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Districts and Charter Schools,
Please forward this E-lert to your school-level stakeholders. We often have enrollment information for counselors, grades for data managers, tips for lab facilitators, announcements for testing coordinators, and strategies for school leaders, all of whom support your district's and school's e-learning efforts. If you are having difficulty viewing this email, you may view it as a web page here.
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NCVPS E-lert - March 23, 2017 - Spring Edition VIII (Progress Reports Posted Today!)
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Spring 2017
Start Dates
Early Calendar: Jan. 4
Traditional Calendar:
Jan. 23
Last Day to Drop and Add
Early Calendar: Jan. 18
Traditional Calendar: Feb. 8
This is the last day districts and schools can drop students with no penalty for the student and no cost for the district or charter.
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Connect with us on Twitter! Find us here. Tweet to us on Twitter at @ncvps or with the hashtag #ncvps. |
If you are not on the E-lert subscription list, but would like to be, please add your name to our list here.
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The last day to register for credit recovery courses and to transfer in students is Friday, March 24.
We posted our newest progress reports in the registration system today. This is for all classes.
We hope to open registration in late March or early April. We are still working on some final details for registration.
Important From Last Week!
In addition, be sure to check out all of our tips and reminders in this week's e-
lert
.
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 ELA of the Year Nominees Announced |
Our search for this year's E-Learning Advisor of the Year is underway!
NCVPS teachers and staff members have nominated educators at the school or district level who have a positive impact on their NCVPS students.
Nominations have included individuals working in various roles such as the e-learning advisor, lab facilitator, EC coordinator, data manager, principal, and even the district e-learning coordinator.
We are proud to announce the following names of educators who were nominated
Kendra Hargett-Chamblee - Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools - Carrboro High School
Robin Lamb - Orange County Schools - Cedar Ridge High School
Katy Bradley - Rutherford County Schools - Rutherford Co Early College
Neal Dorow - New Hanover County Schools - Eugene Ashley High School
Debra Almanza - Jones County Schools - Jones Middle School
Nartarshia Sharpe - Wake County Public School System - Crossroads Flex
Brenda Drye - Union County Public Schools UCPS District Office
Deborah Dishman - Caldwell County Schools - Oak Hill Elementary School
Deborah Ellis - Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools - East Chapel Hill High School
Todd Cardwell - Caldwell County Schools - Gamewell Middle School
Aileen Will - Carteret County Public Schools - East Carteret High School
Matthew French - Guilford County Schools - Early Middle College at Guilford Tech Community College Jamestown
Amanda Housand - Union Academy Charter School - Union Academy Charter School
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| Early Calendar Phase Out / OCS Update |
As you may know, NCVPS will be phasing out all
Early
Calendar course offerings during the 2017-2018 school year. Please know that throughout this transitional period, NCVPS remains committed to partnering with our districts and schools to meet the needs of students.
What to Expect
Fall 2017: OCS courses will continue to be offered in both the
Early
Calendar
and Traditional
Calendar
formats.
Spring 2018: Beginning with the Spring 2018 semester, OCS courses will only be available in the Traditional
Calendar
format. However, our NCVPS teachers are prepared to work closely with your school's co-teachers to provide "lesson plans" for students who may be
online and ready to go before our Traditional Calendar OCS courses begin. Additionally, we are able to adjust pacing as needed to ensure course end dates meet the needs of your specific school.
Yearlong 2017-2018: Fall 2017 will be the last time that schools will have the option to enroll into Yearlong OCS courses in both the
Early
Calendar
or Traditional
Calendar
format. Moving forward, Yearlong OCS courses will only be available in the Traditional
Calendar
format.
Why is NCVPS Making This Change?
Over the past several years, we have seen a steady decline in
Early
Calendar
enrollments, including
Early
Calendar
OCS enrollments. While the
Early
Calendar
offerings have been welcomed by some of our district partners, managing the set up and implementation of these separate
calendar
courses has proven to be extremely taxing to NCVPS resources for the few students impacted. By consolidating our
calendars
, we are able to more effectively serve students across the state.
Again, please know that NCVPS remains committed to working with each of our schools to make this transition smooth.
Contact Info
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| NCVPS Code for AP Tests |
We would like to request that ELAs contact their school's
AP testing coordinator to remind them about the NCVPS school code when students take their AP tests.
Please have students input the NCVPS
code (045) into the 'Online Provider
Code' found on page 1, item G, of the student's
AP answer sheet during administration of the exam. This will allow NCVPS to receive a copy of their May 2017 test scores for our records. These scores are needed as part of the accountability piece for NCVPS.
