Our Mission
To provide services and leadership, in partnership with families, schools and communities, that improve the learning outcomes and well-being of all children and youth.

Our Goals
• Increase learning growth for students
• Decrease the gap in achievement
• Increase annual graduation rates
• Increase gateways to post-secondary success

Happy Holidays!

Letter to Parents about Early Literacy

A note from Brad Buck, Director of the Iowa Dept. of Education

Dear Colleagues,

I'm very proud of our hard work as an education system to make sure all children read well by the end of third grade. Communicating this work to parents and asking for their support is an important piece of our early literacy efforts in Iowa. That's why I'm writing to ask for your help in distributing the attached letter from me to parents in your area.

This letter explains why we are focusing on early literacy in Iowa, how the early warning system for literacy is helping students improve their reading skills as directed by a 2012 state law, and where families can find reading resources to help at home. The letter also brings attention to the parental notification component of the 2012 law.

Thank you in advance for your efforts to distribute this letter to parents using the communication tools you see fit, including email, online parent portals, newsletters and websites.

As the letter to parents emphasizes, it's critical that we all work together to improve literacy -- especially in kindergarten, first and second grades -- because prevention, not retention, is what everyone wants.

Respectfully,
Brad

Apply for Teach Iowa Scholar Award

The Teach Iowa Scholar Program provides qualified first-year Iowa teachers with awards of up to $4,000 a year, for a maximum of five years, for teaching in Iowa schools in designated shortage areas. This year, qualified teachers are those currently teaching in designated shortage areas under their first contracts in Iowa schools. The Iowa College Student Aid Commission (Iowa College Aid) is seeking applications from teachers who graduated from teacher education programs during the 2013-14 academic year. For more information and to apply, please go to Iowa College Aid’s website.

The dissemination of information from external organizations by Heartland AEA does not imply sponsorship or endorsement of the information. It is being passed on to our stakeholders for its educational value.

Broken iPad? Call Heartland AEA!

Heartland AEA is pleased to now offer a repair service for iPads that are no longer under warranty. Our repair technician should be able to repair any iPad model, but we are not currently providing repairs for iPhones.

We will use our van delivery service to pick up and drop off iPads, but schools are always welcome to bring them directly to our repair technician at our Johnston Regional Education Center. During the school year, we anticipate an approximate turn around time of 2 weeks, counting pickup and delivery.

For items that need repaired, please complete the Equipment Repair Form and attach a hard copy to each iPad. After repairs are completed, we will return the iPad(s) via our vans, and we will send a repair invoice to your school business office.

Many districts use Specialty Underwriters to pay for repairs. If you plan to use Specialty for your iPad repairs, please get a purchase order from them ahead of time and send a hard copy of that order with the iPad(s) you need repaired. Remember that we also need that information on the Equipment Repair Form for each item you send to us.

Contact your Tech Coordinator or visit our website for more information.

New Family & Community Engagement Toolkit Available on Agency Website

Purpose of Family & Community Engagement 
To ensure that the students of today are ready for the careers of tomorrow, families, schools and community groups need to work together to promote engagement that is systemic, sustained and integrated into school improvement efforts. 

Research over the past 30 years has shown that engaging families in their children’s education increases student achievement and decreases dropout rates. Effective family engagement is not a one-time program or the choice of a good school, but rather a set of day-to-day practices, attitudes, beliefs and interactions that support learning at home, at school, after school and during the summer. - SEDL National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools 

Family & Community Engagement ties directly Heartland AEA’s goals: Growth, Gaps, Graduation and Gateways. “The evidence is consistent, positive and convincing: families have a major influence on their children’s achievement. (Gaps) When schools, families and community groups work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school, stay in school longer and like school more.” (Growth/Graduation) This statement summarizes the conclusions of A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement, the most recent comprehensive review of the research. 

Key findings include: 

• Students whose families are involved in their learning earn better grades, enroll in higher-level programs, have higher graduation rates and are more likely to enroll in post-secondary education. (Graduation/Gateways) 
• When families take an active interest in what they’re learning, students display more positive attitudes towards school and behave better both in and out of school. 
• Children do best if parents can play a variety of roles in their learning: helping at home, volunteering at school, planning their children’s future and taking part in key decisions about the school program. 
• Children from diverse cultural backgrounds tend to do better when families and school staff join forces to bridge the gap between home and school cultures. 

Purpose of the FCE Toolkit Family engagement is a shared responsibility of families, schools, and communities for student learning and achievement; it is continuous from birth to young adulthood; and it occurs across multiple settings where children learn. Toward that end, the Family & Community Engagement Toolkit provides users with resources, tools and opportunities to: 

• Connect (make positive connections with families) 
• Engage (create opportunities for families to be fully engaged) 
• Sustain (strategies for staying connected and keeping families/community engaged) How can the toolkit help? 

