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 gaps in achievement

• Increase annual graduation rates

• Increase gateways to post-secondary success 

Call for Presentations Now Open for One-Day Literacy Event

Does your school or district have literacy successes or interventions you’d like to share with other educators? If so, you’re invited to apply to be a presenter at “Celebrating Iowa’s Success,” a one-day literacy event sponsored by Collaborating for Iowa’s Kids (C4K), a collaborative comprised of the Iowa Department of Education, Area Education Agencies, and Iowa districts.

Applications to present are due Nov. 20.

Registration for the event is due Dec. 18. District and building administrators, reading specialists, classroom teachers and instructional coaches are invited to attend.

For more information, contact Mary Jane Stites or Mark Crady, coordinators of C4K Training Cadre, at (515) 270-0405.

American Education Week, Nov. 16-20, 2015: “Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility”

Nov. 16-20 marks the National Education Association’s 94th annual celebration of American Education Week. The AEW festivities will honor the team of people who work in the nation’s public schools, everyone from the bus driver and classroom teacher to the cafeteria worker and administrative staff, plus countless others. The celebration is also an opportunity for school and community leaders to renew their commitment and support for quality public education for all students.

For more information about American Education Week, visit www.nea.org/aew.

Students Encouraged to Enter Library of Congress Reading & Writing Contest

Letters About Literature (LAL) is a reading/writing contest sponsored by the Library of Congress that challenges students in grades 4 through 12 to become independent readers. Young readers respond to the work they have read (fiction or nonfiction, a short story, poem, essay or speech) by exploring the personal relationship between themselves, the author, and the work’s characters or themes, and then write a personal letter to an author explaining how that author’s work changed their way of thinking about the world or themselves.

Letters are judged on state and national levels and students are eligible to win cash awards and submission for judging at the national level. Grades 9-12 letters must be postmarked by Dec. 4, 2015 and grades 4-8 must be postmarked by Jan. 11, 2016.

Complete information about the 2016 Letters About Literature program (classroom teaching guide, how LAL helps meet the Iowa Core, entry coupons, judges’ criteria) is available on the Iowa Center for the Book website.

**Please forward this email to language arts, gifted/talented and other teachers in your schools who emphasize reading and writing in their disciplines.

Differentiated Accountability Focuses on Need

Differentiated Accountability is a system designed to replace the former mandate of on-site visits every five years by the Department. The short concept of Differentiated Accountability, or DA, is that site visits are now focused on need. If a district is performing well, it may receive no visit, enabling districts with more needs to receive more coaching. Instead of a prescriptive, top-down list of corrective actions, the school will be an active participant in determining what’s working well, what needs improvement, and how to remedy it.

For more information, visit the Iowa Department of Education website.