This is your regular source for a look at the people, places, and behind-the-scenes workings of the Wake County Public School System.

Preparing for AP Exams

Wake County high school students have begun taking Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams that could potentially provide them credit at the colleges and universities they choose to attend.

Teachers and students have been preparing for these exams all year and are hard at work reviewing in the final days before their exams. Here's a group of Cary High students talking about their preparations in class and at home.

Click here to listen to Preparing for AP Exams

This is a 7 minute mp3 file.

Posted by Bill Poston at 06:42 PM on May 08, 2008 | Leave Feedback

What Do You Think of Our New Front Page?

WCPSS website administrator Paul Cory has been hard at work making improvements to our new front page, which went live yesterday. I asked him why it has a new look, and his answer was, "Bigger monitors."

When you visit a web server, it can detect how large your computer screen is. Paul surveyed the data and found out that our customers are using larger, higher-resolution displays than they were the last time we refreshed the website, so we took that into account to hopefully give you a better web experience.

With more space to work with, we think our new front page is easier to read and use. Our side navigation bars have better spacing and larger text. Our search bar at the top of the screen is wider and easier to find. The new design also helps us better highlight our multimedia resources such as our blog and our audio and video podcasts. (You can now subscribe to our blog and podcast feeds from the front page.)

We'll have a more formal user survey in the future, but if you have any comments that you can't wait to leave, feel free to use the link below. Our goal is to keep improving the website to make it more useful to you, whether you're a parent, citizen, educator, student or visitor. Thank you!

Posted by Chip Sudderth at 12:22 PM on May 08, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Character Education in WCPSS (video)

WCPSS's character education program is a state pioneer. We talk to our character education coordinator, Dr. Susan Schmidt, for a quick overview of the program, and also take a peek at Northwoods Elementary's "Hero Day" which reinforces character education thanks to community volunteers. All that is in our latest Wake EduCast video podcast!

If you want to learn more, there's also our online Character Education Resource Center (including links to recent audio podcasts) and our December 2007 School Connection TV show, which featured a complete story about Hero Day at Northwoods.

Posted by Chip Sudderth at 09:41 AM on May 06, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Attendance : WCPSS PodCast

Wake County educators are working to boost academic success by focusing on attendance.
Donna Hargens, WCPSS Chief Academic Officer says being in school is important.

"Every time you are not in class, you have a gap in learning," said Hargens. "A gap in learning puts a student at a disadvantage to learn the next topic in class, especially in a sequential class."

Click here to listen to Attendance: WCPSS PodCast

This is a 7 minute mp3 file.

Posted by Bill Poston at 09:40 AM on May 06, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Summer School

Summer School will begin June 9 at Southeast Raleigh High and July 2 at all other Wake County Public School System high schools.

Each school is organizing its summer school program and there is limited space at each site. The schools will use their NovaNET labs to provide individualized instruction to students for repeat credit only. Registration for WCPSS students will take place at their base schools and each school will determine when applications will be accepted.

You can find more Summer School information here.

Posted by Bill Poston at 12:26 PM on May 05, 2008 | Leave Feedback

New Law Requires Booster Vaccine for Rising 6th-Graders (UPDATED)

Kelly Creech, WCPSS's Health Officer, asked us to share that North Carolina law now requires a booster shot of Tdap (tetanus/diphtheria/pertussis) for all children entering sixth grade on or after August 1, 2008.

This Tdap vaccine booster is intended to help teens ward off whooping cough (pertussis), tetanus and diphtheria. Without it, the protection from childhood immunization wears off over time.

Wake County Human Services recommends that parents talk to their child's doctor to find out whether the child needs a Tdap booster, make sure the child gets the shot before school starts, and take a copy of the child's shot record to school. WCHS has more information in this handy flyer (English, Spanish), including contact information for their health centers in case a child does not have a health provider.

You can also find out more from the state Department of Health and Human Services' Immunize North Carolina project.

UPDATE in response to a question: According to Kelly Creech, the sixth-grade Tdap vaccination is technically not required of year-round tracks 1, 2, or 3 this year, "but we encourage parents/guardians to contact their private physician or local health department for advice on their student's vaccination needs."

Posted by Chip Sudderth at 11:16 AM on May 05, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Teacher Appreciation Week, May 4-10

The National PTA established Teacher Appreciation Week in 1984 "to honor the dedicated men and women who lend their passion and skills to educating our children." All of us in WCPSS join our entire community in saluting and celebrating our teachers -- the heart and soul of learning and teaching in Wake County.

National PTA has offered some suggestions for honoring teachers at their website.

