Upcoming Course for Those Working with Students with Challenging Behaviors

Your special education or early childhood staff may be interested in our course, Best Practices in Developing FBA/BIPs that Improve Outcomes for Students, coming Jan. 7 and 8. The course will focus on the design and development of quality functional behavioral assessments (FBA) and subsequent behavior intervention plans (BIP) to address the needs of children and youth who display inappropriate or challenging behaviors. Interested staff may register through the Heartland AEA PD Catalog.

Changes Coming to Substitute Authorization

Effective Dec. 17 all substitute authorization holders will be able to sub K-12. Previously, they could only substitute in the secondary level. All other sub regulations still apply.

Correction to Last Week’s Graduate Credit Policy Post

There was a misprint in last week’s update about the graduate credit policy change. All graduate credit courses must now include 30 hours of learning/application in addition to the 15 hours of collaborative team time. We apologize for the mix up. Also, we have added two workshop times in light of a request for workshops during the day.

There are two policy changes impacting the way we offer credits at Heartland AEA. They both go into effect July 1, 2015, but we want to alert you of these changes as you plan for your professional learning opportunities after that date.

LR/EDMA Policy Changes
1) All graduate credit courses must now include 30 hours of learning/application in addition to the 15 hours of collaborative team time.
2) All license renewal classes offered for graduate credit will need to include the 30 hours of learning/application in addition to the 15 hours of collaborative team time. (You may still offer a course for LR only, but if it is offered for graduate credit, the expectations for both LR and graduate credit will be the same.)

Instructor Meetings Scheduled
Because we anticipate many questions regarding the change and the process for rewriting courses, we are holding two instructor meetings in early February. This is entirely voluntary, however, we encourage you to register for one of the sessions to collaborate with other instructors, Heartland AEA and Drake University as we move to this change in practice. The sessions will be held at the Heartland AEA Johnston REC in room 107B as follows:

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015 from 4-7 p.m.
Activity Number: MT000792111501

Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015 from 9 a.m.- 12 p.m.
Activity Number: MT000792111502

Monday, April 20, 2015 from 9 a.m.- 12 p.m.
Activity Number: MT000792111503

Monday, April 20, 2015 from 1-4 p.m.
Activity Number: MT000792111504

Please contact Sue Schirmer at sschirmer@heartlandaea.org if you have any questions or concerns.