NCAE SBE REVIEW Hurricane Florence Facts and Ways to Support the 28 Counties Impacted by This Natural Disaster
28 Counties FEMA Impacted: 32 School Districts and 582 schools. 156 Schools were used as shelters, with 4 schools still serving as a shelter for 600 families. School Nutrition Staff have been part of the first responders providing meals for families and the emergency first responders.
Key items from the October State Board Meeting Under ESSA, beginning in the 2017–18 school year, subgroup School Performance Grades and growth is calculated for the following nine student subgroups: American Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Two or More Races, White, Students who are Economically Disadvantaged, English Learners, and Students with Disabilities. The following information presents subgroup information for letter grades and growth.
NEA MB and its business partners stand ready to assist members by providing resources to affected members and affiliates, and special accommodations to NEA memberparticipants in NEA MB programs. A specially designed DRP Web page at www.neamb.com/disasterassistance.htm provides details about the resources and accommodations available to affected members. The North Carolina Foundation for Public School Children wants to provide support to public s school educators impacted by the storm and its aftermath: https://www.ncfpsc.org/fundraising/ heroes-to-the-rescue
Florence Aid to Students and Teachers of North Carolina - FAST NC - is an effort led by a bipartisan group of current and former North Carolina education leaders to help the state’s public schools as students and educators struggle to return to normal following Hurricane Florence and its impact. Citizens, businesses, and other organizations are encouraged to visit ncpublicschools.org/fastnc to find out how to donate to the effort.
The Every Student Succeeds Act requires the identification of schools based on a state’s accountability model. The designations required include Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) schools and Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) schools. Within each designation, there are more specific designations: 1. Comprehensive Support and Improvement – There are 77 Low Performing (CSI-LP): Title 1 served schools whose overall School Performance Grade is in the lowest 5% of all Title 1 served schools. For the 2017–18 school year, the score that represents the lowest 5% of Title 1 schools is 37 of a possible 100. Occurring every three years, this identification will take place again after the 2020–21 school year.
2. Comprehensive Support and Improvement – There are 42 Low Graduation Rate (CSI- LG): Schools whose all students graduation rate is 66.7% or below 3. Targeted Support and Improvement –There are 1,740 Consistently Underperforming Subgroups (TSI-CU) (2018–19 designations are considered a watch list until at least 2 years of data is available to determine consistent performance). Schools who have a subgroup who achieve a letter grade of ‘F’ for the most recent and previous 2 years. This designation will take place annually. 4. Targeted Support and Improvement – There are 1,634 Additional Targeted Support (TSI-AT): Schools who have a subgroup letter grade below the highest CSI – LP School Performance Grade. Designation Number of Schools this link provides the list of schools in need of improvement and the sub group data by LEA, and school. School Improvement grants authorized under section 1003(a) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) are grants for use in the State’s lowestachieving schools. These funds are reserved from the State Education Agency’s (SEA’s) Title I, Part A funds to make discretionary grants available to local education agencies (LEAs) who have already received formula grants from the same section of ESSA. Based on flexibility offered in ESSA, the State may determine that an LEA may apply for additional school improvement funds through a discretionary grant process for eligible schools identified under the federally-approved definition for “Comprehensive Support and Improvement” (CSI). ESSA defines CSI schools as: 1. Not less than the lowest-performing 5 percent of all schools in the State receiving Title I funds; and 2. All public high schools in the State failing to graduate one-third or more of their students
The Council for Exceptional Children is established in federal and state law as an Advisory Council to the State Board of Education. The current Vice Chair is NCAE member Vickie Simmons of Guilford County. Their annual report has the following recommendations for the State Board and NC DPI to consider and act upon: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
All school level improvement teams should include at least one parent of a student with special needs. All district level advisory groups should include at least one special education teacher and one parent of a student with special needs. State Superintendent Parent Advisory Council should include at least one parent of a student with special needs. Add EC involvement in School Safety Advisory committees with a focus on ensuring students with significant needs (cognitive or physical) are appropriately planned for during an emergency. A variety of appropriate and meaningful assessments are needed for students with significant cognitive disabilities. These assessments should be individualized based on the unique needs of the student. The Mental Health Tiered Support program needs to be inclusive of students with special needs.
7. EC teachers pursuing Adapted Curriculum (K-12) licensure should be considered exempt from the Pearson’s Mathematics Skills and Reading Foundations licensure requirements as the assessments do not align with the standards expected to be taught to students on the Extended Content Standards.
One of the State’s ESSA pillars for success is to focus on personalized learning plans for students. The SBE heard an example of how Shufford Elementary School in Newton-Conover has implemented Personalized Learning; by creating an Individualized Learning Path to provide the support students need to continue to grow and be challenged. Teachers stated they have been empowered to lead with their strengths and passions and their students are reaching academic goals with this method of reorganizing the school day and schedule.
Career and Technical Education Credentials Update: Students in North Carolina earned 276,561 credentials The top six CTE Credential areas: Construction Education & Research, Microsoft Office Specialist, CPR Health Care Provider, Mechanical Safety. LEAs with more than 8,000 CTE Credentials earned: Wake, Gaston, Harnett, Randolph, Onslow, Union, Guilford, Pitt, Cumberland, and Rowan-Salisbury.
The 2018 K-8 Mathematics textbook recommendations were approved by North Carolina State Board of Education.