The Channel

Did that headline catch your attention? You won’t believe all the prizes that have been donated to encourage your participation in our first all-agency food pantry drive. Just take a look at the list below!

According to Food Bank of Iowa, 1 in 5 Iowa children do not have enough food to eat. For every $1 donation, five meals can be provided to needy families in our area*. From now until December 20, AEA 267 staff members are invited to donate to funds to support area food pantries. For every $1 you donate, your name will be entered into a raffle for prizes donated by AEA 267 team members. To participate, take your monetary donation to Kerri Wilson (Cedar Falls), Becky Stevenson (Marshalltown), Jan Alger (Clear Lake) or any sector office secretary. Participation is completely voluntary. Donations are monetary only. If you prefer to donate food or money directly to a local food pantry, please do so independent of this campaign. The recipients of our funds will be Food Bank of Iowa (serving the Marshalltown and Clear Lake regions along with the central corridor of Iowa) and Northeast Iowa Food Bank (serving the Cedar Valley). Funds will be directed to the food pantries with the greatest needs under the auspices of these two food banks.

Thank you for considering participation!

Prizes:

• Multiple convenience store gift cards (sponsored by Dr. Roark Horn, Dr. Mary Stevens, Dr. Sara McInerny, Dr. Bev Plagge, Greg Koppes, and Jay Colsch)
• Educator’s “goody bag” of resources (sponsored by Dr. Carol Sensor)
• Gourmet coffee & tea basket (sponsored by Judy Moser & Edie Penno)
• Gourmet lasagna for a family (sponsored by Gary Whitmore)
• Tin of popcorn (sponsored by Karen Aldrich)
• Gourmet cookies (sponsored by Julie Davies)
• Lighted wine bottles (sponsored by Kim Swartz)
• 2 Panera gift cards (sponsored by Dr. Anne Sullivan)
• Quilted table runner/wall hanging (sponsored by Cheryl Carruthers)
• Commuter’s goody basket (sponsored by Beth Strike)
• Texas Roadhouse gift card (sponsored by Rod Ball)
• 4 Walmart gift cards (sponsored by Dennis Scudder, Larry Niebur, and Dennis Sinclair)
• 2 Culver’s gift cards (sponsored by Jody Albertson)
• 2 Target gift cards (sponsored by Sarah Knudsen)
• Hy-Vee gift card (Jerry Schnabel)
• Willow Tree angel (Kerri Wilson)
• Hot Cocoa/S’more basket (Amy Knupp)

While it may seem harmless, employees who solicit sales for outside employment or businesses are in violation of board policy if done during the work day or on agency property. Board policy 401.29 “Employee Conflict of Interest” provides guidance for those with questions. Recent examples include staff selling items such as crafts, beauty products, home decorative items, etc. at work. If you are in question, please take a look at Board Policy 401.29 and/or visit with your administrator.

The AEA 267 Board of Directors met December 7, 2011 at 6 p.m. in the AEA 267 Cedar Falls Conference Center for their regular meeting. During the meeting, the board:

• Heard a presenation from Amber Mann and Nancy Moothart, Itinerant Teachers of Hearing Impaired, about a program that uses iPads as an educational tool for children with hearing loss.
• Approved participation in 2011-12 Iowa Drug and Alcohol Testing Program (IDATP).
• Tabled approval of an agreement with Timberline Billing Services.
• Approved an agreement with Solution Tree for a PLC conference featuring Becky and Richard DuFour.
• Cast ballot for the AEA District Director for IASB.
• Discussed a joint board meeting with community colleges.
• Heard a variety of reports from directors and fellow board members.

Mark your calendar for Friday, August 10 for our first all-staff kickoff meeting! Details will be forthcoming.

Although Iowa’s AEAs have been helping children, families and educators for over 35 years, this comment remains, “People still don’t know what we do at the AEA.” A new video and advocacy campaign is preparing to launch within the next few weeks. The stories in this video are shared by people who have first-hand experience with the services offered by Iowa’s Area Education Agencies. 

As an AEA staff member, you have an opportunity for a sneak peek at the new video. It can be viewed online at http://www.iowapartnersineducation.org. (The public launch with educators and other partners will occur on Monday, Nov. 14, which is the start of American Education Week.)

Feel free to share the advocacy campaign with others via Facebook, Twitter or email directly from the site! When you do share it, you help to ensure that Iowa’s AEAs will be there to support the children, families and educators of our state for many years to come.

Questions? Please contact Beth Strike or Dr. Roark Horn.

American Education Week will be observed November 13-19 and is a great time to recognize all of you for the incredible work you do to serve children, families and educators. Please watch your van mail for a small token of appreciation in recognition of your efforts!

At the October 31st meeting of the Agency Continuous Improvement Team (CIT), the group spent a considerable amount of time discussing our “current reality” with respect to our progress on agency goals, key service areas and other items such as internal communication. Identifying our current reality will help as the agency makes tough decisions in the coming months and years to keep programs and services aligned with our LEA partner’s changing  needs and our budget.

For more information about the audit process or to view results, contact Dr. Jon McKenzie.

Last year, the agency established an account with Lands’ End Business Outfitters for staff who wish to personally purchase AEA 267 logo’d apparel and other items. An impressive variety of items and color choices are available to be independently purchased and shipped directly to you on demand without waiting for a “group” order to be organized. Lands’ End recently announced a promotion for free shipping and logo application* through November 11, 2011 on AEA 267 logo’d items. Visit the AEA 267 Lands’ End Business Outfitters website today to preview our official AEA 267 catalog. To take advantage of the promotion, place your order via telephone at 1-800-497-6566 and mention the promotional code “OUT”.

For more information contact Beth Strike, Communication Specialist.

*Some restrictions apply.

