March 2013 AEA Impacting Lives Update

Teamwork is the overall theme of this month's Impacting Lives update at http://aeas4iowa.wordpress.com/. Read how AEA professionals work with schools, families, organizations, and especially the students they serve to create opportunities for improved life and learning.
 
This issue includes:

• Teamwork Continues to Improve Life of Ogden Boy with Hearing Loss
• Meet the People Who Make a Difference: Speech-Language Pathologists
• Northwest Iowa Boys Transition Smoothly to New Family

Request to Serve on the IEC Custodial Advisory Committee

Please forward this request to school building custodial/maintenance staff.
What is the goal of the Committee?
To identify the custodial supply needs of Iowa schools and AEAs in order to help the Iowa Educators Consortium (IEC) put together a more useful and effective custodial bid come fall 2013.  The following questions will be discussed:

• Are there certain product categories we should focus on? 
• How do we get more vendors to bid?
• What is the easiest way to spread the word about the bid pricing to get schools to order and take advantage of the program?
• And more…

What is the time commitment?
One meeting in Johnston at Heartland AEA on April 29, 2013 from 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. would be required. If you would like to be involved in evaluating the bids in the fall, we would welcome that input as well and could schedule an additional one-day meeting if enough people are interested.

We would like to have representatives from different areas around the state and different sizes of schools. At your earliest convenience, contact Jamie Albertsen at jalbertsen@iec-ia.org if you are interested.

We truly appreciate your time and input.

More Information About Our Kids Summer Institute

The 2013 Our Kids Summer Institute will be held June 18-19, 2013 at the Waukee High School. The institute will provide participants with the opportunity to network with other educational professionals and to discover new strategies for working with English Language Learners throughout Iowa. More information about the institute is attached here. Registration information is soon to come.