The 2008-09 Heartland Staff Handbook and Staff Handbook Receipt are now available. All Heartland employees are required to send a signed copy of the Staff Handbook Receipt to the Human Resources Office in Johnston by Monday, October 13. This must be done by downloading and printing the receipt, signing it by hand and sending it by van mail or U.S. mail. If you have any questions, contact Steve Zimmerman in the Johnston office at ext. 14534.
Click here for the Staff Handbook.
Click here for the Handbook Receipt.
The handbook and receipt are also posted on the Intranet under the Human Resources tab.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Required Action: Jeans on the Last Friday of the Month Only with Heartland Apparel
Please note that wearing jeans on the last Friday of the month is acceptable only if you are wearing a Heartland-logo shirt. A new apparel order form will be available soon if you wish to order something new.
6445 Administration Building Update
The remodeling of the 6445 building is slightly ahead of schedule. The vestibule addition has been added, interior metal stud framing is nearly complete and exterior concrete sidewalks have been poured. Fire sprinkler, mechanical, plumbing and electrical rough-ins are complete. Masons are doing the brick work around the window openings, and preparations for window installation are going smoothly. The building should be enclosed before the October Board meeting.
Two separate ad hoc groups are working on programming the building. One group is programming the workroom, kitchen, storage and support areas, and the other group is programming the HR/Business office staff areas. If you have any concerns or questions regarding the programming of the workroom, kitchen, storage or support areas, please contact Terri Barnes in the Johnston office at ext. 14310 or at tbarnes@aea11.k12.ia.us.
Two separate ad hoc groups are working on programming the building. One group is programming the workroom, kitchen, storage and support areas, and the other group is programming the HR/Business office staff areas. If you have any concerns or questions regarding the programming of the workroom, kitchen, storage or support areas, please contact Terri Barnes in the Johnston office at ext. 14310 or at tbarnes@aea11.k12.ia.us.
6500 Building Update
The revised 6500 building block plan incorporates the relocation of the print shop, as well as the hard work of the 6500 Building Planning Committee. In general, note that the layout of the building facilitates “public” and “staff” portions. The committee was in favor of this layout for security purposes, allowing the “staff” half of the building to be locked in the evenings and on weekends when the “public” half is being used. There are still many details to be worked out, but the good news is that we are making progress. Click here for the revised Block Plan.
New Heartland Instructional Resources Web page
We have recently added a page to the Heartland Web site for new and veteran teachers that contains a 10-minute overview video of Heartland resources plus many resources and links to resources for teachers. The URL for the site is http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/mentoring/newteacher/index.html.
This page provides teachers with resource support so they have meaningful, direct connections to their curriculum. The page includes links and full-text PDFs to instructional materials, Heartland's online catalogs, online resources and support materials, and instructions for ordering materials, subscribing to an online newsletter for teachers and a link to the World of Media, which is a monthly newsletter with instructional materials, resources and technology to support teaching and learning.
This Web page is also a valuable resource for Heartland consultants and staff members. Please take some time to check it out. If you have any questions, contact Michelle Richardson, Instructional Materials Consultant, in the Johnston office at ext. 14522 or at mrichardson@aea11.k12.ia.us.
This page provides teachers with resource support so they have meaningful, direct connections to their curriculum. The page includes links and full-text PDFs to instructional materials, Heartland's online catalogs, online resources and support materials, and instructions for ordering materials, subscribing to an online newsletter for teachers and a link to the World of Media, which is a monthly newsletter with instructional materials, resources and technology to support teaching and learning.
This Web page is also a valuable resource for Heartland consultants and staff members. Please take some time to check it out. If you have any questions, contact Michelle Richardson, Instructional Materials Consultant, in the Johnston office at ext. 14522 or at mrichardson@aea11.k12.ia.us.
ICN Sites for Oct. 24 Investing 101 Seminar
As announced in last week’s Connection, the Iowa Department of Administrative Services’ Retirement Investors Club will be conducting an Investing 101 seminar on October 24 from 2-4 p.m. This will be an ICN session originating from the Johnston office.
Other participating sites:
• Ames High School
• Carroll High School
• Guthrie Center High School
• Knoxville High School
• Newton High School
• Norwalk High School
• Waukee High School
Note again that the first seminar will be held on October 10 from 2-4 p.m. at the Woodside office. If you have any questions, contact Kathy Martin at kmartin@aea11.k12.ia.us or Steve Jordan at sjordan@aea11.k12.ia.us.
Other participating sites:
• Ames High School
• Carroll High School
• Guthrie Center High School
• Knoxville High School
• Newton High School
• Norwalk High School
• Waukee High School
Note again that the first seminar will be held on October 10 from 2-4 p.m. at the Woodside office. If you have any questions, contact Kathy Martin at kmartin@aea11.k12.ia.us or Steve Jordan at sjordan@aea11.k12.ia.us.
Update on Core Values Award
There have been some questions posed as to what the status of the Core Values Awards are. Since the agency didn't hold the All-Staff meeting on Sept. 19, we are looking for other ways to honor those who were nominated. The nominations have been turned over to the agency's Special Events Committee who will be charged with determining the best way to honor the nominees. Stay turned for more information.