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| NCVPS Calendars and Catalog |
Early Calendar Courses
Please note that we are phasing out our early calendar. We will only offer early calendar courses in the fall of 2017, and that will only be for OCS courses. We typically have low enrollment numbers for early calendar, and this puts a strain on our teacher pool as teachers have a limit in the number of sections they can teach. An early calendar section of a course may only have seven students in it, but a traditional calendar section may have 25-30 students in it. So the early calendar offering greatly impacts the number of students we can serve.
We are sorry for this inconvenience, but our teachers, of course, will work with early calendar students to help them finish their courses early if they need to.
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| Current Enrollment Options |
Our Spring 2017 enrollment has closed. However, we still have a number of options for schools.
Credit Recovery: Credit recovery enrollment will remain open until March 24, 2017 Schools can continue to enroll in credit recovery courses that have open seats.
OCS: Schools can continue to enroll in existing OCS sections throughout the semester. We cannot open new sections at this time.
1/2 Credit Health and 1/2 Credit PE Courses: Registration for our 2nd 9-week health courses will remain open until March 21.
Transfer Students: We are now accepting transfers for students who meet our transfer criteria. Transfer students must already be enrolled in a traditional course at the school with an instructor AND have a grade to transfer in with. If a student has a grade to transfer in with, open a ticket with our virtual support center, and include this information:
Student's Name:
Course Needed:
Is course Year long or Block?
Grade Level:
Numeric Transfer Grade:
The school's support plan if student does not have a passing transfer grade:
Reason for Transfer:
Student's School:
Student's PowerSchool Number:
Student's Email: (do not use ELA's email address)
Student's Phone Number:
Does the student have an IEP? (yes/no):
Does the student have a 504 Plan? (yes/no):
Is the student an English Language (EL) learner? (yes/no):
Parent Contact information:
We are able to accept transfer students through March 24, 2017, for traditional calendar courses.
Flex Learning (formerly Mastery Learning): Our Flex Learning program will help students who have a special or hardship situation. If any of the above options work for a student, you will need to use those options, but when you are out of options,
check out the details here for
Flex Learning enrollment.
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| Grade Report Updates |
What Grades Are Currently Posted?
March 23:
Progress Reports Posted in the NCVPS Registration System
What's Next on the Schedule?
March 30: Final Grades for 9-week Health and 9-week PE Courses Posted in the NCVPS Registration System
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| Reporting Overview |
See how your students are progressing! We post progress reports every two weeks in the registration system. These are unweighted grades.
Final Grade Report
Only our final grade report is a weighted grade report.
Student Status (No-Show) Reports
NCVPS posts student status reports after the third and seventh days of class. These reports indicate if students have logged in or not to their NCVPS courses. These reports are early warning indicators for schools.
Additional Grade Reporting Resources
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| Canvas App for Parents |
Parents and facilitators can now download the
CanvasParent
app in both the
iTunes and
Google Play stores.
Parents and facilitators will need student login information to set up their parent accounts. This will have to come from the school. NCVPS cannot supply login credentials to parents or facilitators. Check with your school's e-learning advisor (ELA).
The
Canvas Parent
app is designed to provide visibility into a student's progress at a glance.
Canvas Parent allows both parents and facilitators to:
- View assignment descriptions and due dates
- Set reminders for assignments
- View assignment grades
- View course grades
- Set grade alerts
- View course announcements
Here are several helpful links:
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| NCFE Testing Update |
Please remember that districts and charter schools must test
all students enrolled in NCVPS courses that have a North Carolina Final Exam. This includes OCS courses that are taught jointly between the LEA and NCVPS.
Twenty-eight courses have NCFEs:
English 1, 3, 4
American History: Civics, World History, American History 1 and 2
Physical Science, Earth/Environmental Science, Chemistry, Physics
Math 2, Math 3, Advanced Functions and Modeling, Pre-Calculus
Please check your rosters to see if you have students enrolled in these courses with NCVPS. You will need to administer the NCFE test to them. You do not need to report the scores back to NCVPS, but you will need it to determine the final grade for students in those courses.
DPI's Accountability Services will communicate with districts and charters about the testing windows.
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| NCVPS Report Card Update |
Beginning Fall 2016, NCVPS will no longer report two grading period averages for students. Instead, NCVPS will report cumulative progress reports every two weeks. At the end of the semester, we will report a Final Course Work grade.
In the past, our weighted grades for report cards looked like this:
First Grading Period: 37.5%
Second Grading Period: 37.5%
Final Exam/Project: 25%
*Schools administered EOC and CTE Exams and averaged in those scores with our two grading period averages.
Now, our weighted grades will look like this:
Final Course Work Grade: 75%
Final Exam/Project: 25%
*Schools now administer EOC, NCFE, and CTE Exams and average in those scores with our Final Course Work grade.
As always, schools may recalculate grades if the district policy has different weights for the final exams.
