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
The March 2015 issue of the School Leader Update is available from the Iowa Department of Education. In this issue, Director Brad Buck reminds us to be thankful – for our teachers. Legislative liaison Shan Seivert gives us an update on legislation that could affect all of us and attorney Nicole Proesch touches on the law – and leprechauns.
The
Iowa Department of Education is launching a year-long program to
support building principals state-wide who lead the Teacher Leadership
and Compensation System.
Overall Program Purpose: To equip and
support principals to form a cohesive building leadership team that is
aligned to a singular mission as embraced by the district, and is able
to develop and lead a collaborative process to strengthen instructional
practice that leverages teacher leaders for school-wide improvement of
student learning.
Audience: The program will be open to TLC
schools who implemented in school year 2014-15 (YR 1) and who will
implement in 2015-16 (YR 2).
Information Session Details: Any
districts interested in learning more about this opportunity should plan
to participate in one of the following meetings next week. All details,
including program outcomes, participation requirements, dates,
selection process and other key components will be shared via ZOOM.
ZOOM dates and times are:
Session 1: March 9, 2015 from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
Session 2: March 9, 2015 from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Session 3: March 11, 2015 from 8 – 9 a.m.
Session 4: March 12, 2015 from 9 – 10 a.m.
Superintendents,
or superintendent designees are asked to go to the Iowa Department of
Education website on the TLC webpage to register for the informational
ZOOM session they plan to attend. Participants will then receive the
link to the desired ZOOM informational session.
Registration on the TLC page of the DE website.
If
you are unable to attend any of these sessions, recorded session will
be available, linked to the TLC webpage on the DE website on Friday,
March 13, 2015.
Don’t miss this professional development day through the collaboration of West Des Moines Community Schools and Heartland Area Education Agency. Please pass the following information to Title III ESL and content/grade level teachers and administrators of ELLs.
Teaching ELLs with Gaps in their Formal Education
Date: Monday, May 4, 2015
Location: West Des Moines Learning Resource Center, Community Room
Times: 8:30 am- 3:30 pm; Lunch will be provided
Activity Number: ES008969571502
Description:
Kristiina Montero, Ph.D. will explore her groundbreaking, community-engaged research that explores teaching English language and print literacy to English language learners who have experienced gaps in their formal education due to mass violence and/or disaster. Public schools inherit students who have limited L1 literacy and other gaps in their formal education. This workshop will explore literacy strategies that will benefit all ELLs, but will specifically focus on the learning needs of ELLs with limited or interrupted formal education.
Bio of Dr. Montero
Kristiina Montero, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. She received her PhD in Language and Literacy Education from The University of Georgia (Athens, GA) in 2004One of her overarching goals is to give voice to marginalized individuals and communities. Her most recent work examines the impact of early literacy instructional interventions on the English language and literacy development of adolescent English language learners with limited prior schooling.
To extend her work with adolescent refugee students she recently completed the Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery Certificate Program through Harvard University. Her research can be found in journals such as The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, The Journal of Children's Literature, Middle School Journal, and Oral History Forum d'histoire orale.
Dr. Montero is passionate about learning, teaching and pedagogy. She has taught courses in language and literacy, equity and diversity and children’s literature in teacher preparation programs and qualitative research methods, oral history research methods and narrative analysis, and critical theory and praxis at the graduate level. Her university teaching was recognized with the Meredith Professors Teaching Excellence Award at Syracuse University in 2007 and at Laurier, she was nominated for the Northeastern Graduate Schools Teaching Award in 2013. More recently, Dr. Montero was honored with an Alumni Excellence award for all around teaching, research, and service to the literacy research community from Northern Illinois University (2014).
We are pleased to announce that many of the Iowa Reading First videos are now available online at the AEA Digital Library. Log in with the school online database username/password.
- Search by topic, title or presenters (like Emily Calhoun, Nell Duke, Timothy Shanahan, Linda Kucan, etc.)
- Watch the entire video or the smaller, individual clips.
- Stream or download the video or clip.
- Search by specific keywords such as graphic organizers, sequencing, story structure, constructing visual representations, fluency, phonemic awareness, PWIM, read aloud, talk aloud, nonfiction, fluency and readers theater, ELL, vocabulary, comprehension and much more.
- Copy/paste a persistent link to a specific video or clip.
To see all the videos and clips, search: Reading First OR Every Child Reads
These videos will be excellent supports in professional development programs and will also support individual teachers as they learn and practice their knowledge and skills.
On March 4 Heartland AEA held its first-ever Education Career Fair, seeking to help match school districts in our service area with education applicants. For a first time event, it was a resounding success, with approximately 350 job seekers in attendance! We were happy to see a great mix of attendees -- from veteran teachers, to new teachers to college students preparing for life beyond spring graduation.
In addition to being able to meet on-site with 12 districts, applicants had the opportunity to do mock interviews, resume critiques and gather graduate program information from area universities. The mock interviews and resume critiques proved to be very popular as attendees stood in line for a chance to receive these services.
“We were excited to hold this education job fair for multiple reasons, first and foremost to provide a service to the districts and schools in our service area,” Tony Chiaramonte, Heartland AEA Human Resources Manager, said. “Our agency is aware of the high turnover rate in the teaching profession, especially during the first few years a teacher is in the classroom. We wanted to gather as many districts as we could in one place, so that educators can meet representatives from many districts at the same time and get a feel for what multiple districts have to offer. We want to be part of the solution and help keep new teachers from leaving the profession and from leaving Iowa by helping them find a district where they enjoy what they do.”
With the success of our inaugural event, we look forward to holding a second Career Fair next year. We hope to see you on March 2, 2016!
Find pictures of the event on our Facebook page.
Iowa's Area Education Agencies are seeking students who are interested in sharing their innovative projects and learning. Every year, about 80 board members from all of Iowa's AEAs gather for a two-day conference. AEA board members want to learn more about the unique and exciting learning that AEAs are supporting in Iowa's schools.
Students would set up a booth/table from 6:15-7:45 p.m. April 16 at the West Des Moines Marriott. Board members will have a 90-minute block of time to visit with students at their booths/tables. Each table will have room for a display board and physical artifacts (e.g., robots, things from a 3D printer, photos, whatever) and also will have electricity and Internet access. Some ideas include...
• VREP
• Robotics
• Lego League
• Makerspace
• Drones
• Minecraft
• Blogging
• QR codes
• Virtual reality
• Stop motion
• Social media projects (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
• Video projects
• Digital animation
• App creation
• ...anything that may not have a household name but that you've enjoyed and are anxious to share!
This would make addition to a college resume and is a great chance to enhance presentation skills. We will be capturing this event so it can be added to your portfolio and shared across the state/nation.
If you're interested in being a presenter, please contact Dr. Scott McLeod, dr.scott.mcleod@gmail.com.