Technology Update
Kerio Tips and Tricks
Sending an E-mail Message to Multiple People
Have you ever needed to e-mail more than a few people at a time? If you have, then there is a quick way to do this. If the people you need to e-mail are already in one of your contact folders and you’ve set those contact folders to be searchable in Kerio, then the following trick will work.
Example: If you want to e-mail Arletta Dawson, Tuan Dao, Barb Dietrich, Judy Cleveland, Josh Burke and Jim Lagnese, you would click in the “To:” field and type the following: adaw, tdao, bdie, jcle, jbur, jlag. Then press the Tab key on your keyboard, and it will search your contact folders looking for matches and automatically put these people’s e-mail addresses in the “To:” field for you. If there had been multiple matches to one of the entries, a window would have appeared letting you choose which person you wanted to e-mail. Instead of using the person’s first initial and a few characters of their last name, you could have just used their first name or their last name. But the more specific you are, the less likely you are to get the pop-up window asking you to choose your intended recipient.
If this trick doesn’t work for you, it’s probably because either you haven’t set your contact folders to be searchable or you are blocking pop-up windows in your browser.
To check for the first option, do the following:
1. Click the Settings button located above your e-mail address in the folder tree and choose Settings from the pop-up menu.
2. Click the Mail Composing tab and click the Choose folders button.
3. A window will appear listing all of the folders available in your folder tree. Click once in the box in front of any of the contact folders you want searched to put a check mark in the box. You want at least the Heartland MAIN subfolder located under the Contacts folder in the Public folders folder to be checked. You probably will want all of your personal contact folders to be checked as well.
To check for the second option, do the following:
1. In Firefox, go to the Firefox menu and choose Preferences.
2. Click the Content button, and if there is a check mark in the box next to Block Pop-up Windows, you can do one of two things. You can either click on the box to remove the check mark and click the red close button or you can add the Kerio server to the exceptions list. To add it to the list, click the Exceptions button and type keriomail.aea11.k12.ia.us in the box below Address of website and then click the Allow button to add it to the list. Now click the red close button to close the Allowed Sites window. Click the red close button to close the Content window.
Kerio Storage Space Quota
Do you know how much of your allotted 1GB (gigabyte) of storage space you are currently using in Kerio? If you don’t, here is how to find out.
Click once on your e-mail address located in the folder tree on the left of the Kerio window. This will show you the “Today” page. In the bottom left hand section of the window you will see “Quota” listed. Under disk space you will see a bar graph showing the percentage of space used. You will also see a number to the right of “Used:” that tells you in MB (megabytes) how much space is currently in use.
When you reach your quota, you will no longer be able to receive any new e-mail, so it is a good idea to make sure you always have space available.
Here are some ideas for making more space available.
• Anytime you send a message, a copy of the message (including the attachments) goes into your Sent Items folder. You may want to periodically delete old messages you’ve sent that you no longer need in order to reclaim some of your disk space.
• Messages with attachments will take up more space than just a plain message. When looking through the list of messages in your Sent Items folder that you may be able to delete, you might want to focus on messages with attachments first. These messages will have a paper clip icon in the left portion of the list.
• The Junk E-mail folder is where Kerio puts mail suspected to be spam. If you never clean out that folder, you will be wasting space needlessly. You may want to look through the spam folder to ensure all the mail in the folder really is spam. If it is, the quick way to delete all of the mail in the spam folder is to hold down the control key on your keyboard and click on the Junk E-mail folder and choose “Delete all” from the pop-up menu.
Now that you’ve deleted some messages, you need to make sure you empty the Deleted Items folder. To do this, hold down the control key on your keyboard then click on the Deleted Items folder and choose “Delete all” from the pop-up menu. That will permanently delete all of the messages in your Deleted Items folder.
Sending an E-mail Message to Multiple People
Have you ever needed to e-mail more than a few people at a time? If you have, then there is a quick way to do this. If the people you need to e-mail are already in one of your contact folders and you’ve set those contact folders to be searchable in Kerio, then the following trick will work.
Example: If you want to e-mail Arletta Dawson, Tuan Dao, Barb Dietrich, Judy Cleveland, Josh Burke and Jim Lagnese, you would click in the “To:” field and type the following: adaw, tdao, bdie, jcle, jbur, jlag. Then press the Tab key on your keyboard, and it will search your contact folders looking for matches and automatically put these people’s e-mail addresses in the “To:” field for you. If there had been multiple matches to one of the entries, a window would have appeared letting you choose which person you wanted to e-mail. Instead of using the person’s first initial and a few characters of their last name, you could have just used their first name or their last name. But the more specific you are, the less likely you are to get the pop-up window asking you to choose your intended recipient.
If this trick doesn’t work for you, it’s probably because either you haven’t set your contact folders to be searchable or you are blocking pop-up windows in your browser.
To check for the first option, do the following:
1. Click the Settings button located above your e-mail address in the folder tree and choose Settings from the pop-up menu.