Posted by Chip Sudderth at 08:59 AM on May 04, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Roadeo Regional Winners

Drivers from the Wake County Public School System Transportation Department took top honors at the Regional Bus Roadeo held in Winterville, NC yesterday. There were 41 drivers who competed in the Roadeo and the top 10 winners were invited to compete in the State Roadeo on May 15 at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh. Four WCPSS drivers secured a spot in the top 10 and these drivers will compete on May 15th.

First Place: Byron Lanier (Broughton)

Second Place: Jeff Mellen (Fuquay)

Third Place: Stephanie High (Millbrook)

Sixth Place: Billy McKemey (Fuquay)

Congratulations to all of our winners and good luck at the State Roadeo!! You can hear WCPSS bus drivers talk about the bus roadeo here.

Posted by Bill Poston at 03:09 PM on May 02, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Ken Smith on Career Tec Ed

You can listen to Ken Smith of WRAL-TV, the Association for Career Technical Education's first Image Award Winner, talk about winning this national award for his volunteer service in the Wake County Public School System. You can hear Smith on ACTE's Career Tec Talk here.

Posted by Bill Poston at 02:19 PM on May 02, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Leesville High Chorus Honored

Students in the Leesville Road High School chorus room were surprised this morning with the presentation of a trophy naming them the area's top youth chorus.

You can read more about the honor, see photos of the excited students and hear from teacher Diane Covington here.

Posted by Bill Poston at 04:32 PM on May 01, 2008 | Leave Feedback

New Reports on Student Outcomes

The Evaluation and Research Department has just released three new reports bringing together a large amount of student achievement information at the elementary, middle and high school levels. You can use these reports:

• to learn about basic trends in outcomes for WCPSS students over time;
• to study achievement gaps over time;
• to get a sense of the number and percentage of students who are doing well and how many students may need additional assistance to succeed; and
• to understand what practices might help in efforts to assist students in need.

You'll find the reports on their website in PDF format for elementary, middle and high schools.

Posted by Chip Sudderth at 03:33 PM on May 01, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Bus Roadeo: WCPSS PodCast

School bus drivers from across the state have taken part in their school district's bus roadeo and this week the local winners compete in regional competitions.

Three Wake County Public School System Transportation employees who are competing at the Winterville Regional Roadeo talk about the competition and how it focuses their attention on safe driving. Regional winners will move on to the state competition held in Raleigh.

Click here to listen to Bus Roadeo: WCPSS PodCast

This is a 10 minute mp3 file.

Posted by Bill Poston at 05:16 PM on April 29, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Teacher Job Fair

More than 1,700 teacher candidates attended the 2008 Teacher Job Fair held April 19 by the Wake County Public School System to recruit licensed teachers.

The candidates came from 42 different states with many from other school districts in NC. The job fair provides the opportunity for school principals and administrators to meet and interview persons who can be licensed to teach in NC in 2008-09. All WCPSS schools had representatives at the fair to meet and talk with teacher candidates.

Elementary school candidates met at Green Hope High and secondary school candidates met at Panther Creek High.

As a result, WCPSS signed 57 letters of intent and made another 10 early contract offers to persons who attended the fair and may be teaching in Wake County classrooms soon.

WCPSS administrators conducted more than 2,800 interviews. Comprehensive spreadsheets of the interview results at both the elementary and secondary fairs have been compiled and sent to principals. Principals will be able to use this information throughout this hiring season.

Posted by Bill Poston at 09:33 AM on April 29, 2008 | Leave Feedback

Better Bus Ratings

Inspection ratings are greatly improved for the school bus fleet that transports more than 68,500 Wake County Public School System students to and from school every day.

The state gave the maintenance of the WCPSS bus system a score of 67.59. This score is significantly lower than the 94.02 from a November 2006 inspection and the 73.10 re-inspection requested by the school system and conducted by the state in May 2007.

Superintendent Del Burns stated that while there is still room for improvement in inspection scores, he is proud of the progress made by the Transportation Department team.

The inspections are somewhat like those drivers are required to have for their cars annually. The scores reflect the number and type of incidents inspectors find in their random inspections. The lower the score the better.

Eddy Adams, Senior Director of Transportation, places credit for the improvement on an increased focus on monthly bus inspections and training, realignment of mechanics' responsibilities, and hard work by all department personnel.

State Transportation staff made their annual unannounced visit this month traveling across the county randomly inspecting ten percent of the school system's 878 buses.

Posted by Bill Poston at 02:49 PM on April 28, 2008 | Leave Feedback