April 2013 State Board of Education Review

NCAE SBE Review SPECIAL POINTS OF INTEREST: The following were recognized by ACT for having outstanding programs: Tabor High School in Winston Salem had a student to receive the Outstanding Student Achievement Award, Parkland High School in Winston Salem received the Outstanding High School Award for supporting students with the ACT, and the following Community Colleges received recognition for collaborative partnerships: Edgecombe and Catawba Community Colleges.

The SBE has six new members.

William Cobey was elected as the new State Board Chair, and Buddy Collins as the new Vice Chair. Four other new SBE members were also sworn in for new terms: Marcella Savage, Rebecca Taylor, Olivia Oxendine and Greg Alcorn. It was a pleasure working with the outgoing members: Shirley Harris, Melissa Bartlett, Chris Green, Tom Speed, Jean Woolard and Bill Harrison.

J A N U A R Y

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DISCUSSED POSSIBLE NEW SALARY OPTIONS FOR TEACHERS The NC DPI has been tasked with providing suggestions to legislators on how to structure and/or change the current teacher salary schedule. The current pay structure is based on years of experience, advanced degrees and NBCT status. Issues with the current structure include salaries being frozen for five years, and taking 35 years to reach at least $68,000.

There are no recruiting tools to fill LEAs needs and few LEAs have retention tools to keep highly effective teachers. Prior to the presentation, DPI staff did meet with various organizations, including NCAE. NEA research was noted in the presentation. The following are ONLY suggestions about how to move teacher salaries into a more competitive field, and what NC needs to do to keep our teachers in here, as well as how to sustain a new salary structure that is fair and equitable, and provide more money for needed increases.  Dollar Allotment or Block Grants to LEAs which provides local control, but eliminates the current position allotments, discourages LEAs to employ experienced or accomplished teachers due to cost, and penalizes LEAs with a low turnover. NCAE has never supported the Block grant concept due to the caveat of not including master’s pay or NBCT pay in order to have higher salaries for all teachers.  Shorten Schedule with the idea of moving to 20 steps instead of 35 and discontinuing the master’s and NBCT salary differentiation to allow for a higher percentage increase in the steps. NCAE believes recognition for advanced degrees is important.  Promotional Salary Schedule with Ranges was presented as a local control concept.

Salaries would be determined based on local decisions and by providing a career path for teachers, as well as a way to earn incentives and to recruit and retain teachers. This proposed change seemed most accepted by the SBE during the presentation. The four levels presented included Beginning Teachers at $31,000 to $35,000, Developing Teachers at $35,000 to $45,000, Advanced Teachers at $45,000 to $60,000 and Master Teachers at $60,000 to $68,000. (Dollar amounts used are the current salary amounts.)

IF this proposed structure went forward, NCAE would strongly recommend some state guidelines to ensure consistency among LEAs and provide specific guidelines on how one would move between the categories and ranges.  Several Hybrid ideas were shared and more details will be forth coming at the May SBE meeting.

NCAE would love to hear your thoughts as we begin to develop our own ideas to share.

NCAE Center for Instructional Advocacy, Membership Organizing & Communication

April

2013

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EDUCATOR EFFECTIVENESS POLICY CHANGE DISCUSSED Based on data analysis of 2011-12, sixth and eighth standard ratings and feedback from educators, the Department of Public Instruction is recommending the following adjustments to the sixth and eighth standard components for school year 2012-13: Sixth standard based only on individual teacher’s students’ growth. During school year 2011-12, the inclusion of school-wide growth lowered the sixth standard ratings of thousands of high-performing teachers working in low-performing schools. To avoid this unintended consequence and remove policy barriers to the movement of highly effective teachers to low-performing schools, the Department of Public Instruction recommends that the sixth standard for school year 2012-13 is based only on the growth value derived from the students for whose growth a teacher is directly responsible.

