
coming weeks. It’s not there yet and you won’t be able to review it until the
report is finalized in November.
So there’s also the Section 504. That was something that we asked the
LEAs to please input, and it did spring forth quite a bit of questions and possibly
some confusion, because Accommodations [ph] was implemented at the same
time. Let’s talk about Section 504 and what that means—in PowerSchool
specifically and for the Office of Civil Rights report. So the data was due to be
completed last Friday, and I have talked to quite a few LEAs to help them with
entry dates and exit dates, and I’m happy to take any questions here as well. We
are not reporting accommodations to the CRDC—or for the CRDC. That is
something that is strictly for your LEA in preparation of tests the students need to
take. So there was some confusion about what date accommodations were due,
and you would need to look at your test cycle within your LEA, but
accommodations have nothing to do with what the Office of Civil Rights is
collecting. They want to know about your students who are designated as 504, so
they want to know about the student types, not the tests as applicable to the
student. Section 504 records, they can be added to withdrawn students or students
who—I’m sorry, students who have transferred to another school or who have
withdrawn from your LEA, and you can also updated graduated student records.
There is a quick reference document, it’s in its second version, and it hopefully
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 16
answers all questions—well, I’m sure not all, but it hopefully answers questions
based on the feedback that we got back from the field. So that was really helpful
also. It was a little bit confusing, I’m sure, for the LEAs, but again, if you have
any questions, would be happy to answer them.
Now also, Section 504 designation—so how you apply this to a student—
is a local policy. So the records in PowerSchool, they could reflect that local
policy, and really what we’re trying to get out of PowerSchool is the designation
of the student. So this is where some things were starting to get a little bit
confusing for the LEAs, is how do we put these in? Are we putting them in based
on the student’s plan base [ph], based on when the student was considered
eligible, what are we doing, how are we doing this? And it goes back to how you
want to satisfy and support your local policy. No one is auditing your Section 504
records based on entry and exit dates. There are some LEAs that have elected to
follow the evaluation plan, and so they will create a record for a student based on
every time the student’s plan ends and is updated. There are other LEAs that have
decided that they will take the student’s eligibility date, when they were
designated as 504, and they will leave an open-ended record within the system.
That is just fine as well. What OCR is looking for and what the Department of
Public Instruction is looking for right now is when the student was determined
504. So you can use the system to support your policy, or you can use the system
to satisfy that reporting requirement; it’s really up to the LEA.
I want to stop here for questions; if they start getting a little complex, I’m
happy to contact you after the fact, and I think a lot of you know that I absolutely
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 17
will. I don’t see as many questions as I thought I would—I’m hoping I’m
explaining this well. I’m going to start at the top, and I’m going to backtrack to
tasks 1 and 2 as well.
“For charter schools, do we need to complete both the LEA- and schoollevel screens, since they are the same?” That’s a great question, and the answer is
yes, because the screens themselves are not the same. So at one point, the Office
of Civil Rights is asking on a global level—and I understand that a charter a lot of
times may be one location only, rather than multiple like a district—but with
OCR, they’re focusing on globally how do you do X, Y, and Z. And then they’re
focusing specifically on school information. So your CRDC screens, the LEA
level and the school level are not the same and should both be filled out. Thank
you, that’s an excellent question.
Another question is, “If our PK is not connected to our K1 school, should
we exclude them?” I think I want a little bit more information, so for this
particular person, I’ll contact you after the webinar.
“Can you show us where to go to exclude for CRDC submissions?” I will
be happy to, if you give me a minute—I’m going to navigate over, and I believe
I’m in the perfect location, so give me just one second here, because I can’t see
it—my mouse is all over the place. At the school level, the “Exclude from CRDC
Reporting” is located right at the top, so bam! You don’t have to do any more.
And once you do that, you’re not going to see that in any count for the Civil
Rights Data Collection, whether it be in part one report or part two. So unless any
logic has changed since the last time I tested that, that puppy works perfectly.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 18
Okay, I’m going to take a look again at the questions. Excuse me again
for my mouse going crazy. “CRDC 1 & 2 reports,” uh—we’re going to get to
CRDC reports in just a second, I hope that I can answer most of your questions
there. And then here’s a question about 504: “What if all 504 students are not
entered yet? There was a very quick turnaround for this to occur.” Yes, there
was—there was approximately 17 days, actually I think 27 if you look at the
calendar, but not a lot of time. And that is because we are trying to move in
parallel with the federal project. As soon as we have those state-level files
submitted, we are going to launch with the pilot. Now, what that means is in the
pilot process, which we will only have maybe a week or two, depending on how
the tight the deadline is on the federal side, to submit data and see how the
submission process itself goes, see if there’s any errors, if we have validation on
columns [ph] that needs to be updated, how does that go. Are we experiencing
extreme latency between NC DPI and the OCR, you know, those kinds of things
are what we’re testing. We don’t necessarily—during the pilot phase—care about
your data, because when the pilot phase is done, we’re going to—I say “we,” but
it’s really actually the Office—the government, the federal government is going to
wipe that slate clean and then we start the real submissions.
