A View into NC WISE ::

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A View intoNC WISE
A Student Information System A State Perspective
Dr. Bob Bellamy, Associate State Superintendent
for Technology Services/CIO NC Department of
Public Instruction
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NC WISE What is it?

• Federal and State Reporting Requirements
• A robust, state-of-the-market system allowing the
  capture and reporting of information about
  students throughout their careers in North
  Carolina public schools
• A powerful tool for
• Managing daily school data operations such as
  scheduling, attendance tracking, grading
• Supporting individualized, prescriptive
  instruction in the classroom with real-time
  information
• Enabling

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NC WISE Aligns with State Board of Education
Priorities

• High student performance
• Healthy students in safe, orderly schools and
  caring schools
• Quality Teachers, Administrators and Staff
• Strong family, community and business support
• Effective and efficient operations

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Why Do We Need It?

• SIMS is an outdated system
• Operates in a DOS environment
• Does not meet all state and federal reporting
  requirements
• Support for SIMS will be discontinued after 2007
• More than 2300 separate databases

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Data Driven Decision Making - (EDW)
PMR Promotion/Retention Graduates Membership by
G/R/S SAR Annual Dropout Workforce
Devt/VEIS Common Follow-up Hope Scholarship Dec.
1 EC Count Apr. 1 EC Count Safe Schools LEP/ESL
Survey Migrant Education
Scheduling Attendance Teacher Grade
Book Academic Progress Free and Reduced
Meals Health Information Discipline
Safe Schools Standardized Testing Fees
Management Reports and Extracts Electronic
Transcripts

• Support for
• ABCs of Education
• No Child Left Behind
• School Report Card
• Closing the Gap

eSIS
UERS

• Features
• Web-based
• Centralized database
• Easy data exchange
• Supports PC and Mac
• Automated workflow

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NC WISE Part of the Solution

• Instructional Drivers
• ABCs Accountability
• NCLB/AYP
• School Report Card
• Closing the Gap

• Scheduling
• Attendance
• Free Reduced
• Discipline
• Record Transfer
• Budget Planning

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NC WISE Modules
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How Does NC WISE and its Modules Help
Administrators?

• Real time access to information at the district
  or building level depending on LEA role
• Reports at fingertips
• Query/extract ability
• Student grades/teacher gradebook
• Scheduling
• Discipline
• Transportation

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What Does NC WISE Mean to Central Office
Administration?

• Real time access to information
• Group versus individual processing
• Centralized data analysis
• Access during communications with parents
• Ease auditing programs (EC, CTE, Dropout)
• Automated UERS reporting

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LEA Business Return

• Direct access to student data by central office
  staff, administrators and educators
• Full support for State and Federal accountability
  programs with online access to student test
  results
• Seamless transfer of student information between
  LEAs and schools
• Automated, electronic transcript delivery through
  College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) to
  state post-secondary schools
• Online access by principals, teachers, counselors
  to verify a schedule, share grades and attendance
  information with parents
• Automated state reporting and approval

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LEA Financial Return

• Streamlines tasks or reduces time to do tasks
• Eliminates or consolidates many time consuming
  tasks now performed in SIMS (i.e. data backup)
• Saves time and money on printing costs for some
  LEA reports
• Eliminates need for additional software purchases
  because a wide range of functions are included
• Teacher Assistant Module (Grade book and on-line
  attendance)
• Health Information
• Incident Tracking (Discipline and Safe Schools)

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How Does NC WISE Support and Enhance
Instruction?

• Real-time access to student demographic, academic
  and attendance data
• Tailor student instruction by monitoring and
  evaluating student performance through electronic
  grade book
• Guide and support students post-secondary
  choices based on student data
• Tools to support parent communications and
  involvement

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Project Framework (multi-year)

• 1999 - 2001 School Year
• Fit Gap Analysis
• Site Assessments
• Implement Pilot Sites

• 2001 - 2002 School Year
• Implement Scaled up Pilot (22 to 200)

• 2002 - 2003 School Year
• Project Assessment
• Statewide Deployment Planning

• 1998 - 1999 School Year
• RFP Awarded
• Contract Negotiations

• 2007 - 2008 School Year
• Production Support
• End User Support Transition
• Sustainment Training

• 2008 - 2009 School Year
• Production Support
• End User Support Transition\
• Sustainment Training

• 2009 - 2010 School Year
• Transition to DPI
• Sustainment Training

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Whats Next?
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NC WISE Deployment Planning

• In the following areas
• Readiness Assessment
• Communications
• Help Desk
• Training
• Network
• Infrastructure
• Data Conversion
• Application Testing

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What is Readiness Assessment?

• Assures DPI and the LEA that all of the minimum
  requirements to implement NC WISE have been
  fulfilled
• Addresses the areas of
• Roles, responsibilities and staffing
• Professional development and training
• Technology infrastructure
• Education and administrative related data
• Data preparation

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Readiness Assessment Areas

• LEAs/charter schools must complete a readiness
  assessment of the following areas
• Staffing LEAs/charter schools indicate the
  names of the individuals who will fill eight key
  roles have been identified.
• Data LEAs/charter schools describe their
  readiness of critical data for conversion (e.g.
  SIMS Course Directory, SIMS Grade Reporting,
  Immunizations, etc.).
• Computer Workstation LEAs/charter demonstrate
  that they meet minimum requirements for computer
  hardware and software that will be utilized in
  the operation of NC WISE.
• Network LEAs/charter schools demonstrate that
  their network infrastructure meets the minimum
  requirements to accommodate NC WISE.

