September 11, 2013 NEW THIS WEEK • NCDPI Partners with UNC-­‐TV for NC Schools + You Program • ACRE Stakeholders Assess Progress • Fall Professional Development Institutes for Colleges and Universities • Information on Performance Targets in Race to the Top-­‐District Competition • K-­‐3 Formative Assessment Process Update Webinar IN CASE YOU MISSED IT • Welcome to the 2013-­‐14 School Year! • Home Base Rolls Out • Informing Instructional Improvement through Data Literacy • Updates for Math, Social Studies and ELA • Race to the Top-­‐District Competition FY 2013 NEW THIS WEEK NCDPI Partners with UNC-­‐TV for NC Schools + You Program North Carolina is squarely in the midst of many significant changes in our public schools. There is much to know about teaching and learning in North Carolina, the progress we have made and the challenges that lie before us. It can even be difficult for educators who are in our schools every day to keep up with all of the new initiatives. And as all of these moving parts are being put in place, it is crucial that we keep parents well informed as change is happening. That is why the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has partnered with UNC-­‐TV to produce an hour-­‐long program, North Carolina Schools and You: What Changes in Our Schools Mean for Parents and Students. It will be broadcast on Thursday, September 19 at 10 p.m. on UNC-­‐TV. The program, also featuring NC parents and supporters of public schools, will repeat on Friday, September 27 at 4:30 p.m. North Carolina Schools and You – an hour-­‐long show in a "town hall meeting" format – will offer information and discussion around recent important changes in public schools and how parents can be more productively engaged in their children’s success. Specific topics include: -­‐ Teaching and Learning: What Students Are Learning and How; -­‐ Measuring Performance: New Assessments and Accountability Model; and -­‐ Parent Engagement: How Parents Can Support Learning. A studio audience comprising parents and supporters of public schools will be invited to ask questions of State Superintendent June Atkinson and additional senior officials from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), a partner in the production of this program. We encourage principals and teachers to share this information with your parents and encourage them to watch, as it will serve as a great source to help you as you explain the new Standard Course of Study, testing and other changes affecting their children. A Viewer’s Guide to accompany the show is being sent to superintendents, principals, teachers and supporters later this week. It also will soon be posted on our website, www.ncpublicschools.org/ready/resources. MORE INFO: Michael Yarbrough, Communication and Information Services, michael.yarbrough@dpi.nc.gov ACRE Stakeholders Assess Progress Taking stock is always a good thing. Five years ago, a Blue Ribbon Commission set forth a vision that resulted in the State Board of Education's list of key recommendations for a Framework for Change -­‐ key steps to significantly improve North Carolina's Standard Course of Study. This work was known as the Accountability and Curriculum Reform Effort (ACRE). In August 2013, a group of ACRE external stakeholders who helped to shape our efforts from the beginning of this work came together to discuss our progress. Read more about it in State Superintendent June Atkinson’s latest blog entry, at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/statesuperintendent/blog/ Fall Professional Development Institutes for Colleges and Universities We want our LEA and charter school educators to be aware that many of our Institutes of Higher Learning (IHE) partners participated in our 2013 Summer Institutes in Durham and Greensboro last July. Two additional Institutes are scheduled this month in Hickory and Greenville for IHEs to continue our alignment efforts to improve educator candidate readiness. This year, IHEs are also invited to regional Beginning Teacher program review meetings in an effort to support districts with partnership MOUs and teacher preparation program feedback. MORE INFO: The IHEs have already registered for these events, but if you have questions, please contact Dr. Lynne Johnson, Educator Effectiveness, lynne.johnson@dpi.nc.gov Information on Performance Targets in Race to the Top-­‐District Competition The application for the second round of Race to the Top-­‐District awards includes performance targets for the number and percentage of students who will be taught by effective and highly effective teachers, as well as served by effective and highly effective principals. According to North Carolina's approved Race to the Top plan and waiver from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, no teacher or principal in North Carolina will receive a status of effective or highly effective until the start of the 2015-­‐16 school year. The NCDPI recommends that districts list "NA" for the performance targets related to Educator Effectiveness