So what I would like to say to you, in terms of what the LEAs need to do
and the data or the tasks that the LEAs need to be cognizant of, is as soon as that
federal window opens, my boss is ready to go. My boss is saying, “We’re
submitting right then.” So you will be notified when the CRDC 1 & 2 reports are
completed, and we’re getting to that section here in just a second. You’ll be
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 19
notified about that, but—and you will have about two weeks, I’m going to say, I
will push for two weeks for you to validate your data and say, “It is true,” and
then come the date that the—two weeks after, let’s say, then we’re going to do
that first submission. So, if you don’t have it done now, there is no hammer
coming down on your head, but you need to be done within the next week or two.
I do understand that the turnaround was quick and that there was some confusion
in the process initially, so I do appreciate your patience and all of your questions
for this. I’m happy to help you in any way I can.
I think I just went off on a tangent—okay, so the follow-up question to
that is, “Are we still able to update the 504 records?” Yes. You can update data
all the way until that very first really real—real, true submission is, and you will
be notified in advance when that’s going to happen. So feel free to update data as
needed until that point, but I’m telling you, we’re getting there pretty close.
Ooh, I’m getting the questions now. Okay, so exclude—I’m going back
again, I’m following up on some of the questions in regards to tasks one through
five—“Include/exclude, the default is ‘no,’ is that correct?” That is correct. The
default is “no.” So no, include everything is what it is. So when it says, “Exclude
from CRDC report question mark,” when you say “yes,” that data does not appear
on your report.
Okay, “How do I know if we are excluding from CRDC reporting?”
You’re going to have to look at the specific school. Great question, but it does
not report anywhere that you excluded a school from your OCR reporting. So
you will have to look at the school. Now, when we get to the actual report
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 20
validation, if you knew that Brighton [ph] Elementary was supposed to be there
and it’s not on your list, I think that’s a really great indicator that there might have
been an update to that field that was incorrect.
Section 504 is the next question, the entry date. “Are you saying that you
want the original date that the student was deemed eligible for Section 504 for the
plan?” No, I’m not saying that. The way that the OCR—I’m saying at [ph] the
local policy and however you want to enter that designation date is fine. We’re
not going to be auditing the student’s cum [ph] folder or their plans for Section
504 to determine that that plan date is exactly the date that’s in PowerSchool or
exactly the date the student was deemed eligible. What the OCR report is looking
for is a student who was enrolled at your school on or before October of 2013,
then what it looks for is that the—does the student have a Section 504 plan?
[NOISE] Excuse me, my apologies. So it looks for, does that student have a 504
plan? If it finds that plan, then what is the entry date? Is it on or before October
2013? [NOISE] Excuse me for just a second. So some of you have previousyear records in the Section 504 area within PowerSchool, and that’s just fine. So
for example, if a student was eligible in 2007 and that’s how your LEA has
recorded that entry, then—and that does not have an exit date that is before
October 1 of 2013, then that student will be picked up for OCR as being Section
504. So it really is up to your LEA as to what date you want to identify them. It
would be probably easier on your staff if you were to determine whether or not
you want to do it based on evaluation or if you want to do it based on when the
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 21
student was—is eligible. But really, it’s up to your LEA to decide how they want
to make that electronic record within PowerSchool.
So I hope that helps, and if I am not answering your question, then please
by all means feel free to contact me. 504 dates—“During a webinar, we were told
to date the 504 date toward the beginning of the school year. From the quick
reference document, it looks like we should use the actual date, but that they will
be excluded if they weren’t identified before an October date. Students who
entered the program after October 2013 aren’t counted, then, is that correct?”
That is my understanding based on the government. So yes, if a student—so we
have—if you do—you have a student that came in in—at the start of school, and
then for whatever reason was not designated Section 504 until May of that year,
then they would not—and you put in the date of May 1, 2014—that student will
not be counted on your—on the 13-14 submission. So I don’t know what webinar
would have told you to date them at the beginning of the year, so I would go with
what the documentation says.