School-wide growth value used for principals to include all available student growth data. During school year 2011-12, the school-wide growth value used to determine a school executive’s eighth standard rating was based only on results of the End-of-Grade and End-of-Course assessments. School executives have requested that the Career and Technical Education Post-Assessments and Measures of Student Learning be included in the calculation of school-wide growth so that the value is more reflective of student learning across all grades and content areas.

CRITERIA FOR RT3 BONUS PAYMENTS IN LOW PERFORMING SCHOOLS

NCAE

North Carolina's approved Race to the Top plan

In 2012-13 and 2013-14, all eligible certified staff

includes the payment of bonuses to certified

members in a school that receives a value-added

staff members in persistently low-performing

school composite in the “Exceeds Expected Growth”

schools whose students achieve higher than

range will still receive a Race to the Top bonus pay-

expected growth. These 118 schools receive

ment of no more than $1,500. In these schools, eligi-

support from the State's District and School

ble teachers who receive an individual value-added

Transformation Division. This policy defines the

teacher composite in the “Exceeds Expected Growth”

eligible schools, criteria for eligible certified staff

range will receive an additional bonus payment of no

members, and the retention requirement for

more than $500 above the $1,500 payment made on

the bonus payments.

the basis of the school value-added composite, for a

During the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years,

total payment of no more than $2,000.

the State awarded bonuses to eligible certified

In schools where eligible staff members do not re-

staff members on the basis of school-wide

ceive a bonus payment, as a result of a value-added

growth as determined by results from the ABC

school composite that does not reach the "Exceeds

growth model. In accordance with the State's

Expected Growth" range, eligible teachers who re-

Race to the Top plan, the bonus program adds

ceive an individual value-added teacher composite in

teacher-level incentives for the 2012-13 and

the "Exceeds Expected Growth" range will receive a

2013-14 school year.

bonus payment of no more than $2,000.

SBE

REVIEW

NCAE Center for Instructional Advocacy, Membership Organizing & Communication

April

2013

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ANNUAL LEAVE POLICY LANGUAGE UPDATE FOR STATE BENEFITS MANUAL APPROVED!

The following language was approved as amended: Restrictions on use by instructional personnel, and teacher assistants: Classroom teachers who require a substitute, school media coordinators who require a substitute, and teacher assistants who require a substitute, may not take annual vacation leave at any time that students are scheduled to be in attendance except as provided in Section 3.2 (Leave for Catastrophic Illness), or Section 3.3 (Leave for New Parents) of this manual.

However, local school boards of education may adopt policies permitting instructional personnel employed for 11 or 12 months in year-round schools to, with the approval of the principal, take annual vacation leave at a time when students are in attendance; local funds shall be used to cover the cost of substitute teachers. Instructional personnel who do not require a substitute may, with their supervisor’s approval, take annual vacation leave on any day school is in session.

Version of § 3.1.3(d) Use of Annual Leave

Other actions 1.

Approved the voluntary relinquishment of the Charter for the STEAM Academy in Winston-Salem.

2.

Discussed the possible initiation for the revocation of Children’s Village Academy in Lenoir County.

Although the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics were adopted in 2010, there are still three different mathematics pathways being used to teach the high school standards during the 2012-13 school year. A High School Math Task Force was created to assist DPI on how to move forward given the current high school math pathways. As a result, the recommendation is to move to one pathway with the course names titled Common Core Math I, II and III, which integrates standards from Number/Operations, Algebra, Functions, Geometry, Modeling, and Probability/Statistics in all three years of high school math. Flexibility would be given to LEAs in their choice of resources, materials and textbooks. The Task Force suggests phasing this in over the next three years even though many LEAs are already implementing the one pathway.

3.

Questions on items found in the NCAE SBE Review, please contact Angela Farthing at Angela.Farthing@ncae.org NCAE

SBE

REVIEW

NCAE Center for Instructional Advocacy, Membership Organizing & Communication

April

2013