until the 2014-­‐15 school year. This approach is in accordance with how the State reports performance measures on educator effectiveness in the Annual Performance Report for Race to the Top. NOTE: Information for applying for the RttT-­‐District grant is available under the “In Case You Missed It” section of this Update. MORE INFO: Jennifer Preston, Educator Effectiveness, Jennifer.Preston@dpi.nc.gov or (919) 807-­‐4187. K-­‐3 Formative Assessment Process Update Webinar In response to legislation passed by NC General Assembly, and to meet requirements of the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant, NCDPI’s Office of Early Learning is collaborating with a wide range of dedicated NC stakeholders to design a developmentally appropriate, individualized formative assessment process for K-­‐3 children. The vision for this formative assessment process has been established to meet the needs of all students. The process will be aligned with both North Carolina’s Early Learning and Development Standards and the NC Standard Course of Study (CCSS and NC Essential Standards). Through observations, conversations, work samples, and embedded tasks, NC educators will be able to provide timely instructional opportunities and facilitate student growth. A webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 17, from 3:30–4:30 pm. Office of Early Learning K-­‐3 Assessment staff will provide updates about the development process and recent activities. Participants will also be informed of upcoming opportunities for involvement. To register for the webinar, please visit https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/218106361. Once you have registered, you will receive an email with participation instructions. If you are unable to attend, the webinar will be recorded and posted on the NCDPI K-­‐3 Assessment wiki: rtt-­‐elc-­‐k3assessment.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/. MORE INFO: Kathleen Koltz, Office of Early Learning, Kathleen.Koltz@dpi.nc.gov IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Welcome to the 2013-­‐14 School Year! The 2013-­‐14 school year has gotten off to a great start for our traditional schools! We know that this is the year that the hard work from our Race to the Top initiative will begin to show great results for students across the state. State Superintendent June Atkinson has created a welcome back message for our educators across the state. Please visit http://www.ncpublicschools.org/statesuperintendent/ news/multimedia/video/ and look under Welcome Back Message 2013. Home Base Rolls Out Home Base is here! The NCDPI, working with vendor partners Pearson, Public Consulting Group and Truenorthlogic, has rolled out Home Base for the 2013-­‐14 kick-­‐off year, delivering this large-­‐scale technology project for public schools on time and within budget. Home Base provides digital tools and learning resources for local educators, students and parents at all schools in the 115 local school districts and public charter schools in North Carolina. State funds and federal Race to the Top (RttT) grant funding covered development and implementation costs for this ambitious technology project. Home Base features a new student information system, PowerSchool, that replaces an outdated, decades-­‐old one. PowerSchool, with updated security features, will better connect schools to students and their families and will provide comprehensive reports to help teachers develop more informed instruction. PowerSchool was the first portion of Home Base to go live for local schools. MORE INFO: Visit www.ncpublicschools.org and click on appropriate link under News Releases Informing Instructional Improvement through Data Literacy Wikispace pages provide educators with a five stage, cyclical process for data-­‐driven decision-­‐making. A fillable fishbone diagram is available for download and can be used to identify causes and effects in a classroom, school or district setting based on data analysis. A data action plan template can be downloaded and used to develop a SMART goal, determine specific strategies to be implemented and identify data sources to be used to assess goal achievement. Additional resources related to each of the five stages of the data-­‐driven decision-­‐making process are also available on the wikispace pages. The Informing Instructional Improvement Through Data Literacy web pages can be found here: http://si2013.