An item from a US-based K-12 online learning program.

Summer 2022    Grade Reporting 2022-2023 Guide August 3, 2022 Greetings, everyone! The end is near for summer classes, and the fall start is right around the corner. We’ve added a few new classes to the catalog and have details on the state’s new Virtual Schools Network. Check out all our updates below. Please forward this e-lert to any stakeholders who may need it. They can subscribe to the e-lert here. Trending News & Updates Summer Classes End Aug. 5 The end of our summer session is Friday, August 5, and we have a few tips for schools to help close out the semester. See our End of Semester Tips and Reminders page for full details on how to successfully close out the semester. Fall and Yearlong Start Dates Early Start courses begin on August 15, and Standard Start classes begin on August 29. See the 2022-2023 Academic Year section below for enrollment details. Course Catalog Updates Middle School Grade 8 Social Studies (New) – Available as a Standard Start yearlong course. Discrete Mathematics for Comp Sci (New) – Available as yearlong and block courses. Animal Science (CTE elective) – We will not offer this elective in the fall. The course will only be offered as spring block courses. Virtual Schools Network (VSN) The VSN is a great opportunity for all the virtual academies and schools in the state. The VSN is a partnership between the Friday Institute and NCVirtual that supports virtual academies and programs in our public schools. The VSN creates capacity-building opportunities, designs quality courses, assesses technology needs, and establishes support structures to assist in scaling for size and planning for sustainability. Visit the VSN website to join the network today. Parental Permission Forms NCVirtual has several courses that require parental or guardian permissions. Currently, Health and Physical Education, American Sign Language, Foods and Nutrition, and our CTE internship all require parental permission. You can find the forms on our Parental Permission Forms page. NCVirtual does not collect these forms. The enrolling school will keep these forms on file. Grading Policy Update Students have a grace period when they start a course. Teachers will not record a zero for a missed assignment for the first two weeks that a student is in the course. After students have been enrolled for two weeks (one week for summer), teachers will begin recording zeros in the grade book for missing assignments after the assignment due date passes. See our Snapshot of NCVirtual Grading Guidelines for a quick overview of NCVirtual’s grading and testing policies and procedures. OCS and Economics and Personal Finance We won’t be offering a Blended/OCS EPF course due to course code limitations. However, we are offering a co-taught EPF course that functions much like the Blended/OCS model, where we provide the EPF certified teacher and the school provides a classroom (face-to-face or f2f) partner. The teachers collaborate and plan together to ensure student needs are met. The biggest differences are: 1) The school can enroll any students in these co-taught EPF sections, not just those on the OCS Pathway, 2) The school can select any f2f teacher to partner – they only need to be EC certified if the students in the section are on the OCS Pathway. This framework ensures that the requirement for content delivery (NCVPS) and specially designed instruction (IEP) are delivered with appropriately licensed staff consistent with the OCS co-teaching model. New District OCS Enrollment Option NCVirtual now has a process to allow students in the same district to be enrolled in a district section. This will make the OCS enrollment process easier for districts. See our New District OCS Enrollment Option page for details. Partnership Course Program Let us provide the technology, content, training, and support to help your district develop its own virtual program! This program allows districts to expand their online course options while using their local teachers. See our Partnership Course Program page for details. Current Reporting What Grades Are Currently Posted? July 28 – Progress Report Posted in the NCVirtual Registration System What’s Next on the Schedule? August 4 – Progress Report Posted in the NCVirtual Registration System Progress Report Action Steps What should your action steps be with our progress reports? We’re glad you asked! Visit our Progress Report Action Steps page for all the details. A Snapshot of NCVirtual Grading Guidelines See our Snapshot of NCVirtual Grading Guidelines for a quick overview of NCVirtual’s grading and testing policies and procedures. Please note that NCVirtual teachers must adhere to the NCVirtual grading guidelines, practices, and procedures which can be found in our Grading and Testing Quick Reference Guide. NCVirtual teachers cannot adjust their NCVirtual grading guidelines, practices, and procedures based on a local school’s or district’s policy. Reporting Overview See our Grades and Testing Quick Reference Guide for an overview of our reporting. We have details on our Student Status (No-Show) Reports, Progress Reports, Final Grade Reports, and how we calculate grades. 