(P)(2) STEM Part B Narrative, North Carolina, 2013
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Race to the Top
Progress Update - On-site Review (P) (2) STEM
Part B: In preparation for monthly calls, States must submit written responses to the following
questions for two application sub-criteria (e.g. (A)(2) and (D)(4)). 1 All responses in this section
should be tailored to the goals and projects associated with this sub-criterion.
Application sub-criterion:2
P(2) STEM

Provide technical assistance to LEAs and RESA organizations around the planning and
implementation of STEM high schools for individual LEAs or regions.

Work with partners to support the development of a small set of anchor/model STEM
high schools that will serve as laboratory schools and sites for professional development
around project-based learning.

Develop a set of STEM Affinity Network high school networks
STATE’s goals for this sub-criterion:
North Carolina’s self-described goals for this sub-criterion
 Provide technical assistance around the planning and implementation of STEM high
schools
o Contract with NC New Schools to develop a network of Anchor and Affinity
Network Schools
o Select Anchor and Affinity Network Schools
o Define Attributes of a STEM School/Program
o Contract with NC School of Science and Mathematics to develop curriculum in
each of NC's identified four STEM pillar areas
o Implement a STEM portal

Develop 4 STEM Anchor schools to build support for STEM education and guide
development of policy that supports STEM education; provide the following:
o Instructional Coaching: work on-site with classroom teachers
o Leadership Institute: professional development for principals to support their
development as effective leaders
o Professional development for teachers and Peer School Reviews
1
On each monthly call, program officers and states should work together to select two sub-criteria for the following month.
(P)(2) STEM Part B Narrative, North Carolina, 2013
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o Residencies in Model Schools: One-week residencies in national-model schools
for staff from each of the anchor schools
o Extended Teacher Summer Employment
o Equipment for Classrooms

Develop sixteen Affinity Network Schools to build support for STEM education and
guide development of policy that supports STEM education
o Same sub-goals as for Anchor Schools (NOTE: Anchor Schools provide
consultation and visitation for other schools; therefore, they have received their
training first and have a major purpose to assist the Affinity Network schools)
Relevant projects:

Develop four Anchor and sixteen Affinity Network STEM Schools
o Provided the following for teachers and principals:
1. Strategic Partners
2. Instructional Coaching
3. Professional Development
4. Residencies in Model Schools

Extend teacher employment into the summer for curriculum review, professional
development, development of materials, internships, etc.

Support technology purchases to outfit the classrooms to support STEM Education

Develop curriculum in four STEM areas to be shared with the North Carolina High
Schools

Cooperatively implement the STEM Strategic Plan for Grades K-20

Develop a STEM Web portal
1. Is the State on-track to implement the activities and meet the goals and performance
measures that are included in its approved scope of work for this sub-criterion? If so,
explain why. If not, explain why not.
North Carolina is making progress and implementing the activities and meeting the goals and
performance measures as approved in the scope of work for P(2) STEM. Since the in-depth P(2)
site visit in April 2013, measurable progress has been made in two project work streams
(delivery of development and support services to anchor and affinity schools, and development
of curricula for STEM courses) while there has been less progress on moving the STEM portal
from the development phase into the operational phase.
(P)(2) STEM Part B Narrative, North Carolina, 2013
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Develop four Anchor and sixteen Affinity Network STEM Schools
The Anchor and Affinity schools continue to receive professional development and coaching
services as outlined in the RttT scope of work in the 2013-14 school year, and records indicate
that in most cases North Carolina New Schools met or exceeded expectations for coaching and
professional development objectives for the 2012-13 year (see Table 1 and Table 2 below).
Through September and October of the 2013-14 school year, NC New Schools has already
conducted 129 days of instructional coaching and 37 days of leadership coaching for Anchor and
Affinity Schools. Preliminary findings from evaluation team reports indicate that both Anchor
and Affinity school participants perceive the professional development offered by NC New
Schools to be relevant to their work and of high quality.
Table 1: STEM Coaching and PD Days of Service for Anchor Schools, July2012-June 2013
Anchor Schools
Instructional Coaching
for Teachers
Leadership Coaching
for Principals
Professional
Development (teachers
& principals)
NC New School Service Report
July 2012 - June 2013
DSW
July 2012- June 2013
(actual days of service)
(planned days of service)
130.5
126
49
36
328
340
Table 2: STEM Coaching and PD Days of Service for Affinity Schools, July2012-June 2013
Affinity Schools
Instructional Coaching
for Teachers 3
Leadership Coaching
for Principals
Professional
Development4
(teachers & principals)
NC New School Service Report
July 2012 – June 2013
DSW
July 2012- June 2013
(actual days of service)
(planned days of service)
560
602
147
144
1154
1480
3
Coaching days were less than projected as schools requested North Carolina New Schools to not conduct coaching
during May and June due to testing and to ramp up these services in July and August (July/August will be reflected
in future reports).
4
PD was less than expected. The bulk of deficit is related to migrating from manual sign-in process resulting in
partial records to a digital database. Measures are being taken to ensure digital process is being followed in addition
to conducting a supplementary round of internal reporting at the end of each month to verify the final totals.
(P)(2) STEM Part B Narrative, North Carolina, 2013
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Another activity to support development of the Anchor and Affinity schools provides groups of
teachers from these schools with extended summer employment to help develop their school’s
STEM programs. A total of 78 teachers from all twenty schools participated in the program
during the summer of 2013. They developed and reviewed STEM based units of study and
reviewed curriculum in their schools themed focus of either: 1) biotechnology and agriscience, 2)
aviation, security, and advance manufacturing, 3) health and life sciences, or 4) energy and
sustainability. Teachers also attended professional development, created and implemented
additional STEM opportunities and participated in worked-based learning internships.
Schools also received resources to support equipment purchases to equip their schools themed
classrooms. All twenty schools have purchased equipment specific to their school theme.
Develop curriculum in four STEM areas to be shared with the North Carolina High
Schools
Curriculum design work continued in accordance with the contract awarded to North Carolina
School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM). Courses for Levels I and II for each of the
STEM areas have been developed and the materials are available for use and continued review
by teachers. The courses can be accessed and implemented as an entire course or as module
units for inclusion in other courses (such as math or science courses); the courses and units are
aligned to science, technology, mathematics and other essential standards as appropriate, as well
as the fourteen “Grand Challenges of Engineering”.
Teachers from the twenty Anchor and Affinity network schools and non-participating STEM
teachers have provided reviews of Level I and Level II course materials during their 2013
summer extended employment period. Teachers reported they worked on:

Using leveled content materials to incorporate and develop lesson plans for the classes
they teach

Modeling how to implement problem-based learning (PBL) in their classrooms and how
to introduce it to their faculty

Creating projects using the materials for use in the classrooms
Table 3 illustrates the steps in the process of developing, reviewing, and releasing the four levels
of courses that NC is providing to STEM schools through this initiative:
(P)(2) STEM Part B Narrative, North Carolina, 2013
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Table 3: Overview of Development Stages and Deadlines for STEM Courses
Course
Level5
Course
Developed/
Delivered by
NCSSM
Reviewed by
NCDPI STEM
Office
Reviewed by
Other NCDPI
Staff
RttT STEM
School Review
and Pilot
Statewide
Implementation
Time line**
Initial review of
materials:
Level I
November 15,
2012
December 2012
April 2013 *
May-Sept 2013
--------
SY 2014-2015
Full course
available for pilot:
SY 2013-2014
Initial review of
materials:
Level II
May 1, 2013
May 15, 2013
June 2013
July-Sept 2013
--------
SY 2014-2015
Full course
available for pilot:
SY 2013-2014
Initial review of
materials:
Feb-June 2014
Level III
December 16,
2013
December 31,
2013
January 2014
--------
2015-2016
Full course
available for pilot:
SY 2014-2015
Initial review of
materials:
June-Aug 2014
Level IV
May 1, 2014
May 5, 2014
May 2014
--------
2015-2016
Full course
available for pilot:
SY 2014-2015
5
One course per level (16 courses total) for each of the STEM focus areas: 1) biotechnology and agriscience, 2)
aviation, security, and advance manufacturing, 3) health and life sciences, or 4) energy and sustainability
(P)(2) STEM Part B Narrative, North Carolina, 2013
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*Course materials were loaded to Blue Host Server and put into Moodle format and reviewed by NCDPI.
**Course materials reviewed, changes made, and pilot tested; ready for statewide implementation.
The courses are currently available to teachers via the LEARN NC Moodle platform and a Dropbox
folder. NCSSM is working to tag courses and their content to relevant standards and to make materials
accessible through Home Base. This process will be ongoing during the 2013-14 school year.
The Level III courses remains under development and are on schedule for completion by
December 2013. Developers make materials for Level III courses available for teachers to use
and review as they complete them, though they cannot be implemented as a full course until the
full set of materials are available and have been reviewed. Development on Level IV courses is
on schedule to begin in January of 2014.
Develop a STEM Web Portal
RttT resources supported creation of a website that is planned for migration to a web portal. The
portal framework is developed and will become “The NC STEM Center” and will serve
Elementary, Middle, and High school teachers, students, parents, and community members. It
will link this group to NCDPI’s websites and Home Base and will provide the opportunity to
engage partners to Learn, Find, Share, and Connect STEM resources. In addition, the STEM
portal will be open to community colleges and four-year college students, businesses and out-ofschool STEM programs. The portal will provide a hub for everything STEM such as: grant
opportunities, supplementary STEM resources, and special programs such as FIRST Robotics
and Future Cities.
The work on the development of the STEM web portal has been completed. The vendor is in the
process of the final testing stages of the hosting site, though a go-live date has not been
identified.
STEM Recognition Program
The STEM Recognition Program provides an opportunity for schools to assess the quality of
their STEM school or program and receive acknowledgement for the work they have done. The
process involves completion of a detailed application and a self-assessment using the STEM
Attributes Implementation Rubric which provides a standard definition of STEM education and
lays out a self-assessment that schools can use to identify their status in developing a STEM
program (the rubric is available at: www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/stem/schools/rubrics/highschool.pdf).
Fifteen schools piloted the process in the spring of 2012-13. Feedback from the process led to
revisions in the application, and suggested that schools found the experience to be helpful in
thinking about their program and laying out a framework for improving their school’s STEM
focus or program.
Schools across the state will be able to participate in the program this year (applications will be
due of March 3rd, 2013); all 20 Anchor and Affinity Anchor Schools will participate as well in
order to assess their progress in meeting all eleven attributes outlined in the rubric.
As a part of the Application process, schools have to discuss how their program ties to the