Okay, here’s another 504. “Only those students that were enrolled as of
the October date you sent needed to be added, correct?” Yeah, correct for this
collection. We will be doing this again in a couple years, so what my hope would
be is that if this is a procedure that you follow every year, then in the next
collection—I’m sorry, in the next submission year, your data would already be
there, you won’t have to scramble to add that. So yes, right now to satisfy 13-14,
that’s what we need, but this process is now in place as to where you would
record a Section 504 designation within PowerSchool.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 22
“If the 504 student information was entered at the school level, will it
carry up to the LEA, or does it have to be entered at the LEA level too?” Well,
I’m not quite sure about your question. I’m going to try to answer it. Based on
my superpowers in the system, and I know that that probably could be different, I
can see a student’s 504 record at the LEA level if it’s active, still, if it doesn’t
have an entry date that has come to pass [ph], and it transfers from one school to
another, so the only time that I—so—I think that you’ll be able to see it at the
school—I’m sorry, I’m totally botching this answer here—you’ll be able to see it
at each school if it is active, and even the history, and you should be able to see it
at the LEA level if it’s active and if you choose to run that view that’s part of that
quick reference document. So I hope I’m answering your question.
Another question was about exit dates. Shoot. Excuse me. Was about
exit dates and what exit dates would we use? Exit dates will be needed for
students who graduate, so this was something that was updated on the quick
reference document, and I want to be sure it’s as clear as possible. Initially, we
said, “Hey,” because our business owner had said, “Let’s keep the data really
clean, and any time a student moves out of the school, let’s go ahead and close
that record.” Well, the feedback from the LEAs was, “Hey, that’s not really how
our policy works, that’s not how our procedure works, and we’ve already got
something in place and we prefer to keep that eligibility or that record open until
the student is no longer eligible or has left the district.” And so we thought,
“Well, okay, that really makes a lot of sense,” so we will no longer close—the
first iteration of that quick reference document said that we will close every 504
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 23
record during the EOY [ph] process, and that is no longer true. We will close
records for your graduated students as part of, like, an EOY script, and we ask
that you close those 504 records at the time that the student transfers out of the
LEA. And once you indicate that a student is in that program, during the
withdrawal, on that screen there is an indicator that allows you to remove them
from the program as well.
So—so did I pound that puppy into the ground there? I’m going to ask
you one more poll, but I promise this time I will actually get rid of it once it’s
been asked and shared. I don’t think you’re surprised, but here is the next
question: have you finished your 504? And I promise, there is nobody who’s
coming—you know, who’s going to come down on you for not having this data in
quite yet. And if you are struggling, if you have any questions that I am not
answering, then contact me. We’re going to do this very quickly, so please
submit your answers. Okay, so it looks like everything’s stabilized, I’m going to
close the poll and I’ll go ahead and share.
So we got a 17% flat-out “no.” [LAUGHS] Well, I hope that you are
complete by the time that we pull that submission, so that is really key, guys.
And again, if you have questions, please contact me. So all right, so I have
hidden the poll—have I hidden the poll? Sweet. Okay, we don’t want to
experience that again.
All right, so I am going to move to the next section of this, and that is the
CRDC reports in PowerSchool. So I think a couple of you have noticed that a
couple of the forms are showing up as blank—as completely blank. That’s a new
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 24
development, and the vendor has been contacted. Big point though is that these
CRDC reports really are still in development as far as calculations, the data
missing, pointing at the correct fields. So we anticipate that the November
maintenance release will have all fixes in for the reports—we anticipate that. I’m
going to keep my fingers and my toes crossed, but we know that sometimes things
happen. So what we’re hoping is that those CRDC reports are finalized, because
that’s your view into your student-level data—or at least that first view before we
submit.
Another point about those CRDC reports is that they must be run at the
LEA level, and run in 14-15, okay? So when we implemented this, they were run
in the term 13-14. Well, we asked the vendor to please model after the other state
reports, and the fact that you’re running them in the current year regardless of
whether they’re looking at the current year or a previous year data set, so you
need to run that at the 14-15 level. There have been a couple that have seen that
their enrollment counts, their overall enrollment counts, were wildly off, so if you
see that, then just think, “Did I run it in 13-14,” and try it again. If you see
anything weird with these reports, even if it’s something that we already know
about, maybe you’re not aware that we already know—contact me. The more
eyes, the better. I am really—I’m really pleased with the participation and the
bugs that some of the LEAs have caught that I know I wouldn’t have because I
don’t know your data. I can catch some pretty high-level stuff, but when you start
really perusing that student information and that detail, you know your students,
you know what should be on there.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 25
Another thing about the CRDC reports in PowerSchool is they do not have
exceptions. So you don’t have to run an exception report for this. There’s no
exception deal [ph] with that. Right now, and possibly—there will not be an
approval. We are kind of talking it over back and forth as to whether or not we’re
going to get rid of the “approval” button. There are some schools—camps [ph]
that say “Keep it,” and some of the LEAs agree with that, because they like that as
an indicator that they’re done with their submission, but we’ll be reviewing that
here within the next week or tow. But right now, there is no approval process, so
come the time that my boss says, “We’re ready to go,” we are going to consume
that data and submit it to the feds.
