The Iowa Department of Education released a host of optional resources for families and educators to use as they support student learning during school closures due to COVID-19. The resources are available on the Iowa Department of Education’s website and include interactive games, virtual field trips, coding activities and e-books.
The learning resources for students in PK-12 do not replace what they have learned at school, but instead help students practice or enrich the skills and strategies taught by their teachers.
The Iowa Department of Education partnered with AEA Learning Online, the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council, Iowa PBS and the Iowa Reading Research Center to provide a variety of resources. The resources cover multiple subject areas, such as literacy, computer science, fine arts and career and technical education. The resources also address mental health and emotional well-being.
The resources to support learning during COVID-19 is not exhaustive and will be reviewed and updated weekly with additional resources.
The Iowa Department of Education has released new guidance for Iowa schools addressing federally mandated assessments, teacher preparation requirements and special education guidance for parents during school closures. In addition, they have updated the previously released Frequently Asked Questions guidance. The new and updated information covers a wide range of topics and each addition or update is identified in the document as “New” or “Updated.” This guidance is located on the COVID-19 Guidance and Information page on the DE website. All current guidance from the Iowa Department of Education can be found on this page.
The Department of Education is now requiring all emailed requests to transfer a student in the MyTeachingStrategies GOLD system be password protected. This change in procedure is intended to protect the student's personal information when requesting a transfer. Please use the Iowa Transfer Form for any future transfer requests. The DE will NOT accept any requests for transfer that are not password protected.
The following is a copy of the email sent from the Iowa Department of Education to Iowa principals.
Statewide access to the new MTSS Data System, Panorama Student Success is quickly approaching. As a reminder, Student Success will support K-6 literacy this school year and will expand to additional grade-levels and content areas (math, behavior, attendance, etc.) in the future.
School/District Access to Student Success
The DE plans to begin to allow school and district staff to access the system on approximately Sept. 23. Student Success has user roles at the teacher, building or district levels. Access roles must be assigned locally in your student information system (SIS) and the data will be transferred into the Iowa Education Portal nightly to allow access. The decision about who should access the system is a local decision. When staff receive access to the system, they will receive an email from the portal notifying them.
In the next several weeks, make sure that your staff who will access Student Success have an Iowa Education Portal account that they have successfully logged into. If you need support in using the Portal, contact ed.portal@iowa.gov. Also, you may start assigning Student Success roles in your SIS. You may add, change and remove roles throughout the school year as needed so this is a task that you can work on over time. If you need assistance with assigning roles, please contact your SIS vendor.
Learning Opportunities for Student Success
Panorama will hold several 1-hour overview webinars the weeks of Sept. 23 and 30 to provide high level support for using the system. These webinars will also be recorded and posted in the Student Success Resource Library. More information about the dates and times of the webinars will be sent out soon.
The Collaborating for Iowa's Kids (C4K) Training Cadre/Statewide School Improvement Team and Panorama will co-lead in-depth regional training sessions during the weeks of Oct. 7 and 14. The DE recommends that districts and schools send teams of 3-5 people to regional training. The teams should consist of school and district leadership as well as staff that will be responsible for taking the training content back to train others. This may include curriculum directors, teacher leaders, literacy specialists, data specialists, professional learning staff, etc.
Registration is required for the regional training sessions and registration links can be found on the ESSA Regional Training Registration for 2019-20 tab in the linked spreadsheet.
If you have any questions about the upcoming access or training opportunities for Student Success, please contact janell.brandhorst@iowa.gov, connor.hood@iowa.gov, or kfangman@heartlandaea.org.
Heartland AEA is excited to join the Iowa Department of Education in honoring 23 of the school buildings in our service area for their implementation of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). Educators and staff in these buildings are doing great things to create positive, safe and supportive environments where all staff and students can learn and thrive! Visit the DE’s website to see the schools and award levels for which they were honored.
