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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NNCVPS E-lert for Jan. 11, 2017 - Winter Edition I
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Fall 2016
End Dates
Early Calendar: Dec. 16
Early Grades: Dec. 21
Traditional Calendar: Jan. 13
Traditional Grades: Jan 19
Spring 2017
Start Dates
Early Calendar: Jan. 4
Traditional Calendar:
Jan. 23
Day 3 No-Show Report
Early Calendar:
Jan. 9
Traditional Calendar: Jan. 26
*Find this document in the registration system. It will show which students have not logged in yet. Please contact those students.
Day 7 No-Show Report
Early Calendar: Jan. 13
Traditional Calendar: Feb. 1
*Find the Day 3 and Day 7 no-show reports in our registration system (click "Reports.") These reports show which students have not logged in. Please contact them to see if they need help or if they need to be dropped.
Last Day to Drop and Add
Early Calendar: Jan. 18
Traditional Calendar: Feb. 3
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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NCVPS 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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Greetings everyone! We are still enrolling for spring courses. You may have students land on a waitlist. Our division directors use the waitlist to determine if they need to open a new section or increase the size of an existing section.
See all the details below.
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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Spring 2017 OCS Registration |
Before a school registers students, the school and OCS F2F (face-to-face) teacher should be willing to teach the OCS courses in the online learning environment and be committed to the co-teaching partnership with the NCVPS online Content Teacher.
School registrations will not be official until schools provide NCVPS with the names of their classroom OCS teachers who will partner with the NCVPS teacher. School ELAs will be asked to provide the name of the OCS classroom teacher for each course before each semester begins. They will submit this information to the NCVPS OCS Registration Team via a F2F Teacher Designation Form (google doc). School ELAs will be contacted by email in order to provide this information.
Please be sure your contact information in the registration system is current. We will send the designation form to the ELA contact information in the registration system.
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End of Semester Tips and Reminders |
Early calendar courses ended on Friday, Dec. 16. Grades were posted on Wednesday, Dec. 21.
Please note that if you are an early calendar school, you also may have students enrolled in traditional calendar courses with NCVPS. Those classes end on January 13, 2017. However, if students have already made arrangements with their instructors, they can finish in December. Contact the students' instructors if you have questions about this.
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Course Extensions |
We will begin accepting requests for fall extensions January 6th for traditional block courses.
If large portions of the course are missing, an extension won't help the student. The student will need to be re-enrolled for spring courses.
Please submit an extension request through the Virtual Support Center.
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Fall 2016 Updates |
What Grades Are Currently Posted?
December 21: Final grades for early calendar courses will be posted in the registration system. See details on the final grade report here.
December 21: Progress reports for traditional calendar courses will be posted in the registration system.
January 9: Early Calendar Day 3 Status Report Posted in the NCVPS Registration System
What's Next on the Schedule?
January 13: Early Calendar Day 7 Status Reports Posted in the NCVPS Registration System
January 19: Fall Block Courses Final Grades w/ Anticipated EOC/CTE Scores Posted in the NCVPS Registration System
January 19: Yearlong Progress Reports Posted in the NCVPS Registration System
Reporting Overview
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Spring 2017 Updates |
Registration is still open for spring courses. We will continue to register until Feb. 3 for traditional calendar courses, which is our tenth day of class.
Registration Details
If you need access, contact our
Virtual Support Center here.
Please remember that there is only one login per school. If your school already has access, you will need to share the login username and password.
Waitlists and Course Capacity Issues
Don't panic if your students land the waitlist when you register them. Our instructional directors look at the waitlists daily to determine if a new section needs to be opened or if a current section needs to be expanded.
We do have a few courses operating at capacity, however.
See the list of courses at capacity here. If a student is waitlisted in a course that is at capacity, the only way the student will move off the waitlists is
if an already enrolled student drops the course.
NCVPS Student Quick Start Template
This template is a guide to give to students before classes begin. It has a place for all the essential details to help students get started with their NCVPS courses.
You will need to fill in some of the details or you can have students come to you and complete the details themselves. You can print the template for students, or you can copy and paste it into an email that you send to students.
Start Dates
Early Calendar: January 4
Traditional Calendar: January 23
Day 3 Status Report
Early Calendar: Jan. 9
Traditional Calendar: Jan. 26
*Find this document in the registration system. It will show which students have not logged in yet. Please contact those students.
Day 7 Status Report
Early Calendar: Jan. 13
Traditional Calendar: Feb. 1
*Be sure to check the Day 3 and Day 7 reports to determine which students have not logged in. Please contact them to see if they need help or if they need to be dropped.
Last Day to Drop and Add
Early Calendar: Jan. 18
Traditional Calendar: Feb. 3
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.
What Grades Are Currently Posted?
Coming soon!
What's Next on the Schedule?
Coming soon!
Reporting Overview
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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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."
Peer Tutors Are Here to Help
NCVPS has a nationally recognized peer tutoring program. Our student tutors a have strong working knowledge of the courses in which they tutor and a recommendation from an NCVPS teacher.
Peer Tutors can help your students better understand their course structure and course content. They are only an appointment away in our Upswing! platform, which can be accessed from any course. Have students look for the Peer Tutoring button in their courses:
Once students make contact with a Peer Tutor, they may want to schedule a regular tutoring time so that they can stay on top of their course. Our Peer Tutors are available for Quick Questions and one-on-one sessions.
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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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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
AP Computer Science A -
Edmentum
Business Law -
OdysseyWare
Health -
Fuel Education
Marketing -
OdysseyWare
Personal Finance -
Fuel Education
Principles of Business & Finance -
OdysseyWare
Small Business & Entrepreneurship -
OdysseyWare
Social Studies Grade 4 -
Connections Education
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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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