Our Mission
To provide services and
leadership, in partnership with families, schools and communities, that
improve the learning outcomes and well-being of all children and youth.
Our Goals
• Increase learning growth for students
• Decrease the gap in achievement
• Increase annual graduation rates
• Increase gateways to post-secondary success
The May 2015 issue
of the School Leader Update is available from the Iowa Department of
Education. This issue includes new information on early literacy
implementation (p. 2); summer options offered at no charge by Iowa
Learning Online (p. 2); and registration details for summer conferences
you may be interested in, including a literacy summit (p. 1) and a
professional learning opportunity for those who work with English
Language Learners (p. 4).
The May 2015 issue
of the Each and Every Child newsletter is available from the Iowa
Department of Education. This issue examines a program that teacher
parents to be educators. The newsletter will resume in Fall 2015.
It’s that time of year again—time to sign up to be a mentor for the 2015-2016 school year! As a mentor, you share your time and expertise to welcome and support new employees as they join our Heartland AEA team. Mentoring is a personally and professionally fulfilling experience that also helps the Agency retain great employees.
Mentors provide 15 hours of one-on-one coaching and support for their mentee, are provided with mentorship training and in return will receive a $1,000 (gross) payment and the personal satisfaction of knowing that you’ve made a difference in the career of your mentee. If you are currently a mentor and would like to continue your involvement next year, please remember that you will need to re-apply.
It’s easy to sign up! Please send an email to Katie Streff at kstreff@heartlandaea.org with your name, title and region. Deadline to apply is May 22, 2015. If you were a mentor last year, you still need to apply for the new year. After receiving applications, more information will be provided to mentors in the near future for next year’s program
The Mentor Program Guide is available on the Employee Dashboard > Intranet > Human Resources > Mentoring Program Guide.
Each week during the Iowa legislative session, we will bring you an AEA Legislative Update from the AEA system’s lobbyists, Tom Lane, Matt Eide and John Pederson.
Teacher leaders within the Heartland AEA area may want to check out the Teacher Leadership Professional Development Google Site which provides direct links to professional learning opportunities for teacher leaders. There is also an Agora Site
managed by the state that allows teachers and principals to see the
professional learning opportunities being offered statewide.
It’s May, folks, and that means summer professional learning at the Agency is just around the corner! If applicable, please be sure to acquaint yourself with the new requirements for graduate credit and licensure taking effect July 1, 2015. We’ve created some helpful FAQ guides for both instructors and participants.
If you have any other questions, contact Sue Schirmer, License Renewal Coordinator, at sschirmer@heartlandaea.org or ext. 14379.
The Agency has provided all employees with agency computers an external hard drive (Time Machine) on which to back up their files. When we checked recently to see how often people are using them to back up their files, here is what we learned:
Last backup over 30 days ago: 240 staff members
Last backup over 60 days ago: 97 staff members
Last backup over 90 days ago: 51 staff members
It's best practice to back up files every day, but once a week is perhaps more realistic for many of you who travel extensively. As you can see from the information above, a high percentage of our staff are not backing up anywhere near that often! Please set aside a time each week to plug in your external drive and choose "Back Up Now" under the Time Machine menu -- it's the icon that looks like a clock.
