Currituck County Schools NC WISE Department

It has been over a year since I’ve posted on this blog!  I apologize, but it has been extremely busy.  Since the last time I posted, we went through the complex comversion from SIMS to NC WISE in February 2008, went through our first Year End Transition, and went through our first almost full year of NC WISE!  We have been very pleased with NC WISE for the most part.  We’ve had quite a few bumps down the road, but we’ve actually done a great job.  I’m very proud of my data managers for all of the hard work and dedication they have put in managing all of the data NC WISE requires.  It’s definitely not an easy task, and they all have gotten through the challenges.  NC WISE can handle so much more than SIMS ever could, which has helped us greatly.  Yes, I do miss SIMS at times (since I still have report numbers memorized that I can still recite in my sleep if I had to).  But, I think we’ve all gotten used to the daily routine of NC WISE.

Also, since my last update, we’ve opened two new elementary schools and an Early College High School.  I’ve gained two new data managers in the process, along with a new data manager at Moyock Middle School.  They are the first data managers I’ve had that did not have a SIMS background, and went straight to NC WISE.  We are very fortunate to have them aboard with us!

I hope to be updating this blog more often, so stay tuned!

It definitely has been a long time since I have added any entries to this blog.  It’s been a very busy past couple of months in the SIMS/NC WISE Department.

In July, our department moved into the Technology Department for our school district, which was an excellent move for us.  I also attended the SIMS/NC WISE Coordinators’ Summer Conference on July 22-24 in Atlantic Beach, and learned that we will be converting to NC WISE in February, 2008.  We are very excited at this opportunity to use a new program and to provide a better solution for Student Information Management to our Teachers, School Administrators, Support Staff, and Central Office Administrators.  There is a great deal of prep work that we have all been participating in at both the school and district level.

On July 1, I became the SIMS/NC WISE Coordinator for the Central Office, and two new data managers were hired in our schools.  We are grateful to have such a great staff of Data Managers in our schools who work very hard and dedicate themselves to their daily duties in not only the SIMS world, but also in the other duties they have in their schools.  They all have been working very hard in the pre-conversion tasks to NC WISE, whether it be data cleanup, participating in Web-Based Training (WBT) modules online through DPI, and so much more.  The Data Managers play a vital role in the conversion to NC WISE, and will be our school team leaders in the every day functions of NC WISE.  Some may ask how the role of SIMS Data Manager will change once NC WISE comes.  Even though the data entry responsibilities will be different with the new system, the data managers will be the key to making sure the schools’ databases are accurate and are running properly.

At the Central Office level, we are working very hard with the enormous amount of planning and implementation that it takes to put NC WISE into the hands of the users in our school district.  The Technology Director serves as the Project Sponsor and is the leader of the project’s implementation at the district level and plays a very important role in providing the support and guidance needed to put this project on the road.  The SIMS/NC WISE Coordinator serves as the Project Manager at the district level and also plays a very important role in managing the project’s activities and making sure the project is on track and provides support to all of our schools and the data managers.  This is an extensive project that takes a lot of time and effort to get going, but in the end, the results will be worth the wait and effort.  The Project Sponsor and Manager are both actively involved in weekly conference calls wtih our account manager for NC WISE at the state department, which allows us to keep on track and be prepared for the conversion in February.

Hopefully, in the next blog I post in October, we’ll have even more news to share about how great NC WISE will be in the Currituck County Schools!

So much for my goal of updating this blog at least once a month   Just kidding!

The month of March was very busy for the SIMS/NC WISE Department in the Currituck County Schools.  We have been working very hard continuing the goals we set in place to prepare for the conversion to NC WISE in the next couple of years.  We are anxiously waiting to hear when our conversion date may be.  In the meantime, we will continue to work very hard cleaning up our data!

Hopefully, in May I will have a much longer, more updated blog to post about our preparation for NC WISE!

Well, my original plan was to post a new blog entry at the beginning of each month, but I guess I did not meet my plan’s goal this month! We have been very busy with several different activities going on at one time, so I have not had the chance to post. I will catch you up on what is going on in the SIMS world in Currituck County.

