Reminder: Direct Deposit of Employee Expense Payments Coming Soon

Very soon agency employees will have a faster, more convenient way to be reimbursed for their expenses—direct deposit! Beginning September 6, 2013, the Agency will begin to use direct deposit for paying employee expense reimbursements—no more trips to the bank or the possibility of lost checks! This change will make handling employee expense reimbursements more convenient for both you and the Business Office, as time will be saved handling and stuffing checks and money will be saved on postage costs. 

All employees who currently receive their payroll deposits via direct deposit will automatically receive expense reimbursements via direct deposit as well. Your checking or savings account designated to receive your net pay for payroll direct deposit will be used for the direct deposit of expense reimbursements. You must have direct deposit set up for payroll in order to have expense reimbursements direct deposited. 

Expense reimbursements cannot be deposited to more than one bank account, and we cannot use a bank account that is not designated as your net payroll account. Expense reimbursements will continue to be processed on Fridays. Barring a federal holiday, the payments will appear in employee bank accounts the following Monday. 

You may opt out of receiving your expense payments through direct deposit. Click here for a form to fill out if you do not want to receive your expense reimbursement via direct deposit. Please email completed forms to Accounts Payable at acctspay@heartlandaea.org or through interoffice mail. Click here for a question and answer page relating to direct deposit of expenses. 

If you have any additional questions, contact Brian Whalen, Business Manager, at bwhalen@aea11.k12.ia.us or ext. 14005, Sheree Bergstrom, Accounting Technician, at sbergstrom@heartlandaea.org or ext. 14316 or Mary Heaberlin, Accounting Technician, at mheaberlin@heartlandaea.org or ext. 14818.

Iowa’s AEAs Launch Statewide Pinterest Site, Sign Up to be a Contributor

According to Edutopia.org, over half a million education pins are made to Pinterest daily by 48.7 million users. This social media site is quickly becoming a go-to site for busy educators in search of lesson plans, book recommendations, classroom organization ideas and more. To assist Iowa educators, the AEAs have developed a statewide Pinterest site at http://pinterest.com/iowaaea/. 

The Pinterest site is a collaborative project of the state’s nine AEAs and content is added by AEA consultants from across the state. The 35 pinning boards provide a visual, dynamic forum that informs parents, educators and school administrators about AEA programs and resources, as well as other quality, credible ideas and resources relating to education. Not yet using Pinterest? Click here for a helpful guide on creating an account and using the social media site. 

For more information or to sign up to be a contributor to the boards, contact the Heartland AEA Communications Department at comms@aea11.k12.ia.us.

Required: Read 2013-14 Staff Handbook and Sign Read Receipt

This message was emailed to staff this morning and is being repeated here. 

The Heartland AEA staff handbook has been updated as of July 1, 2013 and is now available for all staff to read and become familiar with. All previous versions of the staff handbook should be discarded or archived. The handbook also contains a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Notice for staff to read. 

Click here to download the staff handbook. 

You are required to complete a web-based receipt form that confirms you’ve received an updated version of the staff handbook and privacy notice. Once you’ve located the staff handbook, click here for the receipt form for the handbook and HIPAA notice. When you click on the link to the web form, you will need to enter the username and password that you use to login to the Employee Dashboard. You will then be prompted to complete the receipt form. If you don’t fill out the form in a timely manner, you will receive a friendly e-mail reminder to do so. 

Note that the handbook is in PDF form and contains bookmarks that allow you to navigate through the chapters and headings. By clicking on an entry title, you'll be taken directly to that entry. You can also click on the triangles next to the bookmarks to expand the view to include subtopics of that chapter. The PDF is indexed, which means that you will be able to quickly conduct keyword searches to find what you are looking for. The PDF can be viewed in Mac Preview or Adobe Reader. Adobe Reader will provide additional features such as the ability to highlight and keep comment notes in the document should you choose to save it locally to your computer. 

For future reference, the Staff Handbook is located on the Intranet tab on the Employee Dashboard. Look under Human Resources and click on the “Agency Information and Policies” link.

Extra Dental Services Available Online

Have you noticed that you don’t get an Explanation of Benefit (EOB) form from Delta Dental for your dental care? Perhaps you would have found it helpful to have one when you’re turning in expenses for reimbursement against your medical flex spending or HRA plan. Looking for an in-network dentist or an EyeMed vision provider for our discount vision plan? 

You can now have access to all of this information online. Click here to check out Member Connection services with Delta Dental of Iowa. You are covered under the Delta Premier plan. 

If you have any questions, contact Kathy Martin, Benefits Specialist, at kmartin@aea11.k12.ia.us or ext. 14385.

Coming Soon: Next Step Challenge Through Live Healthy Iowa

For the second year, Heartland AEA will be participating in the Next Step Challenge through Live Healthy Iowa. The cost of the challenge is $10 per person, and agency teams of 2-10 people can compete. Here’s what you need to do: 

1. Get your 2-10 person team together and nominate a team captain. 
2. The team captain will then go to www.livehealthyiowa.org, click on the area that says “start a team” on the right side of the page and enter LHIHAEA11 as the Group ID to register his/her team. 
3. The team captain will register all of his or her team members, selecting ‘LHI Pedometer’ from the promotional item drop down box for each team member who needs a pedometer. 
4. Team members will then log their steps through the Live Healthy Iowa website. 

The contest will start September 9 and run through October 18, so get a team together and sign up before August 30! 

If you have any questions about the program or about registering, contact Tony Chiaramonte, Human Resources Manager, at tchiaramonte@heartlandaea.org or ext. 14534. 

