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 

Reminder: Denison Organizational Culture Survey Coming to Your Inbox Tomorrow

Be on the look out for an email tomorrow with an invitation for you to participate in the Denison Organizational Culture Survey. The survey will be sent to ALL staff, so everyone will have a chance to provide their feedback about our agency’s culture (the way we do things around here). 

Remember to please be as honest as possible when completing the survey and know that your responses are completely confidential and cannot be tracked. The survey will close on March 11. Thank you in advance for your time and feedback!

Professional Development Cadre Making Progress on Plans for Staff Learning

The Agency’s Professional Development Planning Cadre (PD Cadre) continues to meet monthly to plan for initial implementation of a more individualized model of professional development for agency staff. Work groups are also meeting one to two times a month to identify foundational competencies and skills in the following areas: adult learning, behavior, data and assessment, early childhood, technology, child find, problem solving and instruction. Work groups have been asked to have foundational competencies and skills identified by March. Job alike facilitators and other groups will then begin to vet recommendations and give feedback to each work group.

In next week's Connection the themes from the input collected at the regional meetings and the list of work team members will be shared. There will continue to be updates every month in The Connection sharing the PD Cadre’s progress. If you have any questions on the work being done, contact Kevin Fangman, Executive Director of District Services.

March 2016 Each and Every Child Newsletter Available

The March 2016 issue of the Each and Every Child newsletter from the Iowa Department of Education is now available. In this issue, learn about how the staff at Marshalltown Schools is incorporating interventions that are designed to be very flexible, based on an individual’s needs.
 

Reminder: Heartland AEA Education Career Fair to be Held March 2; Parking Info Below

As a reminder, the Agency will hold its second annual Education Career on March 2 from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. at our Johnston Regional Education Center. The Education Career fair will be an opportunity for teachers and other education professionals to meet with 15 central Iowa school districts at one location to apply for jobs for the next school year. 


In anticipation of extra visitors being on-site, we ask that staff from both the REC and Administration Center park in the Friends of IPTV parking lot or on Corporate Drive. If there’s anyway to carpool, we encourage that option, and maybe even take the afternoon off if you’re able. We anticipate a large crowd again this year, so thank you for your cooperation!

Reminder about the details:


March 2, 2016 

2:00-6:00 p.m. 
 

Heartland Area Education Agency 

Johnston Regional Education Center


• The career fair will be an opportunity for teachers and other education professionals to meet with 15 central Iowa school districts at one location to apply for jobs for the next school year.
• The job fair will be packed with opportunities for job seekers, including 
• career fair classes,
• mock interviews,
• resume critiques,
• graduate program information from area universities
• professional portraits and a
• free gift for early registrants!
  

Visit the Career Fair page on the agency’s website for all the info! Pre-registration is encouraged this year, but the fair is again free of charge.

Your Co-Workers are Stashing the Cash – Are You?

Human Resources is once again happy to report that staff have taken advantage of the Stash the Cash Savings Wellness challenge and are saving money and paying off debt! The challenge began on Jan. 15 and will run through March 15. In addition to putting money in savings and paying off debt, staff who are participating in the challenge, have been entered into drawings to win one wellness point. Results after three pay periods:

As a group, Heartland AEA employees have $82,014 saved and $75,854 in extra money going towards debt. That is a $157,868 change in position! 

Below are the winners of the third drawing (each participant will receive one wellness point).

• Kristin Rourk
• Janelle Thompson
• Carol Kuhn
• Todd York

Our Children, Our Future -- The Facts About Education Funding in Iowa

During the legislative session, the School Administrators of Iowa, Iowa Area Education Agencies, Iowa State Education Association, the Rural Schools Advocates of Iowa and the Urban Education Network of Iowa will again be creating weekly factoids about the need for consistent growth in the state’s annual education spending rate. These “Facts About Education Funding” will be sent to all legislators and will highlight a pertinent fact about education spending in Iowa. They will be shared with you in The Connection as well.

Education Funding and the Cost of Doing Business

AEA Legislative Update

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, John Pederson and Kate Walton. This week’s update also includes a list of the districts that will be participating in this summer’s summer reading program pilot.

Correction: Web IEP Enhancement: View a Student’s Graphs All at Once

 The bottom portion of this article was left off in last week’s issue.

The Web IEP program now has the capacity for a user to view all of a student's graphs at one time. Web IEP users who have the ability to view all the students in a building will see the "Building Graph List" option under the “Student List” option on the menu:   

After selecting the "Building Graph List," the user will be able to choose the district, building and student to view:

After choosing the student from the pull down list, the user will be able to view all the graphs for that student:

After choosing the student from the pull down list, the user will be able to view all the graphs for that student:

 

If you have any questions, contact Misty Christensen, Sue Dunsmoor or Mary Keul.

Tech Tip of the Week: Check Out Gmail’s Spell Checker

You know those red lines that appear under your text when a word is misspelled in an email? That’s Gmail’s automatic spell-check. But there’s a more thorough spell-check you’ve got to check out! The backup spell-check catches more mistakes (like proper nouns that need to be capitalized) and more complicated errors.

To use this backup spell-check:

• When you have text ready to review in your Gmail email message, go to the bottom right corner of your draft and select the arrow that reads “More Options.”
• A new menu will appear. From that menu, select “Check Spelling.”
• Once you click this, Gmail will scan the text of your drafted email and find all the spelling errors, highlighting them in yellow.
• From there, you can click each highlighted word to see the list of alternatives that Gmail suggests. You can select a replacement or click “Ignore” if you want to keep the text you’ve already written.
• Note that when you click on the word, you don’t need to use a right click, just a regular click.

If you decide to add more text to your message and want to check your spelling again, you can go back to the bottom right corner of your draft and select “Recheck.” 

When you’re done with spell-check, you can click the “X” button.
Any questions? Feel free to contact Tim Weets, Network Specialist, at ext 14322.