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/Informing+Instructional+ Improvement+Through+Data+Literacy MORE INFO: Dr. Lynne Johnson, lynne.johnson@dpi.nc.gov or Lisa Amerson, lisa.amerson@dpi.nc.gov, Educator Effectiveness Updates for Math, Social Studies and ELA Check out the following links for updated resources in math, social studies and English language arts: Building the Language of Mathematics for Students (Vocabulary) Mathematically proficient students communicate precisely by engaging in discussions about their reasoning using appropriate mathematical language. The terms students should learn to use at each grade level with increasing precision are included in these documents, which can be found at http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/Elementary http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/Sixth+Grade http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/Fourth+Grade K-­‐5 Revised Unpacking Documents can be found at http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/Elementary 2012-­‐2013 K-­‐2 Mid-­‐Year and Summative Assessments have been released; they are now posted on the Mathematics wiki, which is posted at http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/Elementary 3-­‐5 Formative Instructional and Assessment Tasks for the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics -­‐ now posted on the mathematics wiki at http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/Elementary The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction in partnership with Meredith College developed and delivered the first state-­‐wide professional development on the new high school mathematics sequence: Math I, Math II, and Math III. Resources from that training can be found at https://sites.google.com/a/meredith.edu/ccssm_pd/ The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has also posted a Math I, II, and III Resources List and FAQ at http://maccss.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/High+School Social Studies Update: The Revision of the Cultural Studies Elective Courses The Cultural Studies Writing Team recently completed the revision of three Cultural Studies Electives: African American Studies, American Indian Studies and Latin American Studies. You may access the Essential Standards for each of the courses on the K-­‐12 Social Studies Wiki Site at http://ssnces.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/Essential+Standards These new standards are ready for implementation during the 2013-­‐2014 school year. Unpacking Documents will be released this fall. Common Exam/MSLs for these courses will not be implemented until the 2014-­‐2015 school year. ELA Update: Navigating Text Complexity Educators from 12 states, including NC, came together to create a collection on online tools to navigate text complexity and text selection. This resource includes: text complexity roadmaps, model text sets, support tools for analyzing texts, text-­‐
dependent question resources, and sample lesson videos. This information can be found at http://www.ccsso.org/Navigating_Text_Complexity.html Honors Implementation & Review Reminder There are resources for LEAs to use on the Honors Implementation Wikispace with the development and implementation of honors level courses. LEAs will find the most current information for Honors Implementation and State-­‐level Review at: http://honorsimplementation.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/ MORE INFO: Dr. Robin McCoy, Academic Services and Instructional Support, robin.mccoy@dpi.nc.gov Race to the Top-­‐District Competition FY 2013 The US Department of Education (USED) recently announced details for the second round of the Race to the Top District (RttT-­‐D) competition, and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is aware that many LEAs across the state plan to submit applications. As with the first round of RttT-­‐D in 2012, USED requires that each applicant “must provide its state at least 10 business days to comment on the LEA’s application.” As we did in 2012, the NCDPI will assist LEAs in meeting this requirement. The process (described in the attached letter) will be the same as it was in Round 1. If your LEA or charter school is developing an application, the NCDPI requests that you do the following two things: ·∙ Submit an email to racetothetop@dpi.nc.gov NO LATER THAN 5 pm on Monday, Aug. 26 indicating you intend to submit an application for the Race to the Top-­‐District Competition; and ·∙ Submit an electronic copy of your application and executive summary to racetothetop@dpi.nc.gov NO LATER THAN 5 pm on Monday, Sept. 16 (if you are applying as a part of a consortium of LEAs, you should coordinate and submit only ONE copy of the application). This will allow the NCDPI the time necessary to complete the state review process, and in turn, time for the LEAs to meet the Thursday, Oct. 3 deadline for submission to USED. As in 2012, the NCDPI's review will focus solely on whether or not a district’s plan aligns with the state’s RttT Detailed Scope of Work. MORE INFO: Eric Thanos, Race to the Top Project Coordinator, eric.thanos@dpi.nc.gov; USED RttT-­‐D website, http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-­‐district/index.html) RACE TO THE TOP WEEKLY UPDATE INFO If you know someone who would like to be on this list, please send their email address(es) to Michael.Yarbrough@dpi.nc.gov. ***LINKS: PC users might need to press the CTRL button when clicking on a hyperlink in this document. Archived Race to the Top Weekly Updates are available online at: http://www.ncpublicschools.org/rttt/reports/weekly