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
Our agency is committed to providing a safe environment for our staff and visitors, and as part of that commitment; we hold fire drills in the offices that our agency owns. (Drills in other office locations happen when the schools those offices are located in conduct drills.) A fire drill was held in the Johnston REC in October and highlighted areas for improvement and prompted additional suggestions from many staff. To follow-through on this information:
- We will have another unannounced fire drill in the REC and drills in the other regional offices we own in the very near future.
- Since so many people visit the Johnston REC on a daily basis, we will post additional signage with fire and severe weather information.
- We will use our new public address system in the REC to augment information provided during a drill or actual safety event.
- The Agency Planning Council is reviewing the agency’s crisis plan with the Crisis Team to assure we are as prepared as we can be for potential emergency situations. You can expect to hear more as the review continues.
Your safety is important to us! Please never hesitate to share your ideas and suggestions as we work together to improve our emergency preparedness.
The Agency’s 2015 United Way campaign will come to close this Friday, Nov. 13. Please return your pledge cards, auction bids and any regional special event money by the 13th.
Remember that pledge cards are an easy way to donate to United Way! If you donate $50 or more, you are able to designate if you’d like your donation to go to a specific agency/organization. Remember that everyone who hands in a pledge card donation of any amount will receive a casual day sticker! Please send completed cards to Samantha Perry, Human Resources Specialist, in the Johnston Administration Center. Pledge cards are great way to show your support, and they are the only way that United Way tracks our agency’s participation, so the more pledge cards we collect (with donations), the better our participation rate is!
Here’s a great reminder from our friends at United Way of Story County about why we support United Way!
Thank you again to everyone who has returned a completed pledge card, bid on the online auction and participated in an office/regional event! Thank you for helping Heartland AEA LIVE UNITED!
So far 35% of eligible employees have enrolled in or waived the dependent care benefit. We’ve still got a ways to go!
Remember:
• Those eligible are full-time staff and 96-day or over part-time staff.
• Even if you choose not to participate in the plan, you must waive it!
• Even if you are opting for the same deduction as last year, you must type over the amount in the box and then save it in order to complete your enrollment correctly.
• Dependent care enrollment for 2016 must be completed online via the Employee Dashboard by Nov. 30, 2015.
Instructions for enrolling or waiving:
• Go to the Employee Dashboard.
• Click on the Employee Online tab.
• Click on the Enrollment link on the left hand side of the page.
• Enter the amount to enroll or enter “0” to waive.
• Save.
If you have any questions, contact Juliette Houseman, Benefits Specialist, at ext. 14315.
On Tuesday, Nov. 10, the Employee Dashboard will be set to prompt you to change your password the next time you log in. To provide better security for your employee information, your password must now be at least eight characters and contain at least one number. Looking ahead, you will be prompted periodically to change your password to help ensure information is safeguarded.
Also, it is good practice to log off your Dashboard when finished for the day. If you don’t log off, your Dashboard session is still accessible to anyone you might use your computer.
If you have any questions, contact Rod Howell, Information Systems Manager, at ext. 14599.
The agenda for the Nov. 10, 2015 Heartland AEA board of directors meeting is now available.
Google Profile Picture – One of Your Faces to the World
What face would you like to present to the world? In Google, you can choose almost any photo as your profile photo – the photo that will show up whenever another user rolls over your name in his or her email inbox, Contacts or Chat list, or when someone looks at your Google+ profile. Keeping your profile photo up-to-date with your agency employee badge photo is a great way for clientele to find and identify you when using Google products. If you have a Google+ profile, that photo shows up whenever you interact with someone via email or chat.
Finding your Heartland AEA Google+ Profile:
1. Go to your Heartland AEA Gmail account.
2. Click on the app grid and find the Google+ icon.
The profile picture from your Google+ profile will appear in all of the Google Apps. If you would to change your Google+ profile picture:
1. Go to your Google+ profile.
2. Use your cursor to hover over your profile picture > Change profile picture.
3. Choose a new photo. You can upload one, pick one from your albums or take a new photo.
4. Click Set as profile photo.
Don’t have a Google+ profile? Then the picture you have in your Gmail settings will be what people see.
Here’s how you update your Gmail profile picture:
- Click the gear in the top right.
- Select Settings.
- From the My picture section, click Select a picture. The Upload a picture window will appear.
- Upload a new photo from your computer, or select a photo from your previous Google profile photos.
- A box will appear over your photo, selecting part of it. Drag the corners of the selected region to crop your photo, or resize the region by clicking and dragging one of the region corners.
- Click Apply Changes.
Most of you have wrapped up the Google assessment and training and are probably wondering what else you will be learning this year as part of our agency-wide emphasis on technology. As we have mentioned in previous Connection articles, the next training module will be focused on Digital Citizenship. We now anticipate this module to be available during the first week in December.
In the spring, we will be rolling out modules focused on our extensive collection of online resources and on some of the key agency systems we all need to use. The online resources module should be available in early February, and the agency systems module will be available in early April. More detailed information will be included in The Connection as it is finalized.