Really cool thing about the school-level reports is that they actually
provide the detail as far as your student records and what that student applies to,
their subcategories, their courses, their exams, their disciplinary actions, and so
you can look at that at the school level if you run that from the—if you run CRDC
1 or CRDC 2. Also, you will be able to see your courses, so those courses that
show up are the courses for first semester, is my understanding. CRDC 2 may
have courses for second semester, but I’m not clear and I haven’t gotten that far in
in looking at that particular area of the report.
Another thing, too, to think about is that the submission end date within
PowerSchool—so it says October 1 to October 31 in the interface—is not correct,
and that will be updated. But it really doesn’t matter to us at this point, those
submissions—the submission end date. Like I said, the feds are kind of out of
scope with their project, so that gives us some time, and then also, I think as we’re
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 26
talking through this—and for those of you who are veterans of the process
previously—that’s not all the data. The PowerSchool is not inclusive of this
everything that is collected for OCR. So that submission date just doesn’t have
any relevance to us at this point.
I don’t see any questions yet, but I’m going to cut—so I’m going to come
back, though, to, “The CRDC report, school-level reports have data in them, but
the LEA-level report is empty. Is this what we should expect?” Heck, no—we
want to see everything on that LEA-level report. So that actually was submitted
to the developer yesterday; we had a maintenance weekend last weekend, and so I
kind of think that something went a little squirrely in the code, so that has been
reported. You should expect to see data with the exception of LEPs, Section
504—if you have not put it in, SAT and AP exams—I’m sorry, SAT and ACT
exams, and then AP exam qualification scores. You actually won’t see the score,
you’ll see an indicator for the student. But that, globally, is not there yet. What
else you may not see yet are the—your course code count might look really weird.
The course codes should be input here—I think that they were supposed to be in
this last October maintenance weekend. I put November as the goal, but I think
that she’s been adding that, and actually that was how I found that the schoollevel—or, I’m sorry, the LEA- level report was empty, because I was starting to
try to validate that.
Okay, so another question is, “For CRDC part 1 and part 2, is this pulling
the information we entered?” Okay, so if you were making updates—so, for
example, Section 504 records are a really good example. You put in 15 of them
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 27
today. If you do not re-run the LEA-level report, they’re not going to show up.
So that report, once it’s run, when you’re hitting that “Review” button, is static.
So if you make changes and a student actually had disciplinary actions that
needed to be updated for some reason, I mean, we’re out of the school year, so
hopefully we’re not going back to that type of data I hope, but if you make
changes to that kind of stuff, then you’re going to need to re-run the reports.
Okay, so give me a second here, and I’m going to take a look. We have a
couple more questions. So I think this is just a clarification: “Do CRDC reports
need to be run at the school and the LEA level?” They sure don’t. The only thing
that DPI needs is that they’re run at the LEA level. Those school-level reports,
though, they provide you a real window into which students are reporting on
what; they provide that detail. And here’s the thing—federal reporting is done at
an aggregate level, but we know that we have the data, and it’s all—it should all
be tied to our UID [ph]. So when we’re looking at the reports in PowerSchool,
they’re going to—it’s going to be based on the student record level information.
And once you run your CRDC reports, an aggregate table is built, and that is what
we’re reporting to the feds. So we’re not saying, “Susie is XYZ, or Bobby or
Charlie is XYZ.” We are saying, “We have 17 students that meet this category.”
Okay, excuse me for just a sec. Oh, and thank you—somebody gave me
an FYI that the LEA level, :I can see all students that were entered under the
special 504 program,” and yes, you can as long as—and this has just been my
experience, if I am wrong, I’m okay with being wrong, I just want to make sure
I’m not telling anybody else wrong—what I have noticed is, if a student has a
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 28
record and it’s got an exit date, and that exit date has already come to pass, then if
you go and query the “special programs” screen that shows you the list of
students, that kid does not appear. So don’t get caught in that, don’t think that
that’s your—that would be your end-all, be-all list if you were using that as
eligibility for—or, for students who were indicated as 504, but I wouldn’t lean on
that puppy to tell you which students need to be re-evaluated. I don’t think that
that view or that screen’s going to show you what you need.
