A Refresher on Iowa's AEA System

As you know, Iowa’s AEA system (all nine of Iowa’s AEAs) recently announced the hiring of its third-ever executive director, Mr. David Ludwig. David has most recently been the executive director of the state network of educational service agencies in Nebraska. His hiring seemed like a great opportunity for me to provide you with a refresher on Iowa’s AEA system and how our agency fits into that system. 

Governance 
The Iowa AEA system, also known as the Iowa Association of Area Education Agencies (IAAEA), has its own nine-member governing board, consisting of one board member from each of the nine AEAs. That board meets four times a year and oversees a unified budget that is funded on a per-pupil basis by each individual AEA, as well as from revenue generated by the other members of our Iowa AEA family -- AEA Purchasing and AEA Learning Online.   

Chiefs and Directors 
Each month our Heartland AEA Johnston offices play host to the chief administrators and directors (educational services, special education and media/technology) from all nine AEAs, along with key leaders from the Iowa Department of Education, as we meet for two days to develop and coordinate statewide AEA work. Priorities are established and implementation strategies are developed in order to assure that certain core services are made available to all children, families and educators across the state. 

This time together is critical because the quality of Iowa’s AEAs is often judged as a whole, and it’s in the best interest of every AEA that all AEAs are providing consistent, high-quality services. This collaborative time also helps us to consistently scale new initiatives and capitalize on the unique strengths found across our system. Our intent is to increase quality, reduce fragmentation and create efficiency across our agencies. In recent years, these groups have developed foundational documents like the AEA Compact and a policy manual that standardizes the practices we use to collaborate across agencies. We also use this time for strategic planning and to establish common legislative advocacy priorities. 

Strategic Plan 
The AEA system’s most recent strategic plan is focusing statewide work in three areas: 

• Social Emotional Behavior Mental Health (SEBMH): These services encompass the areas of challenging behavior, mental health supports and social-emotional learning. Services in this area continue to be the most requested by school districts across the state.
 
• College and Career Readiness (CCR): College and career readiness is still being defined, but it is a broad category that includes personalized learning, authentic (work-based) learning and the services provided by AEA PREP. 
 
• Statewide AEA Efficiency: This area focuses on finding opportunities to share services that might be otherwise redundant or inefficient. A great example of this recently has been the development of a common single sign-on for all students and educators in Iowa instead of having each AEA have its own system. We continue to look for new opportunities to share common functions across the system.
 

It’s important to note that having these current areas of focus does not mean we are abandoning long-valued, more traditional services. It simply means that we want to focus new work and service development on a limited number of things and that we want statewide service development to be cohesive and consistently prioritized. Over the coming months, each of these priority areas will be studied by a work team consisting of experts from across our AEAs, as well as from some school districts. These work teams will further define the scope of these priority areas and design statewide implementation plans when appropriate. 

“Loose-Tight” of Iowa’s AEAs 
I feel it’s important for all AEA staff across the state to be aware of state-level priorities because work in those areas will impact how each individual AEA approaches services within those areas. This is our mechanism for determining what we call the “loose-tight” of the AEA system. “Loose-tight” is a term we use to clarify how and in what areas our nine AEAs will be alike and in what areas we will see more individuality and customized services. We don’t want all nine AEAs to be exactly the same, but we do want to make sure that new services are scaled equitably and that we’re assuring a consistent level of quality within those service areas for all children, families and educators, regardless of where they live. There will be times when our system approaches state-level priorities in a way that might slightly deviate from how our agency would approach them if we were developing those services in isolation. We have agreed to accommodate the state system in these priority service areas in order to create higher levels of equity and efficiency. 

As I’ve said before, we are fortunate to have tremendous talent and expertise at Heartland AEA, and we will always need to have a passion for innovation. “Loose-tight” doesn’t mean that we relinquish our leadership role in providing quality services. It simply means that there will be some areas in which we need to think about those services in a broader context and consider how we can make our entire AEA system stronger. In the coming months, we will continue to keep you apprised of developments in state-level service planning. In the meantime, thank you for your expertise, your service to others and for your hard work.   

Have a great week! 
Jon