RTO Team Communications

Here are the most up-to-date emails sent to RTO Schools within the month of October and November.

Sent 2/7/25-

Happy Friday RTO Teams,

It's an acronym galore kind of day! Remember back in September when you said you didn't know how you were going to learn all these acronyms. Slowly but surely! 🙂

First things first, a big welcome to our newest OCS Consultant Tara Whitbread, who will be supporting RTO reviews and logistics. We are happy to have such a great team who truly want your schools to succeed.

For all of this email summary and more please view this video LINK

Before I run down the list, please ensure that you have my personal cell phone number in the event it's easier to call than email and you think something you're dealing with is urgent. I often ask the RTO Team to text me instead of emailing, because I really do enjoy not being on a computer every hour of the day. I am happy to take a phone call or quick text for topics you need urgent help with going into the next three months, but please make sure you use discretion regarding the hours you try to text. Your schedules are about to get very busy with logistics, enrollment, and I know a quick text or call is easier sometimes. I most likely will not respond during non-business hours only 8:30 am- 6 pm. You can reach me at 252-432-7856.

NSLP

There is now a new contact for NSLP, and it is no longer Jacquelyn McGowan. Going forward please reach out to Dana.Edwards@dpi.nc.gov. Remember, the earlier you make contact with DPI entities for programs you are going to need, the better. It's government and oftentimes there are delays with communication. Furthermore, if you notice a contact is not responding to you from any DPI entity, please reach out to me quickly so I can research the issue.

LINQ

Many of you have already heard that LINQ will not be offering their first year of services free for new schools. Thank you to those of you who know oftentimes this takes advocacy outside of OCS for voices to be heard. SBF (School Business Finances) specifically Steven Katz, Steven.katz@dpi.nc.gov and Barry Ross, Barry.Ross@dpi.nc.gov are working diligently to find a solution. Please reach out to both of them directly to voice your concerns. However, you will still need to add another vendor for RTO II; whether it is LINQ or another vendor that has DPI cash management capabilities that is the decision of your board of directors to make. Remember, oftentimes OCS is truly the messenger of updates and for your awareness, without some of you doing the work, we were not made aware of the change. So, thank you for informing our office and continuing to keep the communication positive in the face of change.

CSADM

At this time, Evelyn Gallagos should have contacted your POC to complete the CSADM process. Your EDDIE/NCID accounts needing to be complete in order to log into CSADM, so we've heard from Angela Coats that a majority of you have completed the NCID process. As a reminder, if you have not used your NCID accounts, you will still need to reach out to her to reactivate those accounts. Furthermore, CSADM was due Wednesday, 2/5, and if you have not already completed that process, please let me know. That's where your funding comes from so this is a VERY IMPORTANT ACTION!

NCID

As you've experienced, your NCID accounts are necessary to access any/all state platforms, including CSADM, Cash Flow, Infinite Campus, state communications, EC programs, etc. The school board chair name and address, school address, phone number, and other identifying information must be included in that profile on EDDIE. During RTO II Submission reviews if your information is not complete in EDDIE that will be an Insufficient rating. Please handle this before completing the RTO II Framework/Checklist.

RTO I-III

Your teams will receive the final standings letter today from the myself and the RTO Team. I want to commend you on making all revisions smoothly and quickly for this final revision process to be smooth. Thank you for your professional attention to detail and making efforts to improve your submissions quickly. GREAT WORK on all fronts and a much smoother RTO I review process for our OCS team. We appreciate it immensely that you took the time to read comments and ask questions. It's the only way to quickly grasp RTO! So well done!