Okay, I’m going to try this. This one’s kind of long, so I’m reading it
as—and comprehending as I’m reading. “Schools under 300 and CRDC
reports—right now our preschool, which is our 000 school, has students that we
want to include in the OCR reporting. However, our 000 school is currently set
up to exclude from state reporting on the school and school information screen.
This means the CRDC is not showing on the state report dashboard. This means
CRDC is not showing on the state report dashboard.” Well, that’s interesting. “If
we uncheck this box, will it require all state reports to be run for this school?” I
think we should talk offline. I just want to check that out, because—okay, so you
have your—I’ve never experienced that, that you don’t see your CRDC
reporting—or reports on the dashboard, so I just kind of want to check that out.
Thank you for the report, and you know I’ll contact you.
Okay. So we’ve got a couple more questions. “Will there be some type of
notice if something appears to be wrong? Being a coordinator of this process, it
concerns me that I have very limited access to PowerSchool, but I’m being asked
to review other employees’ work without having access to the information.”
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 29
Okay, so I get the comment, and my understanding is that that’s kind of—that an
OCR coordinator does gather all of this information. You have the ability to view
that data, which is kind of like what you would see on paper before you submit it,
but I do understand if you want to know about what we might know as far as—
I’m going to say it again—known issues. So I think I said “know” probably six
times in point-seven seconds. So here’s a very small screen of known issues
regarding CRDC reports. Now, this is as of last week, so our new glitch with the
CRDC LEA level not showing data for the schools, that’s a brand-new issue. So I
do have some high-level scenarios and some known issues, and I will be reporting
on this in two weeks, about where we are in the process of this project and so I
will have updates for you. And I will let the PowerSchool team know of any
known issues as well. Because I can understand where you feel a little bit
concerned about, “Hey, I’m supposed to be the champion of this data, but I don’t
quite know, you know, what has actually happened with that work.” So I get that.
And then also, too, anything that you see that looks weird, I want to know. I
don’t care if we know about it or not, I’d rather know more information about
what’s seemingly strange on that report than less. Please do not assume that we
already know about it. Please, please, please tell me.
Okay. So, let me see. All right, so I just got a—I just got a quick “no
audio,” I don’t generally do this, but by a show of hands, just let me know you’re
out there, callers. Okay, perfect. All right, I just want to make sure. All right,
good deal, okay. All right, so, let me see.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 30
So we have a request to repeat again which year the LEA reports need to
be run in. You will run CRDC reports in the current year. It will look back to
your data, your enrollment information from the previous year, and gather your
students in that fashion, but you’re going to run it always in the current year. So
if we were in 17-18, that would call that [ph] the submission year, your collection
year would be the previous year, but you still do your functionality and your
process within PowerSchool in your current term.
Okay, so this was far as the entire data collection. “I’m assuming that the
data is being imported into [ph] the PowerSchool flagging ESL, etc. [ph]. Can
you say if there is a specific set of fields that are being populated with this
external data?” Really good question, okay. So, yes, I can. We have—okay, so
the data that we’re importing in is coming from the authoritative source, and it’s
all going into this secret little ___ table. And it’s not necessarily a secret, it’s just
not something that we’re using within PowerSchool and was created upon
conversion. So I can tell you where the data would be, and it doesn’t exist there
yet, actually, I’m working with one of our staff here—our—she’s in my phone as
Bessie [ph], but actually she’s Betty—or I mean Betsy Baugess, so we’re working
with her as far as loading. And I do have a document that tells you the table and
the column, but not for everything. I can publish it, but it’s still in draft format.
So another question here is, “Is this session being recorded?” The answer
is yes, you can always go back to the UAB recording as well, it’s the same
content.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 31
Oh, okay. Somebody else has seen that the 000 school has no dashboard.
That’s really interesting; I will research that. So thank you very much. I
appreciate that, had no idea that that would even be something be something that
we would need to look for.
Another question is, “We have some special schools that revert every
night—” Ah, yeah, yeah. [LAUGHS] I’m sorry. I know about this. Yeah.
Yeah, I know about this, and this should not impact your data. We are very aware
of that, and thank you very much, but if at all you have any questions, you let me
know. And sorry about that, for the side conversation there.
