Starting this summer, the Agency will begin the transition from Mandt to Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) for management training of disruptive behaviors. The decision was based on several factors including:
- High district interest in training for de-escalation, safety and restraint
- Increasingly tight resources for districts which impact sub time and travel
- Shifting AEA resources related to Mandt
Cindy Yelick, Executive Director of Instructional Services, talked with several school administrators about moving from Mandt to Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI). While there is an interest in CPI for multiple reasons, there is also concern about retraining district and school staff who have recently certified in Mandt. Below is what has been decided for this transition. The Agency will:
- Continue to offer Mandt recertification for the next few years, but will no longer bring on any new cohorts
- Begin to offer CPI as an alternative
- Train at least one AEA staff member per region to be a CPI trainer
- Develop a course around de-escalation strategies
If you have questions about this transition and CPI training, please contact your regional director or Cindy Yelick at cyelick@aea11.k12.ia.us or (515) 270-9030.
We have had some questions from districts about ordering DIBELS materials for next year. We sent out the DIBELS order form to those who were identified as facilitating the assessments. For your reference, click here for the order form. Completed forms should be sent to Rick Bingaman at printcenter@aea11.k12.ia.us or send it to the Print Center at the Johnston Regional Education Center.
We are very excited to announce new agency website which will go live in early June. Based on customer survey feedback and our usage data, the Agency decided to build a new website. Our communications department has done their best to make the new site more user-friendly with improved navigation and updated information. We appreciate your patience as we continue to add content in our new site throughout the summer.
With this new website, we will also get a new URL, www.heartlandaea.org. Users who try to access our old site (www.aea11.k12.ia.us) will be redirected to our new front page. If your district/school links to our website, thank you for your support and please redirect your link to www.heartlandaea.org before school starts in the fall.
We are also excited to announce that our staff email will also change over the summer to end with "@heartlandaea.org." Our current email addresses will continue to work for another year. We will have more information in the fall about the impact of our email changes for area schools.
We are committed to excellent service and believe our new website will help keep you aware of our services and activities. Please contact the Heartland AEA Communications Department at comms@aea11.k12.ia.us if you have any questions about the new website or agency emails.
Heartland AEA is in the process of scheduling summer van delivery. We will deliver twice a week to each district administration building. If you have summer school, professional development programs or intercessions and you would like regularly scheduled deliveries to additional buildings, please email Sherise Ahlers at sahlers@aea11.k12.ia.us.
Schedule-to-date:
- Twice-a-week delivery to each district administration building runs June 11 to August 8.
- Twice-a-week delivery will automatically continue to each building that has an extended year calendar.
- Regular fall van delivery resumes August 12.
Printing:
- Heartland AEA will contact the district to arrange for special delivery of large printing orders during the summer.
The paraeducator competency re-write is in progress, and the updated competencies for the paraeducator generalist and concentration areas such as special needs and early childhood will be going to the state board for review sometime in this fall. The online program for paras currently employed by Heartland area districts and schools will continue for 2013-14. Please make arrangements with your regional director if you need this training offered in your area.
As you consider the needs for paraeducators in your district and building, please be reminded of the Iowa Code requirement for cultivating diversity:
281—80.10(272) Diversity.
80.10(1) Efforts toward racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among paraeducator candidates and unit faculty shall be documented. In addition, diversity efforts shall include persons with disabilities, persons from different language and socioeconomic backgrounds, and persons from different regions of the country and world.
80.10(2) Unit efforts in increasing or maintaining diversity shall be reflected in plans, monitoring of plans, and results.
For questions regarding the paraeducator program at Heartland AEA, please contact Sue Schirmer at sschirmer@aea.k12.ia.us.
Click here to find a link to the June 2013 edition of "Each and Every Child" brought to you by the Iowa Department of Education’s Bureau of Student and Family Support Services. This issue has a story on dispels some myths about special education.
Additionally, below are links for summer math and reading programs:
Adults spend a lot of time talking about improving education. However, the students whose very future depends on the direction that America’s education system takes are often unaware and uninvolved in these conversations. So after attending an edcamp Iowa conference back in February, we decided to do something about it. We are planning a student education conference this fall called the Iowa Student Learning Institute (ISLI) with the theme “How should schools be redesigned for learning in the 21st century?”
ISLI will be held at Waukee High School on Saturday, October 5 from 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. (with registration opening at 8:00 a.m.). The day will consist of two basic parts. The morning will feature speakers including Dr. Scott McLeod, administrator at Prairie Lakes AEA, to set the tone of the day and spark transformative thinking. Then in the afternoon students will work with each other in student-led breakout sessions to build upon the ideas introduced in the morning and explore an answer to the day’s overarching question.
Our goal is to bring a diverse group of 200 students of all ages from across the state to ISLI. Registration for students and their adult chaperones is free and will open soon.
We are compiling a contact list, so if you are interested in receiving more information and updates throughout the summer and fall, or if you have any questions or comments, please respond to Jack or Ian (see info below). You can also check out the details on the ISLI smore page.
Thanks so much for your interest in ISLI! Hope to see you there!
Ian Coon
Freshman, Waukee High School
@IanCoon
Ian.Coon97@gmail.com
(515) 978-1497
Jack Hostager
Sophomore, Hempstead High School
@jackhostager
straightfromthedesk@gmail.com
(563) 845-9198
PS: Please forward this on to anyone else who might be interested. Thanks!
