DLA E-lert for August 31, 2009

Important Dates

Fall 2009 Early Calendar classes begin August 6.
Last day to enroll for Early Calendar: August 12.
Last day to drop for Early Calendar: August 19.
Fall 2009 Traditional and Credit Recovery courses begin on August 25.
Last Day to Register Traditional Calendar: Aug. 31.
Last Day to Drop Traditional Calendar: Sept. 8.


Registration Manual

Click this link to access the online user's manual for the new registration system. You can also find this in the DLA Spa in Blackboard.


Resource Guide

Click this link for an online resource guide for the Distance Learning Advisor.


Healthful Living and Health and P.E. Permission Form

DLAs, students you have enrolled in NCVPS's Healthful Living 9 week course or the Health and PE Course 18 week block course need to have their parent's permission as the course contains "Human Sexual Content." Completing this form is a requirement of DPI. Although you have registered your student(s) for the course, s/he (they) will not be put into the course until you have submitted the Parental Permission form.

You can fax this form to 919-513-2557, photocopy the form to Tammy Pearson at tpearson@dpi.state.nc.us, or you can snail mail the form to Tammy Pearson, NCVPS 1017 Main Campus Drive Partners I Building -Room # 1610, Raleigh, NC 27606

Please, make sure if you email the form to the parents of the students whom you have enrolled that they are aware that you have emailed them the form. This past semester the emailed form to the parent went into the parent's spam of her email account. It was by accident that this situation was discovered.

Download a PDF version of the form here.


Credit Recovery Survey

The NCVPS Credit Recovery staff works closely with the schools providing bi-weekly updates on Credit Recovery students to help keep you informed of their progress. To better serve you, we need some information on the Credit Recovery implementation at your school. If you could take a few moments of your time to complete a survey created to gather the informtion needed, we would greatly appreciate it.

For those of you that are new to the NCVPS Credit Recovery program, we have created several "training" pieces and published them in the DLA Spa under the Credit Recovery tab. We recommend you spend a few moments going through the training folder as it will help you understand the foundation and procedures for our program.

Link to Credit Recovery Survey

Message from DPI NCWISE Concerning Course Codes and EOC Testing for all Credit Recovery

Effective July 2009, credit recovery was redefined as earning credit for a course initially failed, either through partial modular remediation or taking the full course over again.

As a result:

1. Regardless of the amount or length of the course being repeated, the correct state course code for the subject must be used as designated by NCWISE. This includes courses taken through the NC Virtual Public School.

2. All courses (including those repeated by students who are recovering credit) must be entered into NC WISE. Courses must be entered either:

a. As a scheduled class (e.g., fall block, spring block, year-long), or

b. As a credit history record (e.g., summer school, afterschool, etc.).

Note: All course attempts must be entered into eSIS regardless of the outcome (e.g., failure, incomplete, credit awarded) and appear on the student’s transcript. It would not be appropriate to omit a course because a student failed the course.

3. When repeating all or part of a course that has an EOC requirement, all students taking the course must meet the EOC requirement.

a. If students are repeating the course and previously scored Level III or IV on the EOC, the student is NOT eligible to take the test again. In other words, once a student receives the proficiency standard, the test must not be administered again. For this student, the EOC score on record in NC WISE will be used as at least 25% of the student’s final grade in the course.

b. If a student is repeating a course and has failed to score an Achievement Level III or IV on the EOC previously, he/she is required to take the test again and the score must count as at least 25% of the final course grade.

4. To assist LEAs in monitoring who needs to be assessed at the end of the course and which students have EOC scores of Achievement Level III or IV on record, a new ABCTools report will be developed. The report will be by LEA by school by teacher. RACs will receive training on the new report in September.

For more details, please visist the DLA Spa in Blackboard.

Message from the Director's Blog

Just a note to thank you all for your support of the North Carolina Virtual Public School. Our record enrollment this fall has now swelled to over 15,300 students and climbing with a few days left.

