Monday, April 27, 2009
Coming Soon: Heartland Staff Survey
On May 4, Heartland staff will receive an e-mail inviting them to complete the annual Heartland staff survey. Data from this survey are used as part of our agency evaluation and continuous improvement process. This year, the invitation will be issued through the Communication Department e-mail address (comms@aea11.k12.ia.us) and will have a subject line that reads “Heartland Staff Survey.” Please watch your Inbox for this important message.
Employment Settlements Reached for Heartland Employee Groups
All negotiations have been completed, and the Heartland Board of Directors approved employment settlements for all groups for the 2009-2010 fiscal year at the April 14, 2009, board meeting. Communication has been or will be sent to each group outlining the details of each group's settlement. If you have any questions, please contact Chris Pierson, Director of Human Resources, at ext. 14318.
Details About the 60-Day Timeline for Special Education Evaluations
The State Performance Plan (SPP) evaluates the implementation of the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Each year, the state of Iowa evaluates all AEAs and districts according to the SPP. The SPP’s indicators are measures that show AEA and district performance and compliance. The indicators include measures such as proficiency and participation on ITBS and ITED, as well as suspension and expulsion rates. One indicator measures the percentage of evaluations completed within 60 days of receiving consent.
In 2007-08, Heartland met this timeline 93.65% of the time. Our most current internal data show us meeting the timeline near 95% of the time. However, since the target is 100%, we were required to submit an action plan to address this issue. One requirement of the plan is to send e-mail reminders about upcoming deadlines to staff. These e-mail reminders will be sent to the special education consultant, school psychologist and speech-language pathologist. If you are not working on an evaluation for the student listed in the e-mail, you may simply disregard the message. If you are the primary contact for the evaluation, please make sure the meeting has been scheduled. The e-mail reminders will be sent out on the 1st and the 15th of each month (or the first business day after).
Here are some other important things to remember regarding the 60-day timeline rule:
1. 60 days begin at the time the Agency or school received the consent – not when the consent was signed.
2. 60 days are based on calendar days – not school days. Breaks for holidays, spring or summer still count against the 60 days.
3. Although you are asked to provide a reason when the 60-day timeline has been missed, there are no reasons that are allowable under the 60-day rule. For example, meetings that miss timelines because of snow days or family cancellations will not be compliant with the 60-day rule.
4. When scheduling the IEP meeting, please make sure you allow enough time for the meeting to be cancelled and rescheduled before the end of the 60 days.
In 2007-08, Heartland met this timeline 93.65% of the time. Our most current internal data show us meeting the timeline near 95% of the time. However, since the target is 100%, we were required to submit an action plan to address this issue. One requirement of the plan is to send e-mail reminders about upcoming deadlines to staff. These e-mail reminders will be sent to the special education consultant, school psychologist and speech-language pathologist. If you are not working on an evaluation for the student listed in the e-mail, you may simply disregard the message. If you are the primary contact for the evaluation, please make sure the meeting has been scheduled. The e-mail reminders will be sent out on the 1st and the 15th of each month (or the first business day after).
Here are some other important things to remember regarding the 60-day timeline rule:
1. 60 days begin at the time the Agency or school received the consent – not when the consent was signed.
2. 60 days are based on calendar days – not school days. Breaks for holidays, spring or summer still count against the 60 days.
3. Although you are asked to provide a reason when the 60-day timeline has been missed, there are no reasons that are allowable under the 60-day rule. For example, meetings that miss timelines because of snow days or family cancellations will not be compliant with the 60-day rule.
4. When scheduling the IEP meeting, please make sure you allow enough time for the meeting to be cancelled and rescheduled before the end of the 60 days.
Xerox to Manage the Agency’s Printing Services
At the April 14 Heartland Board of Directors meeting, Xerox Corporation was approved to manage the Agency’s printing services.
In the next couple of weeks, there will be a great deal of movement in the area of the print shop. The bindery area will be moved to make way for a new computer lab. The area where the presses are currently located will be made into a large classroom, and the area that currently houses the production counter and the laminator will also become a large classroom (although it will be the last area to change). Teri Hazen (Braillist) will move to Steve Prall’s old office and will become your contact for your printing needs until Xerox has completed its move-in. The new print area will be moved to the current computer lab as well as to space that was used for storage next to the computer lab.
We ask for your patience as we re-tool this area. The first two weeks of May we will be moving old equipment out, and during the last two weeks of May, we will be moving new, cutting-edge equipment in. The new equipment will offer current and additional products faster and more economically. We do not anticipate any difficulties in delivering your printing requests. We will use the same request forms for your jobs until the new system is up and running.
