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.
September 17, 2015 - In This Issue:
Calendar Check
2015

Sept. 4 - Last day to drop or add students into traditional calendar block and yearlong classes.

Sept. 17 - Progress reports posted in the registration system.

Oct. 1 - Progress reports posted in the registration system.

Oct. 15Progress Report for Traditional/Yearlong Courses Posted in Registration
Essential Links







Celebrate & Connect

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Current E-lert News
What's New?
what's new picGreetings, North Carolina districts and schools!

Check out this week's important updates:

New This Week






In addition, be sure to check out all of our tips and reminders in this week's e-lert.
GradeReportingGrade Reporting
We have posted our first progress report in the registration system on Sept. 17. Look for the grade report with this title:

Fall 2015 EC, CR, Block and YL Progress Report Due Sept. 15, 2015

See the note directly below for progress reports.
 
See how your students are progressing! We post progress reports every two weeks in the registration system.
 
Follow this link to see the details on this progress report.


Our grade reports are weighted grades similar to school report cards.
 
Follow this link to see the details on the latest grade report. 
 
 
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.
 
Follow this link to see the details on student status (no-show) reports.
 
 
Follow this link  to see how to run a grade report.

Follow this link to see our Quick Reference Guide on Grades.  
EnrollDropOptionsEnrollment and Withdrawal Options
Enrollment Options

Credit Recovery : Credit recovery enrollment will remain open until November 25, which is the end of our third marking period. 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 OCS sections after Sept. 4. See the note below on OCS courses that are at section capacity. 

1/2 Credit Health Courses: Registration for our 2nd 9-week health courses will remain open until October 26. 

Transfer Students: We are now accepting transfer students.Transfer students must already be enrolled in the course at the traditional school and have a grade to transfer in with. Transfers are not for students who are new to a course.  If we have a seat available in the course, we will try to accommodate the transfer request.

Please note that each course transfer request for a student will need to have its own ticket.

We need this information before we can process the request:

Student's Name:
Course Needed:
Is course Year long or Block?
Is student a senior: (yes/no)
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)
Does the student have an IEP?
Does the student have a 504 Plan:

Please submit all of the requested information at one time. We cannot process the request without it.  


Schools can no longer drop students at this point, but they can withdraw students in the registration system throughout the semester. NCVPS will issue a W (withdrawal) grade. The enrollment will still count in your district's or charter school's allotment totals. If you run short on allotment funding, though, you can use NCVPS reserve funds.  
TechIssuesCourse Technology Issues Update
NCVPS students have had a few challenges at the start of the semester with technology issues.  Much of our content is in an application called Softchalk, which has been problematic the first few weeks in our Moodle courses. Some students have had difficulty progressing through the Moodle courses due to the Softchalk issues. Our tech staff has found a work-around for our teachers to implement in each Moodle course until a permanent solution is found. Please note that our teachers will accommodate all students who have had an issue with this.

Enabling Mixed Media
There is a common technology issue that schools should resolve on their end. Some of our content with videos will not play for students. We need each student to check that they have enable "mixed content" in their web browsers. Have students watch the tutorial below based on the web browser that they are using:





Students may have already done this, as teachers have been posting this message in their courses
CTEExamsCTE Final State Exams
Schools are responsible for making arrangements for students enrolled in NCVPS CTE courses to take the CTE Final State Exam on their school campus. NCVPS teachers will send reminders to students asking them to talk with someone at their school to ensure they are signed up to take the CTE Final State Exam. The CTE Coordinator at the school or district should be made aware of all students enrolled in a NCVPS CTE courses. 

If you have questions regarding the CTE Final State Exam, please email the DPI/CTE Consultant, Stephen Kelley at  Stephen.Kelley@dpi.nc.gov  or call him at  919-807-3880 .
Tech Updates
OpeningTicketOpening 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 - including specific section, i.e. CourseSec01Spring15.
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. 

Password Resets
 
If students have their correct email addresses in the registration system (this is important for a number of reasons), then they can use the password-reset feature on the Blackboard, Moodle, and Canvas login pages.

JAVA and Flash Updates

Please update your Java to Version Java 8, Update 51. Go to the link below and follow the instructions there.
 
http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

Please go to the following link to update Adobe Flash Player to the latest Version 18.0.0.209 http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
 

Blackboard Instant Messaging (BBIM)
 
Students will need to click on the BBIM link in their class and create an ID and password that they will remember. NCVPS does not issue BBIM logins nor do we store this information.   
Student Email Confirmations in Moodle and Blackboard
 
If a student's e-mail is missing or shows pleaseadd@ncvps - the student will not receive important e-mails from their teachers.
Please have students confirm/update their email information by following these steps:

In Moodle: 
  • Navigate to Administration
  • My Profile settings
  • Edit Profile
  • Verify or update e-mail
  • Scroll to bottom and "Update Profile"
In Blackboard: 
  • Click on students name in the upper right side of your BB course
  • Click on setting
  • Click on Personal Information
  • Click on Edit Personal Information to update e-mail
  • Scroll to bottom and Submit 
 
Many students visit our homepage to log in to their courses. It is a best practice to bookmark the actual login pages for both Moodle and Blackboard. Please have students and lab facilitators bookmark the following pages:



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:


Virtual Support Center:  http://www.help.ncvps.org/ 
 
 
For additional information, please see our Tech Requirements:
http://www.ncvps.org/index.php/technology-requirements/  
NewELAsFor New ELCs, ELAs, and Lab Facilitators.

Are you a new district e-learning coordinator, school e-learning advisor, or lab facilitator?  If so, welcome to your new role!

 

We would like to help each of you. Please complete the short survey at this link, and we will reach out to you with some valuable resources.

 

ELCs, please forward this survey to your new school contacts.

 

Thank you!

Course Catalogues
NCVPS Courses
 
NCVPS offers over 150 different courses, including advanced placement, electives, traditional, honors, core, STEM, occupational course of study, and credit recovery courses. 

Check out our 150+ list of courses here

VendorApprovedUpdatesVendor 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
  • Biology - Founder's Education
  • Chemistry - Founder's Education
  • Math 1 - Accelerate Education
  • Math 2 - Accelerate Education
  • Math 2 - Founder's Education
  • Math 3 - Founder's Education
  • Physical Science - Founder's Education
  • Physics - Founder's Education
North Carolina Virtual Public School
1017 Main Campus Drive, Partners I Bldg., 
SUITE 3900, Raleigh, NC 27606
Phone:   919-513-8550    |  Fax:   919-513-2557  |