2022-2023 Academic Year Session Start-End Dates Summer: June 28 – August 5 Early Start Fall: August 15 – December 9 Standard Start Fall: August 29 – January 11 Early Start Spring: January 4 – May 5 Standard Start Spring: January 18 – May 12 Registration Tips Registration for the 2022-2023 school year is open. Here are a few tips as you register: Make sure you’re enrolling in the correct semester. We have summer, fall, spring, yearlong, early standard, and standard start options. Use the search feature in our registration system to find the courses you are looking for. Similar to PowerSchool, Math is 1-4. World Languages and English are I-IV. Our OCS courses have “blended” in the course title, and our co-taught intervention courses have “co-teaching” in the course title. Download an enrollment report when you’re done registering for the day. Check to see if they’re enrolled or waitlisted. Understand our waitlist. Our instructional directors use the waitlist to determine if they need to open a new section of the course or increase the capacity of an already opened section. We will likely have a few courses end up on our course capacity list. Popular demand and teacher limitations drive this list. Students waitlisted for those courses may have a difficult time getting a seat in the course. Download an enrollment report each day that you register to keep up to date on enrollment status and to have students’ usernames and passwords ready. Early Start vs. Standard Start Our Early Start calendars for our fall and spring semesters begin and end about two weeks earlier than our Standard Start calendars. Which calendar should you choose? Here’s what you should do: Determine when you need final grades and register students for that calendar (Early Start or Standard Start). In the past, we’ve had schools request early final grades late in the semester. We are moving away from that practice. Students need time to complete all the modules and objectives in their courses. Please guard that teaching and learning time for your online students. Work with your data managers and curriculum directors to help ensure this best practice. Note that our Standard Start calendar has a more extensive selection of courses than Early Start. It’s easier for us to staff the Standard Start calendar. You may have students enrolled in both our Early Start and Standard Start calendars. That’s not unusual. However, if you must have a course on the Early Start schedule, you can make that request through our Virtual Support Center. We will try to accommodate that request. One final note: The last day to register for Early Start classes has been extended to the last day to register for Standard Start classes. The last day to drop is still on the tenth day (you can withdraw throughout the semester). Quick Tips for Semester Start School and district advisors, be sure you’ve submitted your summer contact list. Be sure you send your students their usernames and passwords. NCVirtual does not send that to students. You can find student usernames and passwords on an enrollment report. We have login troubleshooting steps on the course login page. If students are registered on or after the first day of class, it takes about 24 hours to get access. Send your students to our Getting Started for Students page and ensure they have our recommended printable guides. No-Show Reports Each semester, we post a Day-5 No-Show Report (Day-3 for summer) in our registration system. (See our Guide for Accessing Grade Reports.) This report is an early warning notification that identifies students who have not logged into their courses during the first week of classes. We realize some students are registered the same day we generate the report, and they’ve not had a chance to log in yet. That’s not an issue. Other reasons can be problematic, however. The school should take action if students fail to log in for any of the following reasons: Do not know their username/password Unsure how to log in Unaware they are registered Do not intend to take the course Registered by mistake Please make contact with students (and their parents) who have not logged in. Determine the next steps for them. Sometimes, students need help getting started, and then they are good from there. If you confirm that the student is not going to take the course, please drop them from the course in the registration system. This will help other students move off the waitlist. If students need help getting started, we have lots of help for them and for facilitators and parents, too! Visit our Printable Guides page for details. Drops and Withdrawals Be aware of our last day to drop students each semester: Summer: July 6 Fall Early Start: August 26 Fall Standard Start: September 12 Spring Early Start: January 17 Spring Standard Start: January 31 You can withdraw students throughout the semester. However, after the drop date, the enrollment will count in your allotment totals. See our Drops and Withdrawals Guide for details. 2022-2023 Calendar We have our 2022-2023 calendar ready to share. See the key dates posted on our Calendar page, along with a spreadsheet of all dates. 