The Data Managers and I are currently attending the annual NC WISE/SIMS Symposium at the Sheraton Four Seasons in Greensboro this week. Although we are leaving to come back to Currituck tomorrow, it has been a beneficial conference this year. My major focus of attending the sessions at the conference was to get the answer to the biggest question I have right now in the world: “When are we going on NC WISE?” The majority of the sessions I sat in this week pertained to how Wave II districts are making it through the conversion process, where DPI is on deployment of NC WISE, what the plans are for Wave III rollout, and much more. The Wave II LEAs began converting at the end of January, with Watauga County being the first one. They have had a very rough past 3 weeks with conversion. They have had a lot of problems with the new DMU (Data Migration Utility) program released by the vendor of NC WISE, AAL. A lot of their data was converted into different places, along with duplicated records missing, etc. Sallie Newell, the SIMS/NC WISE Coordinator for Watauga County, shared with us today in a Wave II/III Deployment session about their whole conversion progress, along with what they have had to do to get data cleaned up and in a format they could access (which they are still trying to get straight). A few LEAs are converting as I am typing this, while our friends in Edenton-Chowan are being converted this Friday. My friend Lynnette, who is the SIMS/NC WISE Coordinator there, shared with me during the Coordinators’ meeting what she has been going through with pre-conversion and the DMU tool. They are going to be a valuable resource close to home (well, close to my home since I live in Elizabeth City) for when we convert to NC WISE.

I attended a conversion workshop on Monday with the Data Managers. When I first walked in, I thought it was going to be the same presentation I attended for an entire day at DPI a few years ago. The beginning was similar, but it changed a lot since the last time I attended the day long version. The end of Wave I and the current Wave II conversions have created some new obstacles that we will need to make sure have cleaned up and ready before conversion. We learned that some of the demographic information we originaly were told to take care of now has to be in some different formats. Also, they are having a lot of problems right now with the conversion of test scores. The bottom line that we were shown was that there is going to be a LOT of work involved with cleaning up our current data to make things work. Those of us involved with SIMS know how difficult that is. I will have a lot of work ahead of me in the near future with making sure each school’s data is meeting the formats required by DPI. This will be accomplished through database audits, verifications of data, directory audits, and more. The way we have scheduling in each school also affects conversion. There is going to be a lot of data that will not convert, thus requiring a lot of manual entry once we go to NC WISE to put the data back in that does not convert. As you saw in my January 2007 posting, before attending this conference, we were participating in pre-conversion activities. Due to the changes given to us in pre-conversion tasks at this conference this week, I will be making some modifications on our data cleanup and setting priorities of what we need to get done for pre-conversion.

Right now, the exact schedule for Wave III is not ready yet. DPI is planning on contacting each LEA Coordinator about the plans and conduct preliminary surveys on where we are and if we are close to where we need to be for possible conversion. Originally, in earlier sessions on Monday that I attended, we were told that all LEAs would be converted by the end of FY08 (2007-08 school year), but after attending sessions today, the state board plans to have all districts converted to NC WISE by the end of FY09 (2008-09). Regardless of when our conversion date will be in Wave III, we are already working hard to prepare for whatever comes our way. I have already converted all of the courses in our LEA to NC WISE standard format, and that is a major part in the pre-conversion process. We do need to do a few minor adjustments to the course conversion file due to the addition of several new courses at Currituck County High during this school year and the upcoming school year.

Because March is just a week away, I will be posting a new blog soon, so come back and check out what is new!

Welcome to the first posting on the Currituck County Schools SIMS/NC WISE Department’s blog! I am new at blogging, so I am excited with being able to post entries and update our district staff and visitors on how our progress is going in the SIMS world on our daily operations. This will be a great communication gateway that I am looking forward to using for years to come.

