TEACHERS' MESSAGES 2008
TEACHERS' MESSAGES 2008AUGUST 15, 2008 - Teachers' Biweekly Messages
A new school year begins in just a few days for most teachers and their students. This year, as you get underway, I hope you will consider your role as graduation coaches. Whether you teach first grade or ninth grade, or any of the grades all along the way, each teacher in a student's school career plays an important role in helping that young person prepare for high school graduation. Recently, we received results of the 2008 cohort graduation rate calculations showing that 69.9 percent of students who entered ninth grade in 2004-05 graduated by June 2008. Based on prior statistics, we know that by June 2009, a few more students from this class will have completed their diploma requirements, but about one-third of students are not graduating in four years or in five years. Gov. Mike Easley has proclaimed Sept. 7-13 as "Graduation Awareness Week." I encourage you to use this opportunity to remind your students that graduating from high school is a basic goal that all of them should accomplish.
Regards,
June Atkinson
In this Biweekly Teachers' Message:
State Board Meeting Highlights
The State Board of Education met last week and approved the ABCs growth rates, cohort graduation rates, the ABCs incentive award formula, and program approval requests under the Innovative Education Initiatives Act. Board members discussed changes regarding eligibility criteria for accommodations and alternate assessments designated for students identified as limited English proficient, More at Four pre-kindergarten curricula recommendations, and teacher evaluation policies. Complete Board Highlights will be available online tomorrow at www.ncpublicschools.org/sbehighlights. News releases about the ABCs growth and incentive awards and the cohort graduation rates are online at www.ncpublicschools.org under "News."
New Writing Assessment to Pilot 21st Century Methods
tate Board members reacted favorably to the 2008-09 Writing Assessment Proposal presented by NCDPI Deputy Academic Officer Angela Quick. Board members approved the plan to replace the former fourth and seventh grades writing assessments with a requirement that all students in grades four and seven complete two content-specific writing assignments and two on-demand writing tasks. Students in grades seven will use word processing tools in order to complete their assignments. All seventh grade students with the exception of students in 10 pilot LEAs will store their work in local portfolios. Teachers will use state rubrics to score student writing and NCDPI will monitor the portfolios to ensure compliance. Students in 10 pilot LEAs will participate by using an electronic storage, uploading and retrieval system for their writing samples. This pilot will be evaluated next summer with results reported to the Board in September 2009. To see the complete plan, please go to www.ncpublicschools.org/sbe_meetings/revisions/2008/pdfs/gcs2rev.pdf.
NC Approved for Statewide SES Pilot
The US Department of Education recently approved North Carolina's continued participation in a national pilot program that reverses the order of the first two years of sanctions applied to schools entering into Title I School Improvement. For 2008-09, the pilot will include the 34 districts that indicated a desire to participate. Only eight districts participated in the pilot over the past two years. The pilot allows Title I schools in participating districts to offer supplemental educational services (SES) or free tutoring, as the first-year sanction instead of public school choice. Pilot districts for 2008-09 are: Alamance-Burlington, Bladen, Burke, Brunswick, Cabarrus, Caldwell, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Cleveland, Columbus, Craven, Cumberland, Dare, Durham, Edgecombe, Gaston, Granville, Guilford, Hertford, Hoke, Iredell-Statesville, Jackson, Moore, Nash-Rocky Mount, Northampton, Pender, Pitt, Richmond, Rockingham, Rowan-Salisbury, Sampson, Scotland, Transylvania, Union and Wayne. More information is online about this pilot and other NCLB issues at http://www.ncpublicschools.org/nclb/.
October Workshop Opportunity
"Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement" will be held Oct. 29-30 from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m., in Room 150 of the Education Building, Raleigh. Central office administrators, lead teachers, principals, school counselors and 21st Century community directors are encouraged to attend. The registration fee is $125 per person. Pre-registration is required. For more information, please go online to www.ncpublicschools.org/racg or contact Sonja Leathers at 919.807.3687 or sleather@dpi.state.nc.us.
LEARN NC Offers Virtual Mentoring Program
New teachers can sometimes have the toughest teaching assignments. LEARN NC offers a Virtual Mentoring program for guidance and expert help. Time commitment will be minimal. It's available at any hour, day or night. And best of all, it's yours at no cost. For more information, please visit www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4191.
Mock Trial Competition
The North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers is sponsoring its annual Wade Edwards High School Mock Trial Competition. The competition provides students with an opportunity to gain a strong understanding of both the U.S. legal system and their rights and responsibilities as a citizen. Students take on the roles of attorneys and witnesses and work alongside local attorney volunteers who advise the student teams as they prepare for competitions, which are held at local courthouses across the state. The competition case will be available online on Oct. 13 at http://ncatl.org/page/community_projects/. This year's competition will be held on Feb. 21, 2009 with winners competing for the title of state champion on March 21-22, 2009. For more information, please contact Liz Avery-Jones, NC Academy of Trial Lawyers, at liz@ncatl.org or 919.835.2808.
If you'd like to review past Teachers' Biweekly Messages sent to the listserv group, just go online to http://www.ncpublicschools.org/teachersarchive/.