Please visit our website at www.ncvps.org to see our back to school message and/or www.thevlc.org to see David Edwards recent blog on Seizing Opportunities for Students where he features Davidson County Schools whose leadership has elevated virtual learning from 38 students last spring to over 700 utilizing "the virtual advantage of NCVPS" this fall.

As you peruse the article, also check out the outstanding results nationally and in North Carolina below Dave's blog. Moreover, check out the site and think of ways your "talent" can blog in your school district to connect 21st Century Learners and Leaders.

Again, have a great start of school, and know that we are grateful to your central office staff, principals, and distance learning advisors who have made NCVPS such an integral part of what you do for kids and families.

Bryan

Seizing Opportunities for Students

It is said that true leaders are more fearful of missing opportunities than they are about taking risks. True leaders not only see opportunities, but they seize them. As educational leaders are we just seeing opportunities or are we seizing these opportunities for students? Are we worried about missing these opportunities for students? We should be!

This week I wanted to highlight Davidson County Schools and the leadership team for truly seizing the opportunity of NC Virtual Public School for students. Just last year, Davidson had only 32 students enrolled in online classes and they were struggling to figure out how to seize this opportunity. As of today (August 21), Davidson has the highest enrollment in the state at 578 students, equaling that of ALL charter schools enrolling students in NCVPS! Ben Terrell, the Distance Learning Advisor for Davidson County Schools has provided the spark that has ignited the leadership team to integrate virtual learning into the academic fabric of Davidson County. Kudos to Dr. Fred Mock, Ben Terrell and the leadership teams in Davidson County for seizing this opportunity for students.

NCVPS has seen a remarkable growth in its program, with a current Fall enrollment pushing 13,000 students. With state budget cuts still looming, schools have had to be very innovative in their business and many districts are beginning to see the true opportunity that online learning can bring to their students while keeping them fiscally sound in a difficult budget year. Regardless of budget, I wanted to commend those schools and districts who have championed online learning and have truly been more fearful of missing opportunities for students than they were of taking a risk with online learning.

Two reports below demonstrate that online learning is effective and I encourage you to read these and seize this opportunity to provide cutting edge, rigorous learning opportunities for your students. Please don’t miss the opportunity for your students’ sake!

USDOE Report Shows Online Outperforming Face to Face http://tinyurl.com/onlinestudy

NCVPS Evaluation Report from Friday Institute for Educational Innovation

http://www.ncvps.org/docs/results/ncvps_summary_presentation.ppt

Kick Down Doors, It’s a Great Day to Teach!

It has been said that a late, great football coach from the Glory Years of Alabama Crimson Tide football would often kick the hinges off the locker room doors when he wanted to inspire his football team. Legend has it, he would bark that it was a great day to play football, “so let ‘em all see you play boys.”

I never liked the idea of a closed door when I was a classroom teacher. Even as the North Carolina State Teacher of the Year it bothered me that many teachers across the state would shut their doors when they were teaching. It frustrates me that so many great teachers, who are doing amazing things in their classrooms, are shutting their doors and not sharing their successes. In fact, I think they should be screaming from the top of Grandfather Mountain (or Jockey’s Ridge in the East) about the wonderful learning going on in their classroom.

I feel the same about principals and other school leaders. I just can’t seem to get my head around the idea that the accomplishments, the experiments that succeed, the chances that are taken and work, and the wins, aren’t celebrated for every school leader and teacher to cheer for and to copy. If imitation is such a great compliment, then we all should be more open to be imitated—especially when we are talking about the education of North Carolina Public School Students.

With that said, I have recently spent some time in a number of counties that up until my visit were not sharing with other schools what they were doing as it pertained to virtual education. And the things that they were doing, they were great things.

So let us kick down some doors.

Continue reading here . . . .

DLA Webinar Part 1: Keys to Success and Good Support

NCVPS Virtual Open House

NCVPS will host three nights of Open Houses. Preview the new NCVPS courses, meet the instructors, and be informed about new features. DLAs, please inform your students and parents. Also, please try to attend.

