Heartland AEA to Get New Website and Emails

We are very excited to announce new agency website which will go live in early June. Based on customer survey feedback and our usage data, the Agency decided to build a new website. Our communications department has done their best to make the new site more user-friendly with improved navigation and updated information. We appreciate your patience as we continue to add content in our new site throughout the summer.

With this new website, we will also get a new URL, www.heartlandaea.org. Users who try to access our old site (www.aea11.k12.ia.us) will be redirected to our new front page. If your district/school links to our website, thank you for your support and please redirect your link to www.heartlandaea.org before school starts in the fall.

We are also excited to announce that our staff email will also change over the summer to end with "@heartlandaea.org." Our current email addresses will continue to work for another year. We will have more information in the fall about the impact of our email changes for area schools.

We are committed to excellent service and believe our new website will help keep you aware of our services and activities. Please contact the Heartland AEA Communications Department at comms@aea11.k12.ia.us if you have any questions about the new website or agency emails.

Reminder: Heartland AEA 2013 Summer Van Delivery

Heartland AEA is in the process of scheduling summer van delivery. We will deliver twice a week to each district administration building. If you have summer school, professional development programs or intercessions and you would like regularly scheduled deliveries to additional buildings, please email Sherise Ahlers at sahlers@aea11.k12.ia.us.

Schedule-to-date:

• Twice-a-week delivery to each district administration building runs June 11 to August 8.
• Twice-a-week delivery will automatically continue to each building that has an extended year calendar.
• Regular fall van delivery resumes August 12.

Printing:

• Heartland AEA will contact the district to arrange for special delivery of large printing orders during the summer.

Paraeducator Updates

The paraeducator competency re-write is in progress, and the updated competencies for the paraeducator generalist and concentration areas such as special needs and early childhood will be going to the state board for review sometime in this fall. The online program for paras currently employed by Heartland area districts and schools will continue for 2013-14. Please make arrangements with your regional director if you need this training offered in your area.

As you consider the needs for paraeducators in your district and building, please be reminded of the Iowa Code requirement for cultivating diversity:

281—80.10(272)  Diversity.
80.10(1) Efforts toward racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among paraeducator candidates and unit faculty shall be documented.  In addition, diversity efforts shall include persons with disabilities, persons from different language and socioeconomic backgrounds, and persons from different regions of the country and world.
80.10(2) Unit efforts in increasing or maintaining diversity shall be reflected in plans, monitoring of plans, and results.

For questions regarding the paraeducator program at Heartland AEA, please contact Sue Schirmer at sschirmer@aea.k12.ia.us.