2022-2023 Catalog Our 22-23 Catalog has been posted. We have one new course at this time—AP Chemistry. We have several courses nearing completion that we hope to add to the catalog soon. 2022-2023 Academic Year Guide See our full 22-23 Academic Year Guide for all the details to have a successful school year with NCVirtual. Permalinks District and School Outreach Looking for online professional development? We have you covered! Check out our new subscription option for joining our professional development mailing list. The subscription button is found on both our Digital Transition page and the Teacher Online Training page.  Digital Transition In our Digital Transition webinar series, we share best practices for supporting students in learning online. You will leave with a toolkit of resources to bring to your face-to-face classroom into the virtual world!    Online Training   Our Teacher Online Training course is a free professional development program for NC public and charter school teachers designed to prepare and support educators as they work in online and remote learning environments. ELA Orientation Our E-learning Advisor Orientation course will help support you in the role of E-Learning Advisor to NC Virtual students. Learn about the funding formula, the registration process, our grading policy, our valuable resources, and how to best support your online students. Office Hours The NCVirtual Office Hours meets each weekday, M-F from 12:00-12:30 p.m. Teachers, administrators, parents, and students are welcome to drop in and have their questions answered. Connecting with Students & Parents As virtual learning has become a part of everyday learning for most families across North Carolina, many parents, guardians, and mentors continue to struggle with how to support their online learners in blended and online classes. To provide resources and strategies for how to support not only our NCVirtual students, but all online learners in North Carolina, NCVirtual has created two Supporting Online Students (SOS) video courses in Canvas. Both courses are free, open to the public, and do not require login credentials. Please share both links with your educational communities and parent networks.  Supporting Students – All NC The first course, Supporting Online Students – All NC, is general in nature and is designed for parents, guardians, and mentors of any student who is participating in a blended or online course or is enrolled in a fully online program regardless of school or grade level. Supporting Students – NCVPS The second course, Supporting Online Students – NCVirtual, is specific to NC Virtual and includes specific examples, demonstrations, and resources for NC Virtual parents, guardians, and mentors.            Iwork            The IworkNCVirtual speaker series includes presentations about career paths by those working in the field. We are now providing a platform for our students to gain insight and exposure to potential career paths. Sessions focus on Prerequisites & Education, Getting the Job, Daily Responsibilities (Micro), Industry Environment (Macro)      Culture Cafe      The Culture Café Café hosts hour-long lectures on various cultural topics in Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Latin, and Arabic to broaden our students’ cultural and world views. Topics include cultural, culinary, historical, geographic and, architectural themes. See the Culture Cafe calendar for upcoming events! Japanese Honors For students who have completed the first term of his/her second-year Japanese language course in middle/junior high or a senior high school and has maintained a 3.5 GPA in Japanese courses and an overall GPA of 3.0. For more information, contact Ellen Hart or Revae Bostwick. Stock Market Club An online simulation of the global capital markets that engages students in the world of economics, investing and personal finance and that has prepared nearly 20 million students for financially independent futures. The team will have virtual money to invest in the stock market game that is offered by SIFMA Foundation. For more information, contact Ellen Hart. Research Alliance The Student Research Alliance is a unique opportunity for students to conduct original research on topics of interest. The goal is to provide a platform for innovation and to create resources for students to deepen their understanding of specific course content. For more information, contact Tiffany Grant.     Coding Club       The NCVirtual Coding Club is open to any NC high school students who would like to join. Complete this Google Form if you would like to join. For questions about the Coding Club, contact ellen.hart@ncpublicschools.gov or toni.hall@ncpublicschools.gov NCVirtual has a mobile app, and Canvas has two mobile apps and a web portal. What does each one do? We’re glad you asked! Here you go: NCVirtual App: Stay connected with what’s happening at NCVirtual. Think of these as “front office” notifications. Canvas Apps and Web Portal: Connect with a student’s course, see grades, due dates, pacing guides, and message the teacher. Check out the guide on our Mobile Apps page to see when and where it’s best to use each app or portal. Mobile Apps Thank you, everyone! Your North Carolina students appreciate your dedication and hard work! {View as Webpage} | Subscribe

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