Click on this link for access details.

Thursday, August 13, 2009
English Open House from 6 PM to 7 PM
Math Open House from 7 PM to 8 PM

Monday, August 17, 2009
Science Open House from 6 PM to 7 PM
Social Studies Open House from 7 PM to 8 PM

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Second Languages and Arts Education Open House from 6 PM to 7 PM
Electives (CTE), Healthful Living/Health and PE, and SAT Prep Open House from 7 PM to 8 PM

For access details, click here.

DLA E-Lert for August 10, 2009

Update DLA Contact Information

Please remember to update your contact information in the registration system. It is through the registration system that our teachers can contact you. Update your central office and school DLA contact information with your regional VLC. This way, the Virtual Learning Consultants can keep you informed and up to date on the happenings here at NCVPS.


NCVPS Open House

NCVPS will host three nights of Open Houses. Preview the new NCVPS courses, meet the instructors, and be informed about new features. DLAs, please inform your students and parents. Also, please try to attend.

Click on this link for access details.

Here's the schedule:

Thursday, August 13
English Open House from 6 PM to 7 PM
Math Open House from 7 PM to 8 PM

Monday, August 17
Science Open House from 6 PM to 7 PM
Social Studies Open House from 7 PM to 8 PM

Tuesday, August 18
Second Languages and Arts Education Open House from 6 PM to 7 PM
Electives (CTE), Healthful Living/Health and PE, and SAT Prep Open House from 7 PM to 8 PM
For access details, click here.


DLA Webinar Training Dates Announced

NCVPS will conduct two DLA webinar training sessions in the Wimba Live Classroom in the DLA Spa on the following dates:

August 12: 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

August 19: 9 a.m. to 11 a. m.

We will discuss strategic planning, the new registration system, credit recovery, school support, policies and procedures.


Registration User's Manual V2.0

Click here.


Healthful Living/Health and PE Permission Form

DLAs, students you have enrolled in NCVPS's Healthful Living 9 week course or the Health and PE Course 18 week block course need to have their parent's permission as the course contains "Human Sexual Content." Completing this form is a requirement of DPI. Although you have registered your student(s) for the course, s/he (they) will not be put into the course until you have submitted the Parental Permission form.

You can fax this form to 919-513-2557, photocopy the form to Tammy Pearson at tpearson@dpi.state.nc.us, or you can snail mail the form to Tammy Pearson, NCVPS 1017 Main Campus Drive Partners I Building -Room # 1610, Raleigh, NC 27606

Please, make sure if you email the form to the parents of the students whom you have enrolled that they are aware that you have emailed them the form. This past semester the emailed form to the parent went into the parent's spam of her email account. It was by accident that this situation was discovered.

Download a PDF version of the form here.


Master List of NCVPS Course Codes

Click here.


Pilot Course - Russian I

NCVPS is offering Russian I as a pilot in the fall and we would really like to get the word out to your principals and students. We have found quite a few Russian speaking families throughout NC who would like for their children to learn the language. Please see the flyer below for promoting the course and also there are 2 spreadsheets that detail the number of Russian speaking families identified in your counties. Please review those for more information.

If you would like to more information on our Russian I course, please contact roman.bouchev@ncmail.net.

Preview for DLA Training

The 21st Century Blended Ecosystem

Dr. Bryan Setser, CEO of the North Carolina Virtual Public School, will share strategic vision, development, and examples of 21st Century Blended Ecosystems for learners, teachers, and professionals. Whether you are in a state agency, virtual position, superintendent, and/or classroom teacher - this session is designed to be "disruptive" for leaders, teachers, and learners who want to transform their school district, school, and/or classroom into a blended learning community and/or virtual ecosystem. Dr. Setser will share drivers and barriers for e-leaning as well as lessons learned and promising practices for educators to model from around the nation.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to hear strategies and processes from one of the nation's foremost educational leaders on twitter, face book, and a host of social educational networks. Participants will also be able to engage in live feedback while at the presentation so bring your laptop and/or follow the discussion on Twitter by searching for the hashtag #ncvps. It you are tweeting today's event, be sure to add the hashtag #ncvps to the end of your tweet.