Standard Course of Study for math, science, and technology. Since there are no essential
(P)(2) STEM Part B Narrative, North Carolina, 2013
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standards for engineering, NCDPI worked with faculty at North Carolina State University to
develop materials focused on Engineering Connections that allowed schools to assess how
developed their program was in providing instruction on engineering concepts such as systems
thinking (the rubric is available at: www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/stem/resources/engineeringconnections/gradesk-12.pdf). The addition of this item allows a more complete programmatic
review for STEM schools or programs.
2. Does the State have evidence indicating the quality of implementation for this subcriterion? What is/has the State doing/done as a result of this information?
While most of the schools did not begin until the 2012-13 school year, the Anchor and Affinity
schools have made great progress and are better positioned with a strong foundation in the
Design Principles and Common Instructional Framework encompassing teaching strategies such
as project based learning, data-based decision making, and teaching for results.
Preliminary findings from the third year report from the evaluation team indicated that teachers
perceived the professional development provided by the NC New Schools project had been of
medium to high quality, and that teachers and principals particularly appreciated the face-to-face
sessions. The findings noted that the efforts had focused more on pedagogy as opposed to
developing skills or content associated with the specific STEM themes for each of the schools,
though NCDPI is holding discussions with NC New Schools about how to address this in the
2013-14 school year. Requiring the 20 Anchor and Affinity schools to go through the STEM
Recognition Program in the 2013-14 school year is one way this is being addressed, and schools
will be required to think strategically about their programs.
For the STEM courses, NCSSM has tracked feedback from reviewers and teachers on the Level I
and II courses, using these to revise course materials ahead of making the full courses available
for piloting in the 2013-14 school year. NCDPI is working with NC New Schools and NCSSM
to track usage of these materials and additional feedback to make improvements and determine
how teachers are using the courses and course materials and how school are integrating the
courses into their course sequences.
Teachers and principals attended summer staff development, out-of-state residencies, review
curriculum, and participated in externships. Work produced by teachers is monitored in the work
plan submitted by each teacher in extended summer employment and the coaching records from
the North Carolina New Schools consultants, and teachers reported that this work helped them
better understand industry needs in their communities and that these enabled them to better use
STEM resources.
3. What obstacles and/or risks could impact the State’s ability to meet its goals and
performance measures related to this sub-criterion?
The following are several obstacles or risk factors that the state has encountered and could
impact the State’s ability to meet its goals and performance measures:

Leadership turnover has occurred at some schools, which creates a need to re-educate key
administrators on the school’s focus and plans related to STEM
(P)(2) STEM Part B Narrative, North Carolina, 2013
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
Maintaining flexibility for coaching content based on specific needs of the school and/or
the STEM area and ensuring that implementation of courses is done with sufficient rigor
is challenging

Finding teachers qualified to teach courses associated tithe STEM focus areas in the
Anchor and Affinity schools is a challenge for administrators

Keeping student project work and teacher professional development current with realworld business and industry applications and skill sets is challenging because of the
constantly evolving nature of the field and the fact that the community partnerships
linking the schools to business and industry in their regions are in the early stages of
development

Ensuring sufficient communication between vendors to integrate course development
with coaching in Anchor and Affinity schools is a challenge
Evaluation: Based on the responses to the previous question, evaluate the State’s performance and
progress to date for this sub-criterion (choose one)
Red (1)
6
Orange (2)
Yellow (3)
Green (4)6
Red – substantially off-track and/or has significant quality concerns; urgent and decisive action is required; Orange –off-track
and/or there are quality concerns; many aspects require significant attention; Yellow –generally on-track and of high or good
quality; only a few aspects require additional attention; Green – on-track with high quality.