We will keep you posted in The Connection with updates on how the re-tooling is progressing as well as some of the upgrades that you can expect for printing services. Please contact Teri Hazen at ext. 14465 or at thazen@aea11.k12.ia.us for any questions or printing requests.
In the next couple of weeks, there will be a great deal of movement in the area of the print shop. The bindery area will be moved to make way for a new computer lab. The area where the presses are currently located will be made into a large classroom, and the area that currently houses the production counter and the laminator will also become a large classroom (although it will be the last area to change). Teri Hazen (Braillist) will move to Steve Prall’s old office and will become your contact for your printing needs until Xerox has completed its move-in. The new print area will be moved to the current computer lab as well as to space that was used for storage next to the computer lab.
We ask for your patience as we re-tool this area. The first two weeks of May we will be moving old equipment out, and during the last two weeks of May, we will be moving new, cutting-edge equipment in. The new equipment will offer current and additional products faster and more economically. We do not anticipate any difficulties in delivering your printing requests. We will use the same request forms for your jobs until the new system is up and running.
We will keep you posted in The Connection with updates on how the re-tooling is progressing as well as some of the upgrades that you can expect for printing services. Please contact Teri Hazen at ext. 14465 or at thazen@aea11.k12.ia.us for any questions or printing requests.
2009-2010 Mentoring and Induction for Certified Union Staff
In preparation for our new staff to arrive this summer, we need to start planning to have mentors for those new staff members. If you’d like to apply to be a mentor for a first- or second-year certified union staff member for the 2009-2010 academic year, please read the requirements below and submit an application by May 8. Applications are required each year, even if you are currently a mentor. This allows us to be up-to-date on which staff members are interested in mentoring in any given year.
Requirements for mentors:
- Work in the state of Iowa (preferably at Heartland) for at least 4 years
- Agree to meet with the new staff member at least 15 hours
- Agree to attend all professional learning opportunities
o Session 1: Sept. 21 from 12:30-4:30 p.m. in Conf. Rooms 3 & 4 in Johnston
o Session 2: Choose 1 of the following:
• Nov. 2 from 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. at the Guthrie Center Library
• Nov. 3 from 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. in Room 14 in Johnston
Click here for the application. Applications are due by May 8 to Sarah Brown in the Johnston office. You may either e-mail a signed copy or print out and send the application. Please contact Sarah, your supervisor or your discipline PA with any questions.
Requirements for mentors:
- Work in the state of Iowa (preferably at Heartland) for at least 4 years
- Agree to meet with the new staff member at least 15 hours
- Agree to attend all professional learning opportunities
o Session 1: Sept. 21 from 12:30-4:30 p.m. in Conf. Rooms 3 & 4 in Johnston
o Session 2: Choose 1 of the following:
• Nov. 2 from 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. at the Guthrie Center Library
• Nov. 3 from 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. in Room 14 in Johnston
Click here for the application. Applications are due by May 8 to Sarah Brown in the Johnston office. You may either e-mail a signed copy or print out and send the application. Please contact Sarah, your supervisor or your discipline PA with any questions.
Customer Satisfaction Survey: The Results are In...And Our Schools Delivered!
The results are in on the Iowa AEA Customer Satisfaction Survey, and Heartland AEA has reason to celebrate. Although we did not reach our goal of a 36% participation rate, we are thrilled with the 30.72% rate that we received! This is a 61.1% increase from last year! We appreciate the 4,594 individuals who took the time to complete the survey. The data collected from the survey will be used to make important program decisions that benefit all schools in the Heartland region. Thank you to all staff members who encouraged school staff to fill out the survey.
Call for Presenters for 2009 EC/PEC Conference
Iowa’s Early Childhood/Parent-Educator Connection Conference, to be held in November 2009, will focus on three strands across four age groupings. The secondary transition conference focuses on three specific areas in an older child’s life: living, learning and work. Since the purpose of all of the work in education is to prepare any student for the next environment, working toward life out of school, we are going to focus the sessions for the youngest children on the same areas of living, learning and work.
The conference is looking for presenters. Sessions are an hour and should be related to the support of young children in providing learning and growing opportunities from school that lead to the next living, learning and working environment. Click here for additional information and a presenter application form.
The conference is looking for presenters. Sessions are an hour and should be related to the support of young children in providing learning and growing opportunities from school that lead to the next living, learning and working environment. Click here for additional information and a presenter application form.
