Our Mission
To improve the learning outcomes and well-being of all children and youth by providing services and leadership in partnership with families, schools and communities.
Our Goals
- Increase learning growth for students
- Decrease the gap in achievement
- Increase annual graduation rates
- Increase gateways to post-secondary success
Based on input from superintendents in the Heartland AEA service area, the future schedule for the Heartland Administrators’ Association will be as follows:
- Weekly Wednesday Check-ins: Will transition to every-other-week through November. Future dates: Oct. 21, Nov. 4 and Nov. 18
- Monthly Tuesday Meetings: Beginning Dec. 1, we will resume our monthly Tuesday meetings. These will be held in person from 9-11:30 a.m. at the Heartland AEA Regional Education Center, 6500 Corporate Drive in Johnston, with a Zoom option as well.
- Zoom Check-ins: Also beginning in December, Zoom check-ins will be held at 10 a.m. on the third Wednesday of the month.
Additional Wednesday Zoom meetings will be scheduled as needed.
View the meeting schedule here
Watch your inbox for calendar invitations. If you have any questions, contact Jenny Ugolini. We will see you again virtually on Oct. 21 at 10 a.m.
Have you ever wanted to reach out to other teacher librarians to get ideas, collaborate with other teacher librarians to "talk shop" or network with other teacher librarians?
If so, Iowa's AEAs are providing you that opportunity! Join AEA library and media consultants for the monthly "Better Together" webinar series. This year's online conversations will focus on the School Librarian Role in Pandemic Learning Conditions from AASL. In between all the serious conversations, we'll also allow time for you to build relationships with other teacher librarians across the state because we're BETTER together!
And the best part? No cost, no long agenda and no drive time! Check out this online flyer for all the details.
Over the last few years Heartland AEA and other AEAs have created a robust ebook collection of fiction and nonfiction titles in MackinVIA. Much of the collection has been built with recommendations from teachers. There are multiple copies of most titles, but not enough titles to meet the needs of a whole-class read or unit study for a specific period of time.
Some background.
Ebooks are sold by publishers in different licensing models—perpetual license, 2-year subscription, 26-checkout and more. Why do we mention this? The publishers determine which titles are available in which models and the price. Heartland AEA looked at a couple of vendors that aggregate ebook content from publishers and then resell. Mackin had the publisher relationships, titles, plus the MackinVIA reader that most of our students already use.
The new class set model.
- This summer many K-12 publishers have (finally!) decided to offer a class set licensing model. Schools can order x number of ebook copies that can be assigned to individual students for a set number of days (usually 30, 60, or 90 days). It’s basically a rental.
- If your school, for example, orders 50 copies and 47 were used this school year, the remainder will roll over for next year.
- How much? It depends. For budgeting purposes, you could use an average of $3.50/copy. Some titles are $.86 some are $5.30.
- Mackin will provide the school a title registration code for the student. The individual class set title is only available to that student.
Why consider class sets?
- Guaranteed availability for the number of days you purchase.
- Familiar ebook reader format (in MackinVIA and AEA Scout.)
- Students can write in the book—highlight, underline, take notes.
- When the license expires, the notes and highlights remain in the student’s account for easy access.
- Roll-over unused ebooks to the next school year.
Before you order.
You might want to think about who will schedule and take on some admin responsibilities for creating accounts. Click here and scroll down to the Admin Overview of Class Sets video to determine what setup will work best for your school or district.
How to order.
- Create an account at www.mackin.com. Be sure to click Use Iowa State Contract Pricing when you create your admin account profile. We’re pleased to report that there is a 7% discount through AEA Purchasing--AEPA Contract #020-C.
- You can search for the individual titles or authors at www.mackin.com.
How to assign the ebook to a student.
Heartland AEA hopes that this new class set model will help support your curriculum. We also encourage you to continue to recommend titles that Heartland AEA can purchase for the general MackinVIA collection.
The Heartland AEA Library & Digital Resources newsletter is now available. Make sure to follow the newsletter and share it with your colleagues! In this issue…
- From my mailbox to yours... (library webinars)
- Representation Matters: Annotated and Sortable List of New Ebooks and Audiobooks
- Celebrities Reading Children's Lit
- Ebooks Added in September and October
- News Literacy Project and News Goggles
- Young Voter's Guide to Social Media
- Clipart: New Name, New Access
- DVD, Books/Cassette Kits, and Leap Frog Give-away
AEA PREP is sharing an important resource for counselors working with high school students. This document highlights the five steps taken to support the successful postsecondary transition for the class of 2021 and this video provides direction on the first step of developing your Postsecondary Response Team. AEA PREP will be providing additional resources for the other four steps over the next few weeks.
On June 29, 2020, Governor Reynolds signed Senate File 2360, an Act, which provides a comprehensive approach to create a safe learning space for students and teachers.
Recently, the Iowa Department of Education released guidance on Senate File 2360 to inform Iowa public school districts of the requirements and to aid Iowa’s school districts in interpreting and implementing this comprehensive legislation. The requirements of Senate File 2360 apply to all public school districts in Iowa and requires a comprehensive approach to create a safe learning space for students and teachers. The requirements are organized around five topics. The first two topics require immediate action by school districts, while subsequent topics require actions of the Department and other agencies.
If you have any questions, contact the regional director who serves your district or Jadie Boens, Director of Special Programs.
The University of Northern Iowa Institute for Educational Leadership received a Leading and Learning with Character Grant through the Kern Family Foundation. As part of the grant, we are offering Leadership Camps, approved for evaluator renewal, for principals, superintendents and other school leaders. We are currently offering an online Leadership Camp from Nov. 9 - Dec. 10, 2020, with self-paced modules.
What: The Leadership Camp is an opportunity to engage in reflection around the Iowa Standards for School Leadership, earn a reduced-cost Evaluator Approval Renewal credit ($75 reduced from $509), enjoy a meaningful, professional development experience hosted by UNI Educational Leadership faculty through online modules and have the opportunity to participate in a research project as part of a grant funded by the Kern Family Foundation.
When: Nov. 9 - Dec. 10, 2020 (15 self-paced modules and resources with one month to complete the work.