What to anticipate after RTO II:

During the first week of March an RTO III Coaching Session will be placed on your calendars.
RTO II Reviews will be returned at the end of March, while you proceed to work on RTO III.
Please reach out to the EC, NSLP, and SIS teams to ensure you have all your ducks in a row ahead of time! If you're new to the EC requirements, please reach out to tracee.mcmanus@dpi.nc.gov for all EC RTO III requirements. The gist here is that you should not be in the last weeks of RTO in May needing to reach out to Tracee. EC has a conference with the EC team in May and they are not always available on your time. The best way to pass RTO III is to start the work listed in the Framework and Checklist as quickly as you finish RTO II. Remember, DPI employees wear many hats and they can't always guarantee their availability with over 1000+ other public schools.
Lastly, there is no extension given for RTO III submissions, and the revisions are do within the week prior to June 9^th CSRB. So please continue to really work hard on communications and time management.

This was a long-winded email, but many of them will be like this moving forward. Watch the video for a summary!

Kindly,

Dr. Natasha Norins, Ed. D.
Education Program Consultant II
Book time with Natasha Norins: Book an appointment
Ready To Open/Planning Year Lead & External Support Team Lead
Office of Charter Schools
Phone: (984) 236-2702
natasha.norins@dpi.nc.gov
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Sent 12/2/24-
Greetings RTO POCs,

I hope this email finds you well, and trust you relaxed during Thanksgiving. PLEASE READ THIS EMAIL IN ITS ENTIRETY!

I will be sending you Returned Epicenter submissions if there are missing elements. The email you will receive from Epicenter notifies you that there are returned submissions that include comments directly on the need to revise and what to include in your revisions. Your team may receive these submission returns in the next few weeks periodically as we are reviewing each submission in Epicenter. Revisions are officially due January 24th, after we provide you with the feedback, so you can tackle the returns as they show in your Queue, or you can wait until you receive the RTO I Feedback Rubric sometime before January 10^th officially.

*** PLEASE READ CAREFULLY***

However, I will be addressing some of the areas I have already seen in your Submissions/Policies this Friday, 12/6 during our Virtual Coaching Session. Some areas I am seeing primarily have been the lack of required legislative General Statute elements noted in submissions that were presented during the Planning Sessions. Please ensure as you move into the RTO Phase II that you refer to all the planning session presentations previously sent to your teams, and refer to this Article 14: § 115C‑218. Purpose of charter schools; role of State Board of Education; establishment of North Carolina Charter Schools Review Board and North Carolina Office of Charter Schools. While we know you have wanted information on other areas of starting a charter school, the general statutes, policies, and requirements to open a charter school, and receive the formal charter agreement, are necessary to be referenced in full and described within each of the policies that will be submitted; thus, the planning sessions were essential to provide you with the GS laws, resources, and regulations needed to be referenced in your submissions.

To do this successfully, please ensure that you refer to the general statute that each policy is referencing within individual submissions that are being returned. I would wait until you've had a chance to schedule a 1:1 meeting with Julie and me this next month to make any revisions if you are unclear about what needs to be added. I will start scheduling 1:1 meetings in the next few days for time to review Phase I feedback with each of your schools. Also, thank you for ensuring all of your policies are of the highest quality with very little visual evidence of copying/pasting from the internet. If you copy/paste from other resources you are required to cite your references. As much as possible, please do not reference links as your sources, but develop the actual policy for your schools.

I hope this update helps as you see some feedback returning to your Epicenter queues this week and throughout the next few weeks.

Kindly,

Dr. Natasha Norins, Ed. D.
Education Program Consultant II

Sent 11/28/24

Good afternoon 2025 RTO Schools,

As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday with RTO I Submissions due tomorrow, I wanted to take a quick moment to share the upcoming dates in December for your teams.

RTO I- all RTO schools will now go into RTO II which is due on Friday, February 28th, 2025. Those submissions have been added to the Epicenter Calendar. Please ensure that your main POCs are being supported with these tasks as much as possible since this is the first very, large workload within RTO. There may be a few individual added submissions within the next week with the SMHP and Threat Assessments as well as the Parent Bill of Rights, and I will inform you of these additions when they occur in Epicenter. I am meeting with our Epicenter representative tomorrow to discuss this.