Technology Update
New Professional Development Public Calendar
A new “Professional Development” calendar has been added to the Public folders in Kerio. This provides a quick and easy method of seeing what Professional Development Catalog classes are taking place on a given day. The calendar event also includes the location, name of the instructor and activity number.
The activity numbers for Lunch & Learn and Cultural Competence sessions have also been added to the Internal Public calendar. This provides easy access to the information necessary to register for these activities. Since internal activities are not available for people other than our staff, these events are not published in the online Professional Development Catalog.
Wireless Network Update
You may have already noticed that there are two additional wireless networks that appear in the wireless network list when you are in the 6500 and 6445 buildings in Johnston. These two networks were created to accommodate the increasing number of wireless access computers in the Johnston offices.
Staff and guest users should consider the following wireless options when connecting to the network:
You should connect to the “haeanet-a” if it is displaying in your wireless network list instead of the “HAEAnet.” The “haeanet-a” has better performance than the “HAEAnet,” but only computers equipped with the right wireless card can access the “haeanet-a” network. The password is the same for both the “HAEAnet” and “haeanet-a” wireless network.
If you are conducting workshops or large group meetings and using wireless connections in the ICN classroom, conference rooms 3 and 4, meeting room 14, 6445 Board or Cabinet meeting rooms, please ask your guests to connect to the “haeanet-public” wireless network using the password “education0309” (no quotation marks).
We are in the process of evaluating different wireless solutions to keep up with the changes in the ways we are connecting to the network in the Johnston and branch offices. We have more guests visiting our facilities than ever before, and they all prefer wireless network access. To make wireless access easier for our staff and clients, we have decided to only change the wireless password twice a year instead of quarterly. As always, please contact one of the Technology Support staff if you have any questions or problems connecting to our networks.
Online Technology Assessment Pilot
One of the objectives of the North Star Technology Infrastructure plan is to have a comprehensive technology staff development system in place. The technology competencies committee is working on a plan to identify, assess and provide differentiated training on the technology competencies appropriate for all staff and for each Heartland work group. Several work groups recently participated in a pilot of a free online technology assessment to help determine if this might be a method of determining staff skills and areas for growth. Participants included representation from management, secretaries, program assistants, special education clerks, professional learning and leadership staff, technology support and others. The Technology Team would like to say “thanks” to everyone who took the time to participate.
Over 100 staff members participated in the pilot. Each participant was given an anonymous username and password and the participant’s workgroup was the only identifiable information collected. The online assessment took about 30 minutes per person and each participant had the same set of 60 questions. A score of 80% or better was considered “passing.” Approximately 44% of the participants “passed” the assessment. After reviewing the results and discussing the instrument, the committee decided that there were at least two questions that had more than one correct answer and that the test items did not correlate closely enough with the basic technology competencies that had been identified as important for all Heartland staff.
Where do we go from here? We need a better way to assess the technology competency skills of staff, and we need to tailor the test items to our required competencies. The Technology Competencies committee has identified skills required of an incoming employee at Heartland. They have also identified basic technology competencies that all Heartland employees should have. The committee is working with individual workgroups to determine additional technology competencies needed by that workgroup. For example, a secretary will have much different technology skill needs than a school social worker. Next steps include developing our own assessment instrument and training methods.
Heartland staff members currently have access to a couple of training tools that can be used to improve technology competencies on their own. Through the Iowa Educators Consortium (IEC), all Iowa K-12 educators and students have access to the Atomic Learning database. Atomic Learning (http://www.atomiclearning.com) breaks down your favorite software programs into fast-loading tutorials played right over the Internet. This training database fills a real need for skills-based training. There are hundreds of programs available, including Macintosh computer basics, Microsoft Office Suite, Creative Suite 4 and nearly everything used at Heartland. You may want to consider incorporating the learning into your professional growth plan. Special accounts can also be set up which will allow you to track your use.
Another training tool, lynda.com, is available with special pricing negotiated by the IEC. Go to http://www.lynda.com. In the middle of the right side of the page is a button that says ‘try now.’ This gives you a 24-hour pass to try out this Web site. This resource is more in-depth and addresses more technical applications than Atomic Learning and is a great online resource for professional development needs. From Microsoft Office to Adobe Photoshop titles, to Web site development and creative inspiration, lynda.com has more than 37,000 easy-to-use video tutorials in over 550 courses.
Feel free to try both of these learning tools and send your feedback and suggestions for the technology competencies committee to techsurvey@aea11.k12.ia.us. We need your input and ideas as we decide what learning opportunities to invest more resources in.