2. Click the Mail Composing tab and click the Choose folders button.
3. A window will appear listing all of the folders available in your folder tree. Click once in the box in front of any of the contact folders you want searched to put a check mark in the box. You want at least the Heartland MAIN subfolder located under the Contacts folder in the Public folders folder to be checked. You probably will want all of your personal contact folders to be checked as well.
To check for the second option, do the following:
1. In Firefox, go to the Firefox menu and choose Preferences.
2. Click the Content button, and if there is a check mark in the box next to Block Pop-up Windows, you can do one of two things. You can either click on the box to remove the check mark and click the red close button or you can add the Kerio server to the exceptions list. To add it to the list, click the Exceptions button and type keriomail.aea11.k12.ia.us in the box below Address of website and then click the Allow button to add it to the list. Now click the red close button to close the Allowed Sites window. Click the red close button to close the Content window.
Kerio Storage Space Quota
Do you know how much of your allotted 1GB (gigabyte) of storage space you are currently using in Kerio? If you don’t, here is how to find out.
Click once on your e-mail address located in the folder tree on the left of the Kerio window. This will show you the “Today” page. In the bottom left hand section of the window you will see “Quota” listed. Under disk space you will see a bar graph showing the percentage of space used. You will also see a number to the right of “Used:” that tells you in MB (megabytes) how much space is currently in use.
When you reach your quota, you will no longer be able to receive any new e-mail, so it is a good idea to make sure you always have space available.
Here are some ideas for making more space available.
• Anytime you send a message, a copy of the message (including the attachments) goes into your Sent Items folder. You may want to periodically delete old messages you’ve sent that you no longer need in order to reclaim some of your disk space.
• Messages with attachments will take up more space than just a plain message. When looking through the list of messages in your Sent Items folder that you may be able to delete, you might want to focus on messages with attachments first. These messages will have a paper clip icon in the left portion of the list.
• The Junk E-mail folder is where Kerio puts mail suspected to be spam. If you never clean out that folder, you will be wasting space needlessly. You may want to look through the spam folder to ensure all the mail in the folder really is spam. If it is, the quick way to delete all of the mail in the spam folder is to hold down the control key on your keyboard and click on the Junk E-mail folder and choose “Delete all” from the pop-up menu.
Now that you’ve deleted some messages, you need to make sure you empty the Deleted Items folder. To do this, hold down the control key on your keyboard then click on the Deleted Items folder and choose “Delete all” from the pop-up menu. That will permanently delete all of the messages in your Deleted Items folder.
Early Childhood Professional Development Opportunities
Heartland is offering a variety of professional development events and support for programs and schools that want to learn about the Quality Preschool Program Standards and related early childhood topics. The document linked to below provides a summary of the opportunities available. If you have questions, partnership directors and early childhood staff members can provide additional information. Click here for the list of events.
“Go Green” Tip of the Week
One of the best and most exciting examples of Heartland’s commitment to being environmentally responsible is in the remodeling plans for the 6445 Administration Building. The building is being remodeled to make use of a geothermal heating and cooling system, which is the most efficient, environmentally clean and cost effective system available.
A geothermal system is different from a traditional furnace or boiler in that it transfers stored heat from the ground rather than producing heat. The ground below frost line maintains a fairly stable temperature. It is warmer than the atmosphere in winter and cooler in the summer. Geothermal systems take advantage of the natural constant temperature of the Earth. During winter when the ground temperature is warmer, geothermal heat pumps use the Earth’s soil (or groundwater) to recover the Earth’s heat. In the summer, the opposite occurs and the pump returns heat to the cooler ground source.
The biggest benefit of geothermal heat pump systems is that they use 25–50% less electricity than conventional heating or cooling systems. According to the EPA, geothermal heat pumps can reduce energy consumption—and corresponding emissions—up to 44% compared to air-source heat pumps and up to 72% compared to electric resistance heating with standard air-conditioning equipment. There are several different systems available in geothermal technology and each has its advantages depending on the location, size and age of the building to be heated. The specifics of the plan for 6445 will be outlined in future Connection issues.
A geothermal system is different from a traditional furnace or boiler in that it transfers stored heat from the ground rather than producing heat. The ground below frost line maintains a fairly stable temperature. It is warmer than the atmosphere in winter and cooler in the summer. Geothermal systems take advantage of the natural constant temperature of the Earth. During winter when the ground temperature is warmer, geothermal heat pumps use the Earth’s soil (or groundwater) to recover the Earth’s heat. In the summer, the opposite occurs and the pump returns heat to the cooler ground source.
The biggest benefit of geothermal heat pump systems is that they use 25–50% less electricity than conventional heating or cooling systems. According to the EPA, geothermal heat pumps can reduce energy consumption—and corresponding emissions—up to 44% compared to air-source heat pumps and up to 72% compared to electric resistance heating with standard air-conditioning equipment. There are several different systems available in geothermal technology and each has its advantages depending on the location, size and age of the building to be heated. The specifics of the plan for 6445 will be outlined in future Connection issues.
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