An Explanation of North Carolina Standards

Aug 12, 2021 | Garner

 

Whether you have been in North Carolina for a while, or you are new to our public schools, the codes used to describe what your student is working on in school can be confusing! We put together this guide to help you understand what you are looking for and access the best information to help you and your student navigate math requirements for all of their school years.

All North Carolina Public Schools work off of the NC Standard Course of Study (NCSCOS), which is basically the list of topics that your student should be learning in a given year or course. 

These standards are periodically updated to make sure that student learning is as up to date and relevant as possible. There are standards in place that impact your student for most topics they are learning, including English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and beyond. You can access all of these standards at the NC Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) website. 

More in depth information about math standards can be found by navigating to the mathematics section of the above website, or following this link:

https://www.dpi.nc.gov/teach-nc/curriculum-instruction/standard-course-study/mathematics

This link will take you to a list of documents, which will have descriptions of each standard by grade level or course.

Every standard has a code that identifies it. This is what you may see on your student’s work or syllabus.

The Codes:
For Math, the codes are formatted in the following way for students Kindergarten through Math 4*: 
NC. #1. S. #2

NC - Our State! North Carolina

#1 - This is where the grade level or course would be (1-8 or M1, M2, etc..)

S - This is the subject area abbreviation

#2 - This is the number code for the standard

Ex. NC.6.G.3 <- This is a 6th grade standard, topic is geometry, and it’s topic #3

Note! A teacher may only give you the last two parts, knowing that you are familiar with the grade level already. In the above example that would be G3 or G.3

When you go to the DPI link above, you will want to look for the link that has your student’s grade level and says it is the “Unpacked Content” version. The “Unpacked” version will have detailed descriptions of the subject matter and example problems for each standard. It is okay that the year on the document does not necessarily match this year. The year listed is simply the most recent year that the standards were updated. As of this writing, most are still listed as 2016-2019.

There is no need to know any of the abbreviations for subject area as they are laid out in the documents clearly.

Here is an example of the Math 1 Document

AP courses are not on this list, as they are not a state level standard. AP courses are developed by the College Board, whose standards may be accessed here: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses

*Pre-calculus uses a slightly different format which omits NC and adds an additional number at the end to separate topics. Ex. PC.N.1.1, which is Pre-Calculus, Number and Quantity, topic 1.1

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