A new “Professional Development” calendar has been added to the Public folders in Kerio. This provides a quick and easy method of seeing what Professional Development Catalog classes are taking place on a given day. The calendar event also includes the location, name of the instructor and activity number.
The activity numbers for Lunch & Learn and Cultural Competence sessions have also been added to the Internal Public calendar. This provides easy access to the information necessary to register for these activities. Since internal activities are not available for people other than our staff, these events are not published in the online Professional Development Catalog.
Wireless Network Update
You may have already noticed that there are two additional wireless networks that appear in the wireless network list when you are in the 6500 and 6445 buildings in Johnston. These two networks were created to accommodate the increasing number of wireless access computers in the Johnston offices.
Staff and guest users should consider the following wireless options when connecting to the network:
You should connect to the “haeanet-a” if it is displaying in your wireless network list instead of the “HAEAnet.” The “haeanet-a” has better performance than the “HAEAnet,” but only computers equipped with the right wireless card can access the “haeanet-a” network. The password is the same for both the “HAEAnet” and “haeanet-a” wireless network.
If you are conducting workshops or large group meetings and using wireless connections in the ICN classroom, conference rooms 3 and 4, meeting room 14, 6445 Board or Cabinet meeting rooms, please ask your guests to connect to the “haeanet-public” wireless network using the password “education0309” (no quotation marks).
We are in the process of evaluating different wireless solutions to keep up with the changes in the ways we are connecting to the network in the Johnston and branch offices. We have more guests visiting our facilities than ever before, and they all prefer wireless network access. To make wireless access easier for our staff and clients, we have decided to only change the wireless password twice a year instead of quarterly. As always, please contact one of the Technology Support staff if you have any questions or problems connecting to our networks.
Online Technology Assessment Pilot
One of the objectives of the North Star Technology Infrastructure plan is to have a comprehensive technology staff development system in place. The technology competencies committee is working on a plan to identify, assess and provide differentiated training on the technology competencies appropriate for all staff and for each Heartland work group. Several work groups recently participated in a pilot of a free online technology assessment to help determine if this might be a method of determining staff skills and areas for growth. Participants included representation from management, secretaries, program assistants, special education clerks, professional learning and leadership staff, technology support and others. The Technology Team would like to say “thanks” to everyone who took the time to participate.
Over 100 staff members participated in the pilot. Each participant was given an anonymous username and password and the participant’s workgroup was the only identifiable information collected. The online assessment took about 30 minutes per person and each participant had the same set of 60 questions. A score of 80% or better was considered “passing.” Approximately 44% of the participants “passed” the assessment. After reviewing the results and discussing the instrument, the committee decided that there were at least two questions that had more than one correct answer and that the test items did not correlate closely enough with the basic technology competencies that had been identified as important for all Heartland staff.
Where do we go from here? We need a better way to assess the technology competency skills of staff, and we need to tailor the test items to our required competencies. The Technology Competencies committee has identified skills required of an incoming employee at Heartland. They have also identified basic technology competencies that all Heartland employees should have. The committee is working with individual workgroups to determine additional technology competencies needed by that workgroup. For example, a secretary will have much different technology skill needs than a school social worker. Next steps include developing our own assessment instrument and training methods.
Heartland staff members currently have access to a couple of training tools that can be used to improve technology competencies on their own. Through the Iowa Educators Consortium (IEC), all Iowa K-12 educators and students have access to the Atomic Learning database. Atomic Learning (http://www.atomiclearning.com) breaks down your favorite software programs into fast-loading tutorials played right over the Internet. This training database fills a real need for skills-based training. There are hundreds of programs available, including Macintosh computer basics, Microsoft Office Suite, Creative Suite 4 and nearly everything used at Heartland. You may want to consider incorporating the learning into your professional growth plan. Special accounts can also be set up which will allow you to track your use.
Another training tool, lynda.com, is available with special pricing negotiated by the IEC. Go to http://www.lynda.com. In the middle of the right side of the page is a button that says ‘try now.’ This gives you a 24-hour pass to try out this Web site. This resource is more in-depth and addresses more technical applications than Atomic Learning and is a great online resource for professional development needs. From Microsoft Office to Adobe Photoshop titles, to Web site development and creative inspiration, lynda.com has more than 37,000 easy-to-use video tutorials in over 550 courses.
Feel free to try both of these learning tools and send your feedback and suggestions for the technology competencies committee to techsurvey@aea11.k12.ia.us. We need your input and ideas as we decide what learning opportunities to invest more resources in.
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