School Counseling Program Refinement, Jan. 17 and Feb. 18

K-12 school counseling programs in the state of Iowa are required to be articulated and sequential. They are also required to be comprehensive in scope, preventive in design, developmental in nature, driven by data and integral to the school district's curricula and instructional program. This two-day, one-credit course is designed to assist teams of school counselors to analyze their current programming, determine gaps and create plans to fill those gaps. Register through the Heartland AEA Professional Development Catalog. The activity number is CN005392111101.

Budget Workshops for Superintendents & Business Managers Approaching

Heartland AEA will be hosting School Budget Workshops for area school districts with the goal to assist schools in completing their school budget in a single work session. Larry Sigel and Margaret Buckton will facilitate sessions on February 7 and March 9, and Dennis Scudder, AEA 267 Director of Finance, will host a session on February 22. Workshops will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Johnston Regional Education Center at 6500 Corporate Drive on their scheduled days. Click here for more information.

DE and SAI co-sponsored Principal-Counselor workshop, April 5 & 6

Dr. Peggy Hines, Education Trust Director of Transforming School Counseling, will be the speaker for Maximizing the Principal-Counselor Relationship to Increase Student Achievement. Teams of school counselors and their principals will examine the level of congruity regarding each others' roles in increasing student achievement, identify best practices based on the ASCA standards and successfully redesigned districts/buildings and develop a team action plan. The April 5 workshop is reserved for elementary/K-12 principal-counselor teams, and the April 6 workshop is reserved for secondary school principal-counselor teams. The location of both workshops is the Courtyard Marriott in Ankeny (2405 SE Creekview Drive).

A grant was secured to allow the first 150 principal-counselor teams to attend the workshop free of charge. There are still some of these spaces available. Otherwise, registration is $80 for administrators and school counselors who are SAI members; $136 for non-members. Registration includes two books, materials and lunch and can be done through the SAI website.