TEACHERS' MESSAGES 2007

SEPTEMBER 27, 2007 - Teachers' Biweekly Message

North Carolina fourth and eighth graders are above the nation in mathematics and the same as the nation in reading, according to results from the Nation's Report Card released for all states and the nation on Tuesday. Congratulations to you and your students for moving up in the rankings on this important comparison. Another bright spot - North Carolina is the state making the most gains in math since this assessment began. The Nation's Report Card, also called the National Assessment of Educational Progress, is the only state-to-state, apples-to-apples comparison available to us. It is given every other year to a representative sample of students across the state, so only state and national results are available. To read more about North Carolina's performance, please go to http://www.ncpublicschools.org and look under "News."

Regards,
June Atkinson

In this Biweekly Teachers' Message:

1. State Board Meets Next Week
2. Underage Drinking Prevention Program Targets Middle School Students
3. NCCAT's Ocracoke Campus Grand Opening Scheduled for Oct. 20
4. LEARN NC Announces Fall Professional Development Courses for Teachers
5. World View Offers Symposium on Global Education
6. 2008 United States Senate Youth Program
7. Education Directory Online
8. NC Biotechnology Center's Mini-Grant Program
9. The National Teachers Hall of Fame

State Board Meets Next Week

The State Board of Education will meet next week, Oct. 2-4. The Oct. 2 meeting will be held at First Flight High School, Kill Devil Hills. The Oct. 3-4 meeting will be held at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Ocracoke. Board members are expected to take action on policies governing services for children with disabilities, changes to the 2006-07 ABCs/AYP results, the 2007 Textbook Adoption and Textbook Commission report, and license renewal requirements to reflect legislation. Board members also will meet with students and teachers at First Flight High School and Ocracoke School and tour school campuses. To view the Board's complete agenda, please go online to www.ncpublicschools.org/sbe_meetings and click on the appropriate link.

Underage Drinking Prevention Program Targets Middle School Students

"Media Ready," a new 10-lesson media literacy substance abuse prevention program developed in North Carolina, will be taught in middle schools across the state beginning next year. Teachers in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Chatham County Schools have already successfully implemented Media Ready. Media Ready teaches students how to analyze and deconstruct media messages and gives them critical thinking skills in interpreting the information they are receiving through advertisements. The N.C. Teacher Academy will hold a series of two-day workshops to train the state's 200 middle school literacy coaches and Safe and Drug Free Schools' coordinators from each school district in the Media Ready curriculum. They will then return to their middle schools and their school districts to train teachers to implement the Media Ready curriculum in their middle school classrooms. Results from the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered to North Carolina high school students by the Centers for Disease Control found that 35 percent of middle school students reported having a drink of alcohol, other than a few sips, at least once in their lives. Twenty-one percent of high school students reported having their first drink of alcohol before age 13.

NCCAT's Ocracoke Campus Grand Opening Scheduled for Oct. 20

Grand opening ceremonies for the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) eastern campus on Ocracoke will take place Saturday, Oct. 20, at what was formerly the Coast Guard station. A ribbon-cutting and dedication ceremony with guest speakers will begin at 1 p.m. Following the festivities, the U.S. Coast Guard Brass Quintet will perform in a special hour-long concert. After the concert, the NCCAT staff will conduct tours of the facilities and host a reception for the public. NCCAT, a center of the University of North Carolina system, provides professional development seminars in the arts, sciences, humanities, and technology for prekindergarten-12th-grade public school teachers. The seminars, usually five days in duration, are offered on a year-round basis at no cost to participating teachers. All seminars incorporate the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. For more information about the opening ceremony or NCCAT seminars, please go online to www.nccat.org or call 800.922.0482.

LEARN NC Announces Fall Professional Development Courses for Teachers

Whether you prefer to earn your CEUs at one a.m., from a wireless coffee shop, or simply during your planning period, LEARN NC's professional development courses offer the convenience and flexibility you need to acquire new skills and knowledge. This fall, teachers can take courses in Content Area Reading Comprehension, Teaching Online Courses, ESL, Adolescent Literacy, and much more, all on their schedule. All LEARN NC courses follow a research-based model for quality professional development and online learning. Instructors' cutting-edge coursework and research expertise set them apart form other teacher-trainers. To see the current list of courses and to register, please visit http://www.learnnc.org/courses or contact Bill Ferris at bferris@learnnc.org.

World View Offers Symposium on Global Education

World View, an international program for educators, will offer its annual fall Symposium, "Best Practices in Global Education from Around the United States," on Oct. 24-25 at the Friday Center, Chapel Hill. The symposium will feature nationally known speakers on issues in global education, as well as small group sessions offering classroom-proven methods for including global content across the curriculum and presentations from exemplary global schools in North Carolina. Action team meetings will allow school-based teams to integrate what they learn and to develop their own global initiatives. This program is appropriate for K-12 educators of all subject areas and grade levels and CEU credits will be offered. The symposium is co-sponsored by the NCDPI, the Center for International Understanding, NC Public School Forum, and Asia Society. Participants may register online at http://www.unc.edu/world/regform.shtml. For more information, please contact Regina Higgins at (919) 843.7793 or regina_higgins@unc.edu.

2008 United States Senate Youth Program

The 46th Annual United States Senate Youth Program will be held March 1-8 in Washington, D.C. This program provides two students from each state a week's internship on government and the United States Senate in addition to a $5,000 scholarship. During the internship, students learn about the responsibilities of key agencies within each branch of government and spend time observing in the offices of their respective senators. An application and information sheet are available on the NCDPI Web site at http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/curriculum/socialstudies. All applications require the signatures of the principal and guidance counselor to verify accuracy of the student's GPA and leadership activities. The typed application and essay must be received by 5 p.m. Oct. 11. Please send all materials to: North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, US Senate Youth Program, c/o Kelli Thomas, 6345 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-6345. If you have any additional questions, please contact Kelli Thomas at kthomas@dpi.state.nc.us or 919.807.3828.

Education Directory Online

The 2007-08 Education Directory is now available online at http://www.ncpublicschools.org by clicking on the Education Directory link on the left-hand side of the home page. The directory also is in the process of being printed and will be available the second week in October for distribution.

NC Biotechnology Center's Mini-Grant Program

Applications are now being accepted for the North Carolina Biotechnology Center's 2007-2008 Mini-Grant Program. The Biotechnology Education Mini-Grant Program offers awards of up to $6,000 to assist in the development and implementation of activities, programs, and courses for biotechnology education and training at the K-12 level. Proposals must be submitted electronically using the Biotechnology Center's online submission process by noon on January 23, 2008. For detailed information or to apply for a Biotechnology Education Mini-Grant, please go to http://www.ncbiotech.org/services_and_programs/grants_and_loans/mini_grant/i ndex.html or contact Amy Black, North Carolina Biotechnology Center, 919.541.9366, or by email, amy_black@ncbiotech.org.

The National Teachers Hall of Fame

Nominations are now being accepted for the National Teachers Hall of Fame. This is the Hall of Fame's 17th year of recognizing outstanding career educators from across America. Individuals being nominated must have taught for at least 20 years at the preK-12 grade level in a public and/or private school. A screening committee will review all nominations and recommend semi-finalists to the National Selection Committee. The 2008 inductees will be announced in April 2008. For additional information, including a nomination form, please go to the National Teachers Hall of Fame Web site at www.nthf.org. Nomination packets must be postmarked by Jan. 2, 2008.

 

If you'd like to review past Teachers' Biweekly Messages sent to the listserv group, just go online to http://www.ncpublicschools.org/teachersarchive/ .