Although we’ve had drier-than-average weather and great conditions for travel, winter weather is undoubtedly in our future. Are you ready? Below are some helpful links to review:

Iowa School Alerts sign-up for AEA 267 office closing and PD cancellation notification.

Iowa Department of Transportation Road Conditions

Safe Motorist tips for winter driving

AEA 267 staff webpage on Inclement Weather (login: aeastaff/password: aea267ia)

As another reminder, the agency is no longer disseminating office closing and professional development cancellations via news media.

As budgets shrink, more and more organizations are looking to email to send information and announcements. The agency has received many requests recently from outside organizations (colleges, universities, museums, etc.) who ask that we share their announcements with a large group of teachers and educators via email. These electronic mailings are sometimes known as “email blasts.” While we want to remain good partners with these entities, we also want to honor the requests of our LEA partners by not inundating them with information or implying our endorsement.  Thus, at Ad Cabinet this week, it was decided that these requests will generally be declined although some information is appropriate for posting on the Professional Development page of the agency website. If you receive requests to pass on information for an outside organization to a general group of teachers or school administrators, please refer the request to Beth Strike, AEA 267 Communications Specialist, to coordinate and respond.

The AEA 267 Board of Directors met on November 2, 2011 at 6 p.m. in the AEA 267 Clear Lake office for their regular meeting. Substitute board secretary, Beth Strike, administered the Oath of Office to the newly elected board members: Darshini Jayawardena, Dr. George North, Bernice Richard, David Giese and Charlotte Upah.

During the meeting, the board:

• Heard a review of the AEA 267 Mentoring and Induction program from Marcia Knupp.
• Motioned to accept a variety of resignations, retirements and hires.
• Approved a contract with Mid-Iowa Community Action, Inc. (MICA).
• Approved a lease with Community United Child Care Centers (CUCCC)
• Approved a reciprocal transportation agreement between:

1. Central Springs and Forest City
2. Central Springs and Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock (RRMR)
3. Osage and Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock (RRMR)
4. Mason City and Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock (RRMR)
5. Mason City and West Fork

• Heard a variety of reports from directors and fellow board members.

Dr. Roark Horn, AEA 267 Chief Administrator, recently sat down to share his perspectives regarding the recently released Education Reform Blueprint shared by Governor Branstad, Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds, and Iowa Department of Education Director, Dr. Jason Glass. In this podcast, Roark provides his perspectives on the plans in the reform, and more importantly, how he views the agency’s role in supporting it.

Along with addressing educational reform, Roark shares information about a white paper he recently developed with the help of Dr. E. Robert Stephens (widely considered to be the “father of Iowa’s AEAs” for his role in designing the system in the 1970’s) that addresses what would happen if AEAs were not in existence to provide services to the schools of Iowa. The document uses concrete evidence and statistics to illustrate the value of the AEA system and success of the “flow-through” model of funding. In the podcast, Roark sumarizes six “conjectures” that are supported by fact in the report:

Conjecture #1 – Most districts with enrollment of less than 2,500 would have great difficulty in replacing the level of support services and technical assistance they currently receive from their respective AEA’s. Approximately 90% of the districts in Iowa who enroll approximately 50% of the total student population would be included in this category.

Conjecture #2 – The options available to districts, who would be required to maintain these services, are limited; the few options available would likely require an added cost for those districts, as they would lose the efficiencies of the current system.

Conjecture #3 – The effect on Iowa’s accredited nonpublic schools would be similar to the effect on the state’s public schools – limited options that require an added cost, with the additional burden that they have no taxing authority to generate funds to support their efforts.

Conjecture #4 – The collective intellectual capital of the AEA State System, its shared competencies and skill sets, would be severely lessened, greatly diminishing opportunities for innovation, and handicap current AEA state-wide initiatives that already exist in the state.

Conjecture #5 – Iowa’s Department of Education would continue to be charged with state and federal mandates, but would not have the capacity of a regional system to provide support and technical assistance to local districts to help meet those mandates. No option available to them to do this would be as efficient and effective as the current AEA State System that is already in place.

Conjecture #6 – Long-held state goals for education, such as having an equitable, efficient, and effective state system for all of Iowa’s children, would be undermined.

Area Education Agency 267 (AEA 267) is pleased to announce that Darshini Jayawardena, currently a board member with the Mason City Community School District, has been elected to serve on the AEA 267 Board of Directors.  Darshini will succeed Darrel Lind serving Director District 2. She will represent the districts of  Central Springs (portion that was Nora Springs-Rock Falls CSD), Mason City, Osage, Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock (RRMR) & St. Ansgar .

Darshini and her family have lived in Mason City for the past 12 years. Of those 12 years, she has served on the Mason City Community School District Board of Education for the past five years, and was just recently re-elected for another four-year term. She has also served on the board of the United Way of North Central Iowa as well as the Foundation Board of North Iowa Area Community College.

Darshini holds a Master’s degree in International Economics and is currently working on her Doctorate in Public Administration through Capella University in Minnesota. She will be sworn in at the AEA 267 Board of Directors’ meeting on November 2.

In past years, the agency cell phone directory has been distributed in hard copy form. However, given the ongoing changes that occur with individual phone numbers, staff resignations and hires, etc. it has been challenging to print and distribute a paper directory that is current for any length of time. Please be aware that although a printed directory will not be officially distributed, a current version of the cell phone directory is always available on our staff website at http://www.aea267.k12.ia.us/staff/index.php?page=phonedirectory (login: aeastaff/password: aea267ia). If you print one from this site, please remember to periodically go back and seek an update as the information is constantly changing.

For more information, contact Sue Hotzel in the AEA 267 Cedar Falls Administrative Services Building. Sue coordinates all cell phone related information for the agency.