“UAB is not recorded and posted.” Well, let me see—it should be, it
really should be. Let’s go—I’m going to navigate over there, because I depend on
that. I have my UAB meetings up, look at that. All right. So, I’m going to look
for October. Okay, we do have the UAB recording, and I took up the first hour
and a half of this puppy, okay? So the first hour and a half of October’s UAB was
the Tara [ph] show. It was all about OCR. And this presentation here is dated for
the 16th, but it’s this same presentation. Because really, not too much has
changed within the last couple days, and I anticipate that I will add to what we’re
working with today for the subsequent updates. So if you want this, I’m going to
just copy that right there, I’m going to go back over to my question panel, and I’m
going to send this to everybody. All right. Okay, I think I’ve got most of the
questions answered, and I’m going to move back over to the presentation. Again,
sorry about the squirrely mouse.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 32
Okay, so we do have some known issues. We know that there are
incorrect grade levels reporting. The example of that, the best example that I can
provide, is that a middle school might have a PK center. And this report is
looking at a field that is fed into PowerSchool from EDDIE for the previous year,
and what it’s doing right now is looking at a range rather than looking at distinct
grade levels. So that should be updated in the November maintenance weekend.
So one thing that you need to do before you report something like this is to verify
your 13-14 grade levels in EDDIE. If they are in fact accurate, then this is a
known issue and should be resolved in November. If they are not accurate, I
really need to know, because EDDIE previous-year data is static, and so we’re
going to have to figure out a way to report accurately for your school. This is
where things really start tying in together, that, you know, EDDIE is the
authoritative source for those grade levels, so it has a huge impact on your current
and previous years.
One thing that was reported—thank you so much to the counties [ph] that
reported this—is that the IB [ph] program indicator was coming up for kids that
were in 7th grade, 8th grade, they were not part of an IB program. So the logic
was looking at the fourth rather than the fifth character, and that should be
resolved in November maintenance’s weekend—excuse me, November
maintenance weekend as well.
We have low to no course enrollment counts. And so by this I’m talking
about course codes. The course codes that were provided to the developer before
I got on the project were not necessarily the ones that we needed or all the ones
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 33
that we needed, so I worked with Curriculum to identify the exact course codes
that were needed for 13-14. And then those will be coded into the system. 15-16
and the development for OCR, how that’s going to be handled is going to be
pending, but for 13-14, they have the exact course codes to look at.
And then there’s that red dot of death. That red dot of death can come up
for a couple different reasons. One of them is a—one of them is some kind of
data issue, like maybe a character string is too long. That definitely needs to be
reported, because I don’t know if we can find it without the developers. The
couple things that the developers reported back is new schools—and when I say
new schools, I’m talking about anything that is under 300 and anything that was
created last year—or, I’m sorry, was created this year. So program schools were
added as early as this year. They didn’t have a term for 13-14, so they produce
the red dot of death on the CRDC because it’s going back to look at those terms
and it doesn’t exist. A new school, like maybe Brighton Elementary was—their
first year was here in 14-15. They don’t have a term for 13-14, they don’t need a
term, and they don’t actually need to be included in the CRDC report. So I don’t
know—I mean, I think it’s up to the LEA and if it impacts any other process [ph],
but if you needed a 13-14 term for a school that didn’t exist there only for this
OCR report, then just click the [ph] “exclude.” I mean, there’s—if needed for
something else, then go ahead and add that, but we don’t necessarily need it for a
school that didn’t exist in that timeframe.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 34
So these currently are the known issues. And then, you know, whatever
you report to me, I feel like I’m getting pretty savvy with the reports, so I do as
much of the research as possible before I provide it to the developer.
Okay, so state-level submission files. We’re still talking about tasks 3, 4,
and 5. So these are all happening in parallel, I just want to emphasize that.
We’ve got data loading that we need, we’ve got CRDC report corrections that
need to be made, and then we’ve also got that state-level submission file. And it’s
actually really two, it’s one that’s state—or, I’m sorry, one that’s LEA and then
one that’s school level. So we’re working with another vendor on that. And he’s
actually been in contact with me today, so I’m anticipating—we thought that we
were going to get our first iteration of the file just to kind of take a look at and see
if we have any questions about, that kind of thing, last Friday, but he had some
more questions about it. So he’s working on it this week. It includes the data
from the other systems, so when we talk about OCR, 90% of the data is studentrelated, but then that other 10% is based on your teacher qualifications and based
on funding. And so that doesn’t live in PowerSchool, that’s not something that I
anticipate PowerSchool would ever have, but, you know, don’t quote me on that.
So the majority of that data, DPI has access to as well.