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LEA Readiness Assessment Process
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LEA Roles and Responsibilities

• Superintendent
• (Project Sponsor)

• LEA Coordinator
• Trainers
• School Principal
• School Data Manager

• LEA Steering Committee
• LEA Project Manager
• Security Administrator
• Director of Technology

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Implementing NC WISE Who Do We Need?

• Project Sponsor overall project leadership
• Steering Committee executive decision-making
  body
• Technology Director responsible for
  infrastructure
• Security Administrator enforces security
  policies
• Project Manager day-to-day project operations
• District Trainers develop and deliver training
• NC WISE Coordinator responsible for
  implementation
• Support Staff local help desk
• Principals / Data Managers school leaders for
• implementation

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Three Phases of Conversion

• Pre-conversion
• Data conversion
• Post-conversion

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Desktop Requirements for NC WISE

• All NC WISE workstations should come as close as
  possible to meeting the NC recommended
  requirements for hardware and software.
• NC WISE workstations meeting only minimum
  hardware and software requirements will face
  numerous performance issues.
• NC WISE recommended requirements will yield
  better performance
• Meeting minimal requirements will result in
  serious
• performance issues!

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LEA Network Readiness Evaluation

• Architecture assessment
• Ensures that LEA network has adequate
  connectivity
• Verifies that LEA Network is testable
• Monitoring capabilities assessment
• Verifies that LEA has ability to monitor network
  utilization within its network
• Identifies how much of the network is being used
  and how usage patterns change over time
• Network capacity testing assessment
• Verifies that network performance can be measured
  by determining available bandwidth, latency and
  packet loss

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LEA Responsibilities for Network Readiness

• Provide connectivity to NC WISE sites
• Assess current network readiness, including
  available bandwidth from ISP
• Ensure that all WISE user desktops meet minimum
  specs
• Ensure that all software is maintained at the
  supported release
• Operating Systems
• Browsers
• Virus Protection
• Acrobat Reader
• Assess LEAs ability to diagnose, coordinate, and
  resolve client support problems

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Network Security

• To keep networks safe from external
• threats school districts need to set
• security policies to comply with
• FERPA security and State Board of Education
  policy
• State security policy
• Industry best practices

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Application Security

• Application security is handled via Oracle User
  Name and Password
• Data is backed up daily and stored off site on a
  regular basis
• All web traffic between the user desktop and the
  web servers is encrypted via Secure Socket Layer
  (SSL) encryption.
• NC WISE servers are protected from cyber attack
  by the use of redundant firewalls.

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Role-Driven Access to Data

• Central Office User
• Can see all students in the LEA
• School Based Personnel
• Can see all students in the school
• Classroom Teacher
• Can see all students in his/her classes

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General Assembly Mandate Enforced Through State
Board of Education Mandate

• State Board of Education Policy
• Adopted August 2004
• Web Link http//sbepolicy.dpi.state.nc.us and
  click on the link for EEO-C-018.
• All schools must deploy NC WISE by end of SY 2007

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Change of Business Processes

• Roles in school districts and charter schools
  evolved to meet the needs of NC WISE
• Training is key to the success of NC WISE
• Face-to-Face
• Train-the-Trainer
• Web-Based www.Learnnc.org
• Technology support staff increased to help
  administrators, educators and support staff
  during conversion
• Federal and state reporting processes streamlined
  

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Change of Business Processes

• LEAs and charter schools required to take a more
  active role in keeping data secure through
  policies and memorandum of understanding.
• Instant accessibility to student data by central
  office and school staff means better
  instructional opportunities for students
• Districts and charter schools upgraded hardware
  and software to meet the needs of NC WISE
• Added benefit to teachers and students resulted
  in improved technology instruction and increased
  research opportunities

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The Public Relations Challenge

• How do you convince school personnel across the
  state to change the way they conduct business
  after doing the same thing successfully for 20
  years?
• Professional development introducing personnel
  to NC WISE and building their confidence through
  training
• Speaking opportunities presenting NC WISE
  information at conferences and community
  information meetings throughout the state
• Printed information publishing articles in
  professional journals with national and statewide
  circulation
• Publicity material providing NC WISE public
  information packets and DVDs provided to
  stakeholders at conferences, individual meetings
  and upon request

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NC WISE Continuing to Improve

• NC WISE application continues to be refined based
  on performance history and feedback from
  administrators and teachers
• Executive Steering Committee
• Change Control Board
• Interfaces being developed to integrate other
  applications with NC WISE
• Creating partnerships with professional
  community. Ex Principals Executive Program

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LEA Success Factors

• Recognize that NC WISE is more than new
  technologyits a new way of operating
• Assist LEA personnel to understand NC WISE goals,
  benefits and associated responsibilities
• Assess and invest in infrastructure, as required
  and reasonable
• IT plans
• Desktops
• Connectivity
• Assign appropriate resources to support rollout
  and production
• Allow people to take advantage of opportunities
  to learn about NC WISE and how it affects them
• Align business processes to take advantage of
  functionality

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Public Information Packet

• Deployment Map
• Waves 1, 2 and 3 Deployment List
• User Benefits for
• NC WISE

• Frequently Asked Questions About NC WISE
• NC WISE Brochure

This information is also available on the Web
site at www.ncwise.org
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• Questions?

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