Welcome Back Message from the Interim Chief Administrator

On behalf of Heartland Area Education Agency, I’d like to extend a warm 'welcome back' to all of you for the coming 2009-2010 school year. We hope you've had an enjoyable and relaxing summer and are as excited and ready as we are to start the new school year. As always, let Heartland AEA help you extend your reach to better serve you and your districts to increase student achievement.

I invite you to take interest in this Heartland AEA Administrator Connection blog. The Administrator Connection is sent every Friday (excluding holidays and summer vacation) with important information, deadlines and professional development and scholarship opportunities for school administrators, teachers and students.

To our superintendent collegues, we invite you to join us for our monthly Heartland Administrator Association meetings. The meetings are a time to come together, collaborate and discuss educational laws and standards and district-wide issues. The meetings are held at the West Des Moines Learning Resource Center from 9:00 to 11:50 a.m. on the first Tuesday of every month. This year’s first HAA meeting will be on September 1, 2009.

If you have any questions about what Heartland AEA can do for you, please don’t hesitate to contact me at sking@aea11.k12.ia.us or (515) 270-9030. Questions and comments can also be addressed to the Heartland Communications Department at comms@aea11.k12.ia.us.

Best regards,

Sheila King
Interim Chief Administrator

Instructional Decision Making (IDM) Evaluation Update

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for participating in Instructional Decision Making (IDM) during our initial years of training and supporting IDM practices in your school. The 2008-09 implementation data that was collected last spring for over 70 buildings has been delivered this week (August 3-7). The package will included a cover letter explaining how to interpret the results and a CD-ROM with the following files:

• A README file that explains how to (a) navigate the implementation data file on the CD-ROM and (b) interpret the building and agency-wide implementation data (pdf) (Note: you will want to read this file first)
• Implementation data for your building (Microsoft Excel)
• Implementation data summarized agency-wide (Note: individual schools are kept confidential) (Microsoft Excel)
• The PESA rating scale (pdf)

We continue to strive to make the data collection process timely and more efficient. We appreciate your willingness to partner with us in our efforts to better support you and the other schools we serve. We welcome any feedback you have regarding this process. Our hope is to return the 2008-09 student outcome data to you within the coming months.

Thank you for your continued support and commitment to helping all children succeed. If you have any questions about the IDM implementation results, please contact Alecia Rahn-Blakeslee at arahn@aea11.k12.ia.us or Brad Niebling at bniebling@aea11.k12.ia.us.

A National Showcase for Iowa Schools

The US Department of Education (USDE) is seeking recommendations of schools that have made substantial gains in student achievement. The USDE will showcase several schools in the Race to the Top program. If you believe one or more of the schools in your district have made significant gains in student achievement in recent years and would like to be recommended to the USDE, please contact Dr. Maxine Kilcrease at MKilcrease@IA-SB.org.

Visit Iowa's AEAs at the 2009 Iowa State Fair!

For the second year, Iowa's AEAs will be featured at the State Fair in a booth in the William C. Knapp Varied Industries Building. The booth will highlight information about AEA services and will provide visitors with the opportunity to share their personal AEA success stories. Heartland AEA staff members will be working in the booth on August 18th and 19th. For more information about the 2009 Iowa State Fair, which runs from August 13-23, visit www.iowastatefair.org.