And here is my dorky little flow-chart, and if you want to rip on it, you go
ahead, because I’m not really impressed by it. But this is just kind of how—it’s a
really bad flow-chart, so I do apologize for that—this is just kind of how it all gets
gathered up. So that OCR collection opens, and let’s say we’re in an operational
year rather than this project year. All that previous year data in PowerSchool
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 35
applicable to the students is gathered up and pushed down—or pushed to our
PowerSchool ODS, which is its first stop when you hit that “Run Review”
button—or when you hit that “Run” button and review your data, so that’s
automatically pushed to the PowerSchool ODS. And that’s our connection
between all of the LEAs, kind of like the repository that we used to have. Give
me one second; I see that I have a question. Okay. Yes, and I will—I’m going to
answer that question here in just a sec. Sorry, I got all crazy with my mouse. So
hopefully with a push of a button in the next submission year, you’ve got all your
data from PowerSchool. That goes to that PowerSchool ODS, and then in turn is
moved to the state ODS. So we have an operational data store that is much like, if
any of you are my CEDARS trainees, much like our longitudinal data store. Our
longitudinal data store houses multiple elements from multiple state-specific
applications that—and that’s what allows us to do our federal reporting. Well,
our ODS is our Operational Data Store, and it houses data from those same
elements. And so at least for this year, the information will be compiled within
the ODS based on those state-level submission files, and we will provide that to
the Office of Civil Rights.
So one thing I can tell you right now that I feel very certain—I’m going to
have to move to the other side of this project pretty soon—in regards to I’ve got to
just make sure I understand exactly what data we’re pulling for funding and for
teacher qualifications. But one thing I feel fairly certain that we do not have at
this point—just as a heads-up that we might have to ask for the LEAs to
provide—would be teacher absenteeism. That’s the only thing that I’ve found so
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 36
far in my very cursory research on that side of the OCR needs, is something that
we just don’t have—we’ve never collected. So that might be another task for the
LEAs, but that’s kind of in the future type deal.
So one of the—excuse me, I’m sorry—one of the questions I’m trying to
get to is, “When this is complete, will the data be collected and then restored back
to blanks for future submissions?” I believe I can answer this question in the fact
that from your OCR screens, your CRDC screens, I believe that our plan right
now is to wipe those at the end of year. Your CRDC reports for respective years
will be archived in a similar fashion to how the Principal’s Monthly Report, PMR,
and the SAR, the School Activity Report, are archived, so that you can go back
and view. But I do believe that our intention, because those screens are not
specific to year, the structure in the table is not pointed at a—at one specific
school year, is that we’d wipe that data. As far as the data specific to 13-14 that I
was telling you that we would import from DPI, like the LEP, SAT, AP and
such—I don’t think that we have any intention of getting rid of that, because it
doesn’t have any impact, but I can find out and provide an update in the next
status.
Ooh, okay, so we have another question that says, “How do you check
and/or change grade levels in EDDIE for the 13-14 school year? All I’m able to
view and/or edit is school levels in 14-15.” Okay, so I think I will have to follow
up on you with this as well. I know of a PowerSchool coordinator who was able
to give me specifics on her previous year date, but I don’t know how she did it. I
know that 13-14 or previous year data in EDDIE is not—and I repeat, is not—
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 37
editable, but I’m not sure how she accessed it, so I can follow up with that. That
is why I need to have notification—a remedy ticket would be great—if you find
that your EDDIE—if you find that EDDIE truly is correct and your grade levels
are—or, I’m sorry, EDDIE is incorrect and your grade levels are reflecting that in
the CRDC reports and screens, because I’m going to have to figure out a way to
accurately portray your data when we do the submission—we may have to change
something manually, I’m not sure. So I’ll have to follow up on how you can
actually look at those previous year’s tables; I don’t really know.
Okay, “So since you’re working with the federal government on the pilot
program, maybe you could suggest that after state submission, LEA would be able
to download the final pdf from them, which was an option when we submitted
them ourselves.” I think that’s a really good suggestion, and I don’t believe that
that process will change. And I’m getting to the final portion of this webinar, the
tasks—I feel like I’m getting my slides ahead of themselves—but the tasks 6 and
7 would be to participate in that pilot, and yes, we do offer suggestions, we—
they’re making some pretty dramatic changes in that tool, and I say that without
having experience with 11-12 and just listening to their changes in their
functionality. So we asked them lots of questions about that. We are supposed to
start this week with that pilot piece, and just to keep on track here with the—with
our presentation, once the reports are stable in PowerSchool and they are
finalized, or as finalized as I can determine that they are and other staff can
determine that they are, we’re going to give you two weeks—that’s what I would
like to do—to say, “Really, really look at this, and if you see any weirdness,
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 38
please let us know.” We’re going to have that two-week window before we do
that real first really real submission to the feds, and you will be notified of that
date as well.