RTO II- all POCs will be invited to a December 6^th RTO II Coaching Session where the team will run down all the requirements for submissions and tasks in Epicenter. Again, I will also schedule individual MS Team meetings with each school for February to discuss the start of the Enrollment and Facility Updates with your board. Many schools have already started implementing their Open Enrollment phases, and those will continue to drive your enrollment numbers. At the same time, your facility renovations should begin in January to ensure your school is ready for opening and ECOs are scheduled for 30 days before opening. The ECO process will be sent to you later in February. In the meantime, I will also be reaching out in January to contact you with EDDIE, NCID, and facility details so please be ready for more emails coming to you in the months ahead.

December Planning Session- Please RSVP here[http://December RTO Planning Session: "Meeting the Needs of All Learners" (VIRTUAL) Hosted by Norins, Natasha https://ncgov.webex.com/ncgov/j.php?MTID=m5dda72ebfc6d93b90b87642888da8fee Wednesday, December 18, 2024 8:15 AM | 8 hours 30 minutes | (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) Meeting number: 2438 064 8562 Password: UZqGGHCQ323 Join by video system Dial 24380648562@webex.com You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter your meeting number. For internal <sitename> users, dial <Pilot Number>. Join by phone +1-415-655-0003 US Toll +1-904-900-2303 United States Toll (Jacksonville) Access code: 243 806 48562] for the December 18^th Planning Session- "Meeting the Needs of All Learners" from 8:15 am- 3:45 pm.

See you then and have a Happy Thanksgiving with time to rest and enjoy family and good food.

Kindly,

Sent 10/7/24

Greetings RTO Schools,

I hope you are all doing well. Please let Ashley or me know if you need anything after the recent hurricane that has impacted so many in Western No. Carolina. We are here to support. For your awareness, there are 24 charter schools impacted by Hurricane Helene in the western part of the state. Our wonderful director, Ashley Baquero and OCS Staff have been in contact with all of the charter schools, who have been supporting families in the region with providing supplies and communication.

Normally, the RTO update emails are sent each Friday, but our office was under an official memorandum to hold all communications last week due to the hurricane relief efforts.

Please take a look at the Epicenter update below and some Q&A clarifications. I will review these points of interest on 10/23 when we meet virtually for Planning Session II (more information will be coming next week with invitations and logistics for that meeting).

Epicenter

EdLusion is no longer used for RTO, as it is solely the platform OCS uses for Charter School applications. From now on all of your work will be done in Epicenter throughout RTO and when you are fully operational.

You have all now received your Epicenter invitations, and throughout the next week will see the tasks populate on your Epicenter Dashboard. Please reach out to me directly during the normal business hours, Mon.-Friday; 8 am- 6 pm for help with Epicenter. I can meet with school POCs 1:1 to assist with any Epicenter needs.

There are approximately 32 separate submissions that are due November 27, 2024. We will meet for Planning Session II, and then there will be an Open Office Hour held October 29th, where I will go into more detail about all the information listed in Epicenter, but you should get started working on several of the submissions listed in this rubric and in the Framework. The rubric attached will be used by the RTO Team to review your submissions after 11/27/24. If you have questions and would like to schedule a 1:1 meeting, please do not hesitate. Remember, you are submitting the final draft submissions, and many require the board of director votes/approval to occur before uploading to Epicenter.

Please, please, please, make sure the submissions you are uploading to Epicenter are the final draft with no errors because when you hit SAVE on each of the submissions it takes extra effort and time to return them to your school contact if there are errors. While you will have time to revise all submissions, these are considered your FINAL DRAFTS.

Q&A from RTO PS #1-

One question that was raised from the last meeting was if a student/family must disclose a suspension or expulsion on their Enrollment Forms. I verified my answer was correct, and there should be no identifiable bias questions asked on any enrollment materials. The time that this information is collected is once a family completes an application for admission, and are officially admitted to your school, then you will request school records, and use student official records to determine their further needs; but under no circumstance can you deny any student admission for any reason; except when/if your enrollment requires a weight list.

Please reach out directly to me and not reply to this email for further questions.

Kindly,

Dr. Natasha Norins, Ed. D. May be an image of text
Education Program Consultant II

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