Here’s Your Summer Reading List

We asked school curriculum coordinators for their suggested summer reading titles. Below is a list of what they suggested. Several of the titles are available for checkout in the Heartland AEA Library, some are available through your Mackin VIA subscription and all are available on Amazon.

	The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything in Business by Patrick Lencioni Reserve through the Heartland AEA Library. Read it online through your Mackin VIA subscription – Login with your school’s username/password The author makes the case that there is no better way to achieve improvement in an organization than by attacking the root causes of dysfunction, politics and confusion. He uses stories, tips and anecdotes to introduce a model for achieving organizational health. This model involves four principles: building a cohesive leadership team; creating clarity; over-communicating clarity; and reinforcing clarity.
	Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools by Tyrone Howard Reserve through the Heartland AEA Library. While race and culture remain important variables in how young people experience schools, they are often misunderstood by educators and school personnel. Building on the work of three studies that investigated schools successful in closing the achievement gap, Tyrone Howard shows how adopting greater awareness and comprehensive understanding of race and culture can improve educational outcomes.
	Building Teachers’ Capacity for Success: A Collaborative Approach for Coaches and School Leaders by Pete Hall Reserve through the Heartland AEA Library. Educators know that teachers are a school’s most essential strength. In the book, the authors offer a straightforward plan to help site-based administrators and instructional coaches collaborate to bring out the best in every teacher, build a stronger and more cohesive staff and achieve greater academic success. Their model of Strength-Based School Improvement is an alternative to a negative, deficit-approach focused on fixing what s wrong. Instead, they show school leaders how to achieve their goals by working together to maximize what’s right.
	On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting by Thomas Guskey Reserve through the Heartland AEA Library. On Your Mark asserts the need to align grading and reporting practices to truly reflect what students are learning in K-12 classrooms. The changes this book outlines might be controversial. Adjusting any system that has been in place for centuries will cause tension, yet we owe it to our students to make sure grades accurately communicate their progress and help them improve. Rather than continuing down the wrong path out of delusion, fear or tradition, we must use research to boldly move forward and better serve our students.
	Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning in the Age of Empowerment (New Edition) by Charles Schwab and Beatrice McGarvey Reserve through the Heartland AEA Library. Meeting the individual learning needs of every learner, every hour, of every day although espoused by educators, has only been a dream.....an impossible dream for educators facing student-teacher ratios of 25 to 1. But, alas, it is now a reality....a reality that is hiding in plain sight. The book describes a detailed vision of how schools can change from the present outdated Industrial Age, assembly line structure to a mass customized learning structure with the capacity to meet the individual learning needs of every learner.....that's every learner, not some, not most, but every learner.
	What Connected Educators Do Differently by Todd Whitaker, Jeffrey Zoul and Jimmy Casas Todd Whitaker, Jeffrey Zoul and Jimmy Casas are widely acclaimed experts on teaching and leading and are pioneers in the education Twitterverse, and now they are sharing their best practices! In the book, they show how being a connected educator—by using social media to connect with peers across the country and even across the globe—will greatly enhance your own learning and your success in a school or classroom. You’ll find out how to create a personal and professional learning network to share resources and ideas, gain support and make an impact on others.
	Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How Create a Culture of Innovation by Adam Bryant In the book, author Adam Bryant draws on interviews with more than two hundred CEOs to offer business leaders the wisdom and guidance to move an organization faster, to be quick and nimble, and to rekindle the whatever-it-takes collective spark of a start-up workplace, all with the goal of innovating and thriving in a relentlessly challenging global economy. As the world shifts to more of a knowledge economy, the winners will be companies that can attract and retain the best and brightest employees by creating an environment where they can grow, contribute and feel rewarded.
	Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath Reserve through the Heartland AEA Library. Read it online through your Mackin VIA subscription – Login with your school’s username/password Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems—the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort—but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.
	Engage, Empower, Energize: Leading Tomorrow’s Schools Today by Robert Dillon In an era of high stakes accountability, testing, and standardization in education, Dr. Robert Dillon attempts to bring the student back into the center of the learning. This book is ideal for school leaders and teacher leaders that are searching for a new way to inject fresh energy and ideas into their learning spaces.
	Unmistakable Impact: A Partnership Approach for Dramatically Improving Instruction by Jim Knight Reserve through the Heartland AEA Library. Jim Knight describes how to translate staff members’ joy of learning into high-leverage practices that impact student achievement. Characteristics of Impact Schools include a focused, clearly defined improvement plan that takes into account the complexity of teaching and learning relationships; a school culture that encourages enrollment in ongoing professional development; and alignment of purpose and actions among all staff members.

Our Mission
To provide services and leadership, in partnership with families, schools and communities, that improve the learning outcomes and well-being of all children and youth.

Our Goals
• Increase learning growth for students
• Decrease the gap in achievement
• Increase annual graduation rates
• Increase gateways to post-secondary success 

Reminder: Complete Request for Transportation Approval Form

Heartland AEA is partnering with other AEAs this year to implement an electronic version of the Request for Transportation Approval form.

Chapter 285.9(3), Code of Iowa, requires the Area Education Agency Board of Directors to approve all bus routes outside the boundary of the school district operating the buses. This has been interpreted to mean regular routes and regular special education routes, not field trips or activity trips.

The Code requires you to request permission from your neighboring district(s) before your bus route crosses district boundaries. The approval form that was used last fall has been converted to an electronic process for ease and efficiency. Video tutorials are included in the instructions to help explain the new process, which is very user-friendly.

Please note the new timeline this year. Last year, and in previous years, the process was always completed in the fall of the current school year. However, we are asking that the process be completed this spring for the upcoming year.

Please review the attached instructions and timeline below. Questions can be directed to Jennifer Ugolini, Board Secretary at jugolini@heartlandaea.org or (515) 270-9030 ext. 14441.

Timeline:
•    April 20 – May 22, complete steps 1-3
•    May 25 – June 5, complete step 4
•    September 1 – September 30, complete step 5