Now, the reason that I’m kind of brushing past what that question was is
because 8, 9, and 10—and those were, 8, 9, and 10, are to review and correct and
approve. Those processes are still pending. We are working with the feds, you
will be able to view from their tool—you will approve from their tool is what I
anticipate the process will be, and I’m hoping based on the question—or the
recommendation that we just had, you’ll also have the ability to download those
final files. So I will follow up with that. But I don’t have a lot to say right now
about how we’re going to do this process—the LEAs working with DPI working
with the feds, because ultimately I think that you will approve from their tool.
And as soon as I have more information, I will be happy to share, such as access
to the federal tool. Now you may notice, those of you who were OCR
coordinators in the past, that you got—you have not gotten much communication
from the feds, and that was because it was causing a lot of confusion based on,
“Well, DPI is doing this for us now, are they or are they not?” And we didn’t
want that conflicting information. So—excuse me—so they stopped their
broadcasts to our state and are communicating with us here at NC DPI. The
communication is happening more and more frequently, and we have called more
often, but right now I don’t have a full, stable process for you for the latter portion
of this particular project.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 39
However, I am happy to update you with information—I’m kind of hoping
that the November 4th, November 18th webinars, if they take an hour and a half,
that it’s really about the meat that we haven’t talked about here in the last two
webinars that I’ve done, like today and with UAB. I really hope to have
something substantial about the remainder portion. So we really—we’ve gotten
over the hump, so to speak, as far as the project, I mean, we’ve definitely hit a
milestone, but we still have much more work to do.
I’m going to take some more questions. Aw, “You’re awesome,” I got a
kudos, I love it. Thanks. Okay, here’s another—I think this is a comment or a
question: “Law enforcement officer—we hired an SRO in March, and—March of
2014, so would this be a ‘yes’ to that question?” A SRO is a School Resource
Officer, right? Okay, so here’s exactly what I would do. If this question were
sent to me in real life—ha ha ha—what I would do is I would go directly to the
Office of Civil Rights and I would look at their information. So, okay, I’m going
to plug a product—this, Symbaloo, is my favorite, favorite thing ever. It houses
all of my bookmarks, I don’t have to care about my browser. So I think that’s
pretty cool. So I’m going to go to the Office of Civil Rights—I can never
remember what this link is, so I’m going to send it to you right now, give me one
second—I’m going to send this to everyone, because I can never find this link
when I’m looking for it, and I always feel like I’m digging around. Excuse me.
Okay, and I’m going to go right down and download their LEA-level form and
their school form. So School Resource Officers—I think might be in the school
file, we’ll just open it real quick, and maybe not as quickly as I thought we would.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 40
I also have these loaded into a folder, but I wanted to show you where you could
get them as well. I’m really very impressed with the changes that I’ve seen from
the OCR project, and again, I haven’t worked on this, but—I got this in March,
well, I had inklings that I would be getting this in March—so what I started
working with, like I said, those 11-12 requirements versus what they have out
now for 13-14 are dramatically different and much appreciated. I think they’ve
done a really good job.
So I’m just going to do a quick find, and are we saying Resource Officer?
Okay, so this is what I would do, is I would go look for what their definition and
what their instructions are, because I’m not very comfortable interpreting for you.
So a sworn—yes, so I think the answer, based on the definition right here would
be yes, a School Resource Officer is a sworn officer with the arrest authority
whose main responsibility is to work at the school, and so yeah, I believe you
would answer—you would answer that “yes.” There was one piece of that
question, though—in March of 2014. So that is still the 13-14 year. Sorry about
that. I think—I think you would be fine in answering that as a yes. But that is my
interpretation. I would answer that “yes,” but—based on the definition.
I don’t see any other questions, you guys. I hope that I’ve explained this
as fully as possible. We really are literally at 2:30. I don’t think I have anything
else to share with you. The—creating documentation for this has been a little bit
difficult, because it’s still, like I said, very fluid. I have a semi-quasi-pseudo-sorta
mapping document I can put out there, but I’m going to stamp “DRAFT” all over
it, for those of you who want to look at some of the tables and some of the rules.
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com
NC DPI
OCR NC – Status Update
10/21/2014
Page 41
But I wouldn’t say it’s anything truly technical, but if it’s helpful to you, I’m
happy to send it out. If we don’t have any further questions, then I think it is time
for us to say goodbye, and again, thank you so much for your time. I hope this
was helpful, and please join me again in a couple weeks. Thanks.
[END RECORDING]
Transcript prepared by
Rogers Word Service
919-834-0000 1-800-582-8749
www.rogersword.com