To view references in this presentation, click here.

To view the Friday Institute Summary, click here.

The No-Zero Policy

The no-zero policy is a hotly debated and emotionally charged topic.

As a virtual school, NCVPS faces unique barriers not faced at the traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Many of our students, parents, and districts are new to the virtual learning environment. Our teachers have students who are spread out across the state, and we see a wide variety of support from district to district.

To help overcome these barriers, we adopted the no-zero policy, along with an array of other procedures, to increase student success.

The heart of a no-zero policy is not an attack on the number 0. It is, instead, a reevaluation of the weight . . . the disproportional weight . . . of failing grades.

Passing grades (A, B, C and D) are broken down in increments of 8 from 70 to 100, but there is a 70-point spread for the failing grade of F. With that margin, a failing grade is weighted 9 times heavier than a passing grade. And it’s a margin that is often mathematically impossible for struggling students to overcome.

Why would we stack failing grades against a struggling student? What purpose does it serve, and how does it help the student find success?

Those are the questions at the heart of the no-zero policy.

Continue reading . . . .

DLA E-Lert for July 31, 2009

DLA E-lerts Moving to Mondays

We will start publishing the e-lert on Mondays. Look for the next e-lert on Monday, August 10th.

DLA Webinar Training Dates Announced

NCVPS will conduct two DLA webinar training sessions in the Wimba Live Classroom in the DLA Spa on the following dates:

August 12: 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

August 19: 9 a.m. to 11 a. m.

We will discuss strategic planning, the new registration system, credit recovery, school support, policies and procedures.


IMPORTANT DATES!

Summer Session 2009 ends on Monday, August 10.

Fall 2009 Early Calendar classes begin Thursday, August 6.

Fall 2009 Traditional and Credit Recovery courses begin on Tuesday, August 25.

Virtual Office Hour for DLAs with VLCs

Wednesday, August 5th, starting at 9:00 - The Virtual Office Hour (VOH) will feature topics on: Preparing for the fall semester, Upcoming webinar sessions, Your Getting Started Resources, and any questions and concerns our DLAs would like to bring to our attention.

To connect to the Wimba live classroom, click here! Sign in as a particiapant with our name or school name.

Join us for the August 5th VOH!


NCVPS Credit Recovery Update for Week 7

In the Reports tab in the NCVPS Registration System, you will find your Credit Recovery Student Status Report through the SIXTH week of class as of this past Monday, July 27. This week is our seventh week of summer session and next week, the week of August 3, is the last week of summer session.

The last day for students to turn in work is August 7th! Students who mastered the entire course will receive a final numerical grade, and these final grades will be delivered to the Reports tab in the registration system on August 11. For those students who do not master the courses, a designation of NonMastery will be recorded for those students on the final grade report. It is the school’s responsibility to communicate final grades to students.

You will need a NEW password for the registration system, and your Virtual Learning Consultant (Adam Renfro, Melissa Davis, Connie Joyner, or James Bell) will provide you with that information. If you do not have access to the Registration System, please contact your school's DLA of record.

On the status report, you will see the complete units the student has mastered as of last week, the teacher's status for this student, and comments from the teacher. Please contact your students' teachers for any additional information. They will be glad to provide you additional feedback, etc.

On Monday, July 27, the teachers emailed out all Mastery Chart information to you that also went to the students through the messaging system in Blackboard. If you did not receive a Mastery Chart for a student, please contact the teacher or me!

Thank you for all of your support and let me know how we can help!

Jennifer Nobles, Credit Recovery Specialist, jnobles@dpi.state.nc.us


Update DLA Contact Information!

Please remember to update your contact information in the registration system. It is through the registration system that our teachers can contact you. Update your central office and school DLA contact information with your regional VLC. This way, the Virtual Learning Consultants can keep you informed and up to date on the happenings here at NCVPS.