This will be a busy month for our two middle schools and high school, as we approach the end of the 1st Semester on January 19. For SIMS, that not only means grade collection and report cards, but it also means that we will be closing the semester out and preparing for 2nd semester. Running new student schedules, class lists, attendance forms, and much more will keep all of us very busy so we are ready for the first day of 2nd semester, Tuesday, January 23. We have a workday this year on Monday, which will help us with preparing everything for Tuesday, especially at CCHS. Normally, it takes us the weekend before 2nd Semester starts to get everything ready, as we would start the following Monday.

We have also been discussing as a group the biggest project that we will face next school year (we think): NC WISE. Our LEA is on Wave 3 for conversion, which was originally scheduled to begin rolling out during the current school year, 2006-07. Due to some technical issues with NC WISE after Wave 1 rolled out, Wave 2 was delayed until this school year. Only a handful of LEAs are converting this school year, with the rest of the state scheduled to begin conversion during 2007-08 (including us). We have been participating in a lot of pre-conversion activities locally as an LEA, including data cleanup, web-based training (WBT), and more. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but I know we will be ready when our time comes to start the conversion process.

Speaking of NC WISE preparations, I have been collaborating with the Edenton-Chowan Schools, and my friend Lynette Hamilton, who is the SIMS/NC WISE Coordinator for the school district there. They are in Wave 2, and their conversion is scheduled to begin as soon as 2nd Semester starts. Lynette has been doing a lot of traveling during the past few months attending several pre-conversion sessions for her LEA. They have been working very hard with all of the preparations they are facing for conversion. Being able to see their conversion process will help me with getting ready for our possible conversion next school year. I have also had a few meetings with Vallerie Jacocks, Director of Data Management and At-Risk Services for the Camden County Schools, as they have been on NC WISE for a few years now. She has shared their ups and downs with me, and has provided answers to some of the questions I have come up with to better my knowledge level of this project. I have also been collaborating with Lola Rountree, NC WISE Coordinator for the Gates County Schools. It is great to have such experienced colleagues in our area who have already been exposed to NC WISE, which helps me to prepare for what we are about to expect over the next few years. We will be converting at the same time as Elizabeth City-Pasquotank and Dare County, which will also help since they are within a 30-60 minute radius of Currituck County.

The Data Managers and myself have been participating in the Web-Based Training Modules (WBT’s) that DPI provides us through their secured web portal. These online training sessions allow us to learn about the various modules in NC WISE, including simulation exercises with sample data to better prepare us for the use of the system. There are also quizzes on the information, which helps us to practice what we have learned. One of the greatest features of the WBT’s are the portability. You can access the site from anywhere. Of course, for all of us (myself included, as you know), time is very limited with all of the duties placed upon us, and I find myself only being able to access WBT’s every now and then when I have a couple of minutes. Once we get closer to conversion, we will be participating much more in depth with the WBT’s, as they will be the first step into the pre-conversion workshops we will have to participate in shortly before conversion.

Wow, I did not realize I had written this much in my first blog, but there is so much information and so many things we are up to! I’m almost finished, but not just yet.

We are also working very hard on Data Cleanup. The Data Manager at each school has been cleaning up and formatting into NC WISE format many modules and directories, including: demographic information, setting up/modifying grade tables, course directories, personnel directories, and much more. Conversion to NC WISE requires a lot of cleanup. I plan to begin doing another audit of each school’s database over the next few months to make sure we are on the right track. I did a partial audit last school year, and submitted some data for validating through the Department of Public Instruction, but due to technical difficulties on their end, we were not able to successfully validate any school’s data. We are also making sure, on a daily basis, that our data is clean and accurate as possible, including testing records.

As you know, I am always “stepping out of the SIMS box”. I will begin teaching a new section of Introduction to Digital Communications for district staff members for staff development/CEU credit on Tuesday, January 9. This course teaches staff members about various technology devices, such as Tablet PC’s, Palm Pilots, Flash Drives, Digital Cameras, Speech Recognition, and much more. I have been teaching this class to teachers for the past 3 years. It’s a fun class and it allows me to interact with our staff.

I think I’ve had enough of this blog for now, but come back often and check out what new things we are up to!