Save the Date! Healthiest State Walk October 9 
Also, don’t forget to mark your calendar for the Healthiest State Walk on October 9, 2013. Join thousands of other Iowans as we each walk 1K to help Iowa become the healthiest state in the nation by 2016. You can visit www.iowahealthieststate.com/healthiest-state-walk to commit to walk that day or to help coordinate a walking route for your office.

Early ACCESS Distance Mentoring Model Being Launched in September

You may have heard about a new statewide Part C initiative called “The Distance Mentoring Model” that is being launched in September. 

The Distance Mentoring Model (DMM) is a professional development approach designed to facilitate coordinated and consistent high quality early intervention (EI) services and supports. Incorporating evidence-based practices for professional development with technology strategies and supports, DMM engages EI providers, service coordinators and program administrators in a systematic change process to increase the use of recommended practices with children and families. 

Juliann Woods, Florida State University, developed DMM. Larry Edelman, Colorado Department of Education; Carol Trivette, Pukett Institute; and Susan Maude, Iowa State University; have been working alongside Dr. Woods on Iowa’s project. 

Each of Iowa’s AEAs will have practitioners in co-hort groups staged for implementation every six months for the next three years. Heartland AEA will add two practitioner pairs every six months, and the Agency will also have an implementation team that will guide the project. 

You can learn more about DMM by visiting the DMM website at http://dmm.cci.fsu.edu/index.html (see Iowa DMM on the left hand menu options). On Iowa DMM’s homepage there is a short video describing DMM that you may find useful. You can also click here for a document outlining the components of DMM. 

If you have any questions, contact Annie Volker, Early ACCESS Regional Coordinator, at avolker@aea11.k12.is.us or ext. 14333.

Survey to be Completed by Capacity Building Participants

A survey has been sent to all staff members who participated in capacity building last year. This information will be used by the planning groups to revise the sessions this year. If you did not receive the survey, use this link if you have been migrated over to Gmail. If you are still using Kerio, use this link to access the survey. Last year ongoing survey data was collected in most strands so planning groups could be responsive. A consistent format will be used this year across strands to facilitate ongoing feedback.

IEP Training Sessions Parking Lot Questions Answered

A number of IEP trainings have occurred in the past few weeks. In each of the sessions, staff utilized “parking lots” for questions that were not specifically addressed. If your question is not yet answered, please know additional information is being sought to provide thorough responses. Click here to read the question and answer document.

Your Feedback is Needed for Computer Survey

This message was previously emailed to staff. Please complete this survey by August 26. 

For many years, the Agency has used a 4-year replacement cycle for computers. Most staff members now have a laptop, and some still have desktops. Most of our employees who work with students and/or in schools either have or will have an iPad by this fall. As we plan for the future and take into account the growth of tablets and Chromebooks in the educational field, we would like to gather your views about what type(s) of computers would best allow you to do your job. (For those of you not familiar with Chromebooks, they look much like a lightweight laptop, but they run almost everything via a web browser. Programs like Photoshop or Boardmaker would not run on a Chromebook, although there may be similar programs available online.) 

In order to gather your feedback, we ask that you click on the link below to complete a brief (5 minutes or less) survey. Please complete the survey by August 26, 2013. We appreciate your feedback and thank you for sharing it with us. 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RFZ3B8V

If Having Problems Accessing Intranet, Use Safari or Chrome Web Browsers

Many of you are experiencing trouble accessing the Intranet tab when you login to your Employee Dashboard. This is happening only for those people using the most recent version of the Firefox web browser (version 23 on the Mac platform). The Internal Technology Department is working on a solution to this issue. In the meantime, if you have problems seeing the Intranet tab login to the Employee Dashboard using a different browser such as Safari or Chrome. When a more permanent solution is in place, we will send out additional information.

Collaboration Stations Being Piloted Around the Agency

A rapidly growing trend in PK-16 education is the use of collaboration stations. These stations allow a large screen to be easily connected to multiple computers. The idea is that small groups can easily share what’s on their computers as they collaborate in developing ideas or solving problems. 

The Agency is piloting these stations in several places and in different configurations. Not all of the pilot stations have been set up, but as part of this initial stage, they are currently available for use in Conference Rooms 8, 13C and 25 at the Johnston Regional Education Center (REC), as well as in the collaboration area in the south portion of the building. After the Learning and Leadership Planning Council (LLPC) provides input, additional pilot stations will be set up in two regional offices, as well as in the library in the Johnston REC once the school year has been underway. 

As these stations start to be used, feedback will be gathered and shared with the planning councils to determine if this pilot should be expanded.

Spending Limits for iPad Apps

A majority of our Heartland AEA staff members either have or will soon have an agency-issued iPad. Last year, those who were issued iPads were allocated up to $25 for applications (apps) beyond those that were originally installed. If you did not spend all of your $25 allocation last year, you may spend the remaining balance on apps. 

If you have received an iPad this summer, or will receive one in early fall, you have been allocated up to $25 for apps. After you have selected which apps you would like to add to your iPad, contact Judy Cleveland, Technology Support Specialist, at jcleveland@heartlandaea.org or ext. 14538 for more details. 

For those of you who were issued iPads during the 2012-2013 year, additional apps will be determined by your job-alike group. These groups will meet during the year and recommend apps that are needed for the entire group. Any apps determined by your job-alike group will be above and beyond the $25 individual allocation for apps. 

If you have questions about acquiring apps for your iPad, contact Judy Cleveland.

Reminder: Google Mail & Calendar Support Document Available

Click here to download a support document to assist in the transition to Google Mail (Gmail) and Calendar. It can be found on the Email Migration tab on the Employee Dashboard, and it is also archived on the Intranet > Technology Resources > Google Mail & Calendar Support Information.