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
We wanted to give you an update on the progress we have made towards our goal this year of working toward 100% employee participation in our United Way campaign. Our data say that our current participation rate stands at 53%, as 346 of our employees have committed their support to United Way through pledge cards. That means we’re over halfway there, so thank you for your support!
Online Auction
Our United Way online auction launches today! Bid on great items that were generously donated by area businesses and a few staff members. The auction will run from Monday, Oct. 19 to Friday, Oct. 30 at 4:30 p.m. There are over 40 items to bid on including tickets to the Blank Park Zoo, the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad, Des Moines Symphony and local sporting events, hotel stays, gift cards to The Cheesecake Factory, Hickory Park, Greenbriar and Kum & Go and an autographed Green Bay Packers football!
See what’s up for bids on the United Way Auction site!
To place your bid
Login to the site using your Employee Dashboard username and password. Click on the item name to view the description and a larger photo. To place your bid, simply fill in the “Your New Bid” field and click on “Place Bid.” You will receive an e-mail notification if you are outbid, which will include a link back to the auction site if you wish to re-bid. The auction site is available anywhere, anytime until bidding closes at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 30!
Winning bidders will be notified by e-mail the week of Nov. 2 to send in their payments (preferably checks made out to United Way) and to make arrangements for receiving their auction items.
If you have any difficulty logging in to the auction site, contact Maureen Whited.
Why We Give
Here’s another example of why we support United Way – to give hope to people like Rebecca. Here’s her story.
We also want to remind you that you shouldn’t feel pressured to give more than once. We offer multiple opportunities for staff to give so there are plenty of options to donate in a way that works best for you. Special events are also a good way to mix in a little fun with the seriousness of an important campaign!
The 2015-16 AEA Customer Survey will be sent to educators today. The Iowa Department of Education conducts this annual statewide survey to gauge how educators feel about our services in terms of what is going well and what we can do to keep improving.
We ask that you encourage the educators you work with to participate in the survey so that we can gain valuable input about our programs and services. Thank you for your assistance!
This flyer from Wellmark highlights an update to the company’s insulin management program as well as the upcoming change on July 1, 2016 to a preferred blood glucose product, One Touch. If you have any questions, contact Juliette Houseman, Benefits Specialist, at ext. 14315.
We
are happy to once again offer staff the opportunity to have their
biometric screening done at an agency office! We hope this will make it a
bit easier for you to get your screening completed.
As before, a
Hy-Vee dietitian will provide the screenings, which will include a full
lipid panel, blood glucose, BMI, body fat and blood pressure tests. The
dietitian will also review the results of these tests with you on the
spot. Please fast for a minimum of 8 hours prior to screening.
A full schedule of screening locations, dates and times can be found on the Hy-Vee website.
Once you’re in the Hy-Vee website, go to the drop down box and select
“Heartland AEA,” and then select the location that you’d like to visit.
Then you can choose a date and time to reserve for your screening. You are reminded to please be on time for your scheduled appointment, which should only last 15 minutes. Make sure to get a copy of your results so you can input them into the WebMD portal!
And
remember, if you can’t make it to the office for a screening, you can
make your own appointment at a Hy-Vee store as long as there is a
dietician on staff at the store you choose. Be sure to call ahead to the
store before you schedule your screening, as walk-ins CANNOT be
guaranteed.
Remember, if you earned a Fitbit last year, you will
earn 3 points for completing a biometric screening and taking the
wellness assessment this year. These points can be spent in the new Wellness Catalog.
If you didn’t earn a Fitbit last year, you will earn one this year by
completing your wellness assessment.
If you have any questions, contact
Wellness Program leads Katie Streff or Juliette Houseman.
The Adel-DeSoto-Minburn Schools and Carlisle Schools have changed their email addresses.
ADM is now firstinitiallastname@admschools.org.
Carlisle is now firstname.lastname@carlislecsd.org.
Adjust your records accordingly.
A benefit concert will be held on Nov. 7 in Indianola to raise funds to support Emily Roush, daughter of Marla Roush, a regional administrative assistant in the Indianola office. After having kidney disease for 15 years, Emily’s kidneys have deteriorated to the point where she has been placed on a kidney transplant list. Expenses for tests and doctors visits are already beginning to add up for Emily, who is the mother of two young children, ages 7 and 8.
Marla reports that the concert entertainment will be well worth the trip to Indianola! Patresa Hartman, a school psychologist from the Indianola office will be performing, as well as Jeremy Donohue, son of retired regional administrative assistant Marsha Donohue. See this flyer for more information.
If anyone has questions or would like to donate they can contact Marla at (515) 229-7270.
Since HeartBeat will not be published until Nov. 6, we are including this information in The Connection.
A scaled back version of Capacity
Building strands is going to continue during the 2015-16 school year.
Participants in the reading, math and behavior strands will participate
in 2-4 days of training. Feedback from last year’s survey indicated that
agency staff wants to learn in other areas. Participants can continue in their current strand or participate in other strand areas.
If staff members have participated in some of the listed offerings
since July 1, it will count toward their 2-4 days of learning. Staff
members are encouraged to discuss their learning choices with their
regional directors. Strand options can be found here.
First
year staff members are not required to participate in Capacity Building
since they are attending training specifically for them.
If you have any questions, contact the following staff about Capacity Building strands:
Behavior: Stacy Volmer, Regional Director
Literacy and Math: Wendy Robinson, Director of Instructional Services
If you have any questions about Capacity Building in general, contact Kevin Fangman, Executive Director of District Services.
Please Back Up!
With the busy start to the school year, sometimes people forget to do routine (but still important) tasks such as backing up their computer. As of Oct. 15, about 300 of our staff had not backed up their hard drive using Time Machine within the last 30 days, and of those, 130 haven’t backed up for over three months. We need more of you backing up your files!
Please take a few minutes, ideally at least once a week, to back up your hard drive. If you need any help using Time Machine, contact Mande Gamble, Greg Wilcox or Mike Permann. Another alternative to back up your files is to upload them to Google Drive. Any file type can be uploaded to Drive, and each of you has unlimited storage space in your Google account. If you need assistance with uploading files to Google, contact Mande Gamble or Tim Weets.
Heartland AEA staff members are really digging in to the Google Apps assessment and training! As of Oct. 15, 453 people have taken the pre-assessment, and of those, 141 (or 31%) have scored in the proficient range.
Many people have asked, “How long do we have to complete our trainings?”
You have until the end of the school year (June 2016) to complete each of the trainings, but we don’t recommend you save all them all until the end of the year. A suggested “pacing guide” would be to complete the Google Apps assessment and trainings by mid-November, the next module (digital citizenship) by mid-January, the third module by mid-March and the fourth module by the end of May. We anticipate the digital citizenship module will be available by late November.