How can we put these findings into action? 

• Recognize that all parents—regardless of income, education or cultural background are involved in their children’s learning and want their children to do well. 
• Design programs that will support families to guide their children’s learning, from preschool through high school. 
• Develop the capacity of school staff to work with families. 
• Link efforts to engage families, whether based at school or in the community, to student learning. 
• Focus efforts to engage families and community members on developing trusting and respectful relationships. 
• Embrace a philosophy of partnership and be willing to share power with families. 
• Make sure that parents, school staff and community members understand that the responsibility for children’s educational development is a collaborative enterprise.  
• Build strong connections between schools and community organizations.
•  Include families in all strategies to reduce the achievement gap among white, middle-class students and low-income students and students of color. 

If you have any questions about the toolkit or its contents, contact Terry Mendell, Lead Parent Coordinator, at tmendell@heartlandaea.org or ext. 17135.

Heartland AEA Holiday Schedule

New this year, all Heartland AEA offices will be closed to the public Dec. 24-Jan. 2. Please take note of the following schedule as you plan to send and receive items through our van mail.

    Dec. 22 & 23 Regular Van Delivery
    Dec. 24-Jan. 2 No Van Delivery
    Jan. 5 Regular Van Delivery Resumes

Additionally, there will be no Administrator Connection blog updates on Dec. 26 or Jan. 2.

Spots Filling Quickly for ISFIS Budget Workshops

We were recently informed that the IFIS budget workshops are being quickly filled. The Heartland area afternoon session is already at capacity, but the morning session is not. The Heartland area workshop is scheduled for Jan. 27 at the Johnston REC (6500 Corporate Drive). The 2015 ISFIS Budget Workshops will leave superintendents and business managers with a thorough understanding of the best possible budget scenarios to set a desired tax rate and prepare a budget based on the status of legislative activity.

Morning session: 9 a.m.-12 p.m. for newer Superintendents and Business Managers that would benefit from a little extra assistance

Afternoon session: 1-4 p.m. geared towards Superintendents and Business Managers that have been through the budget process before, want to get in and out, and do not anticipate needing much one-on-one help. You must complete the following worksheets BEFORE the session: FY14 Worksheet 1 and Worksheet 2 AND FY15 Re-estimated Worksheet 1 and Worksheet 2

For those who didn't make the space for the afternoon session, IFIS is doing a session here in the metro on March 2. Register for a session here.

Upcoming Course for Those Working with Students with Challenging Behaviors

Your special education or early childhood staff may be interested in our course, Best Practices in Developing FBA/BIPs that Improve Outcomes for Students, coming Jan. 7 and 8. The course will focus on the design and development of quality functional behavioral assessments (FBA) and subsequent behavior intervention plans (BIP) to address the needs of children and youth who display inappropriate or challenging behaviors. Interested staff may register through the Heartland AEA PD Catalog.

Changes Coming to Substitute Authorization

Effective Dec. 17 all substitute authorization holders will be able to sub K-12. Previously, they could only substitute in the secondary level. All other sub regulations still apply.

Correction to Last Week’s Graduate Credit Policy Post

There was a misprint in last week’s update about the graduate credit policy change. All graduate credit courses must now include 30 hours of learning/application in addition to the 15 hours of collaborative team time. We apologize for the mix up. Also, we have added two workshop times in light of a request for workshops during the day.

There are two policy changes impacting the way we offer credits at Heartland AEA. They both go into effect July 1, 2015, but we want to alert you of these changes as you plan for your professional learning opportunities after that date.

LR/EDMA Policy Changes
1) All graduate credit courses must now include 30 hours of learning/application in addition to the 15 hours of collaborative team time.
2) All license renewal classes offered for graduate credit will need to include the 30 hours of learning/application in addition to the 15 hours of collaborative team time. (You may still offer a course for LR only, but if it is offered for graduate credit, the expectations for both LR and graduate credit will be the same.)

Instructor Meetings Scheduled
Because we anticipate many questions regarding the change and the process for rewriting courses, we are holding two instructor meetings in early February. This is entirely voluntary, however, we encourage you to register for one of the sessions to collaborate with other instructors, Heartland AEA and Drake University as we move to this change in practice. The sessions will be held at the Heartland AEA Johnston REC in room 107B as follows:

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015 from 4-7 p.m.
Activity Number: MT000792111501

Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015 from 9 a.m.- 12 p.m.
Activity Number: MT000792111502

Monday, April 20, 2015 from 9 a.m.- 12 p.m.
Activity Number: MT000792111503

Monday, April 20, 2015 from 1-4 p.m.
Activity Number: MT000792111504

Please contact Sue Schirmer at sschirmer@heartlandaea.org if you have any questions or concerns.