NOTE: NCVPS progress report grades are not weighted grades. Therefore, our progress report grades would not be accurate for schools to use when they are generating their weighted Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 or Midterm and End term (or whatever variation a district might use) report card grades. The school's final averages and NCVPS's final course work grade will not match each other when districts do this.
A number of districts are only entering NCVPS grades at the end of the term. Districts use a similar method when students take courses at the local community college. These districts are sending home separate NCVPS progress reports when they mail home progress reports, Quarter 1, or Midterm grades.
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NCVPS teachers have a lot of great tips to share with online students and the support crews who facilitate their learning. "They know a thing or two because they've seen a thing or two."
Save Your Work - A Backup Plan
Having students save their work is an important step in protecting hours of hard work and the effort they have made in their NCVPS course. We have a plan for them, which utilizes sound internet backup and security procedures. Read the details on our website here.
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Chromebook Update
Google Chromebooks are currently supported for NCVPS Courses.
Google Chromebook and Chrome OS are possible options for you to consider to support your learning at NCVPS. While NCVPS learning environments are fully compatible with Google Chromebooks, some third party content within your courses may not yet be updated to meet the requirements set forth within the Chrome Operating System. If you experience an interruption in your learning, please open a help desk ticket at
help.ncvps.com and we will make reasonable accommodations to support your learning experience.
Support Center Tickets in Canvas
Students are able to open a help ticket with our Virtual Support Center when they are logged into Canvas.
When "Page Not Found" appears users should open a Virtual Support tickets by clicking on the ? Help button then clicking on "Enter a NCVPS Help Desk Ticket."
Password Reset
If you have had your password reset, the new password will not expire unless you have reset it. If you have forgotten what your password was reset to, you can look up the help desk ticket to access the new password or click on "Forgot Password".
Course Issues
When requesting help regarding a course it always easier for tech support to respond quickly if we have the specific section name, for example:
CourseSec01Sum16
Opening a Ticket with the Virtual Support Center
When opening a ticket with the virtual support center, please always include the following:
- Student's first & last name
- PowerSchool ID number (This will help ensure we have the correct student)
- School name (full name, i.e. Eastern Mills High School, not EMHS)
- Course name - if the student is already enrolled, include specific section, i.e. CourseSec01Sum16.
If you need a new student account for a student who is new to PowerSchool (not just transferring schools), include the following:
- Your full school name (i.e. Eastern Mills High School, not EMHS)
- The student's first and last name
- The student's PowerSchool ID number
- The student's email address
- The student's phone number (the contact number this will be in PowerSchool)
- Does the student have an IEP? Yes/No
- Does the student have a 504 Plan? Yes/No
Replying to a Support Center Ticket
After you submit a ticket to the Virtual Support Center, you will receive a ticket confirmation and resolution via email. To expedite your resolution, please do not reply to the email. The email will have a link in it for your response. Please click on that link (see below).
This will put the ticket right back in the queue of the person who is working on your ticket. If you reply to the email, then that will have to be manually put into the ticket, and that can delay the process by several hours.
Student Email Confirmations in Canvas
In Canvas:
Click on "settings" on your name in the upper right side of your course.
Click on "Add Email Address" under Ways to Contact on the right of screen.
Add your correct email if Canvas is not displaying your correct email.
Click on "Register email."
Click the star next to your correct email address.
JAVA and Flash Updates
Please update your Java to Version Java 8, Update 111.
Bookmark NCVPS Login Pages
Many students visit our homepage to log in to their courses. It is a best practice to bookmark the actual login pages for Canvas. Please have students and lab facilitators bookmark the following page:
https://ncvps.instructure.com/login/canvas/
In addition, many school administrators visit our homepage to log in to our registration system or Virtual Support Center. Please bookmark both of these pages in your web browser:
Tech Requirements
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NCVPS Courses
NCVPS offers over 150 different courses, including advanced placement, electives, traditional, honors, core, STEM, occupational course of study, and credit recovery courses.
Vendor Approved Courses
In addition to NCVPS courses, North Carolina public schools also have a list of approved third-party vendor courses that they may choose from for virtual classes. Please follow this link to see the list of approved vendor courses. More on the vendor approval process can be found here.
Here are the newest approved vendor courses: (Course Title - Vendor)
Courses -
Vendor
American History 1 -
Florida Virtual
Biology -
Florida Virtual
Chemistry -
Florida Virtual
Exploring Career Decisions -
OdysseyWare
Latin 1 -
Florida Virtual
Math 1 -
Florida Virtual
Spanish 4 -
Florida Virtual
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North Carolina Virtual Public School
1017 Main Campus Drive, Partners I Bldg.,
SUITE 3900, Raleigh, NC 27606
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STAY CONNECTED
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