North Carolina

Professional development system

The North Carolina Community College System conducts state leadership activities in areas of identified need or priority, with emphasis on professional development and collaboration. The Basic Skills staff oversees these activities, involving personnel from other organizations as appropriate. Changes are approved annually by the Basic Skills Advisory Board to create a systematic training plan including state sponsored training, university-based training sponsored by the state, and training offered by not-for-profit agencies.

Last year 2007-2008, the North Carolina Community College (NCCCS) System Office provided ninety-four (94) Basic Skills training and staff development opportunities and a statewide conference (65 additional workshops). These staff development opportunities were attended by a total of 3,041 participants.

STAR implementation

The Basic Skills Office invited up to 45 individuals from across the state to participate in the Student Achievement in Reading (STAR) this past fall.

The North Carolina Community Colleges System saw this reading reform initiative that includes professional development, tools, and resources as an opportunity to expand participants' knowledge of effective reading instruction and improve their ability to build local and state adult basic education systems that support reading improvement. Therefore, we required interested programs to send at least one lead instructor/administrator and one instructor together to all three institutes. This meant we had slots for 22 programs to participate if everyone had sent the two required attendees. We have 16 programs (listed below) that have been able to stay in the training even though we lost others because of travel and budget constraints.

The North Carolina Community Colleges System saw this reading reform initiative that includes professional development, tools, and resources as an opportunity to expand participants' knowledge of effective reading instruction and improve their ability to build local and state adult basic education systems that support reading improvement. Therefore, we required interested programs to send at least one lead instructor/administrator and one instructor together to all three institutes. This meant we had slots for 22 programs to participate if everyone had sent the two required attendees. We have 16 programs (listed below) that have been able to stay in the training even though we lost others because of travel and budget constraints.

Programs implementing STAR