Race to the Top – Year 5 No-Cost Extension Points to Note
The US Department of Education recently approved a “no-cost extension” year for North
Carolina’s Race to the Top (RttT) grant. The grant, originally slated for four years, was extended
to five to give the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and local school districts and
charter schools more time to complete activities in several key initiatives in the state’s USED
approved RttT plan.
What does this mean for local districts and charter schools? Below is a short list of the largest
streams of work that will be affected by the no-cost extension on the local level:

Professional Development: RttT funding will support the July 2014 Summer Institutes, along
with a calendar of regional professional development events for the 2014-15 school year.
Participation will be optional for school districts and charter schools. Professional development
activities funded through RttT will end by June 30, 2015; NCDPI is in the process of determining
how to continue or build on these activities following the end of the grant.

Turning Around Lowest-Achieving Schools (TALAS): The no-cost extension will allow NCDPI to
continue working with the TALAS schools and districts for a fifth year. Staff members from the
District and School Transformation (DST) division will continue to provide coaching and
professional development to these schools and districts designed to help them improve student
performance in their districts, targeting more support to the schools and districts that need
additional support to reach the goals outlined for them in the grant. While RttT supports will
end by June 30, 2015, DST staff will continue to work with some number of low performing
schools and districts across the state.

Race to the Top Evaluation : The RttT Evaluation Team (a collaborative effort between the
Friday Institute, the Carolina Institute for Public Policy, and the SERVE Center at UNCGreensboro) will work to complete specific evaluations for various RttT initiatives, as well as an
overall evaluation of the state’s RttT program. Though their work will consist mostly of analyzing
the data and information they have already collected, LEA and charter school officials should
complete any surveys or interviews requested from this group in order to paint as thorough a
picture as possible of the challenges and accomplishments associated with RttT.

Support for Home Base Implementation: The no-cost extension will allow NCDPI to support the
continued rollout of Schoolnet, Openclass, the Professional Development System, and other
tools in Home Base during the 2014-15 school year. This will include regional trainings, the
continued acquisition of instructional resources, and development/troubleshooting for Home
Base. Some districts also are choosing to designate their extension funding toward the first year
of subscription fees for the Home Base opt-in components.

NC Education Cloud: The no-cost extension will allow the NC Education Cloud team to continue
developing cloud-based (shared service) solutions that can save time and money for LEAs and
charter schools. The Cloud team will continue to assist LEAs and charter schools with migrations
to existing cloud solutions and will roll out additional services in year five. LEAs and charter
schools will be able to move to these solutions and services following the end of the grant,
though if they wait until after the grant period they may have to cover more of the initial
migration costs themselves.

Performance Incentives for Low Performing Schools: Through RttT, the state provided
performance incentives to teachers in low performing schools that exceeded expectations for
either school-wide or classroom level growth. The no cost extension ensures that the State can
complete the final year of pilot this program by issuing bonuses based on 2013-14 assessment
data to eligible teachers in the late fall of 2014.

RttT Management: The state’s no cost extension request provided funds to ensure effective
management and oversight of the year five RttT activities by continuing the RttT management
structure through the end of the grant in 2015.

Local No Cost Extension Option: As a part of the state’s no cost extension request, NCDPI
received approval for a process and principles by which the State can allow LEAs and charter
schools to request no cost extensions to complete activities outlined in their detailed scope of
work (DSW) . The NCDPI RttT team recently conducted a webinar with detailed information
about this process. Take a look, at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/rttt/webinars/.