The AEA 267 Board of Directors voted not to renew the lease on the AEA 267 Osage sector office citing budget restraints. Approximately 10 special education staff members are housed in the office which also serves as a daycare site for the community. Staff members will be provided office space in other locations in the area beginning July 1, 2010.
The move will save the agency approximately $35,000 including secretarial staff time and equipment related services.
After selecting G. Tryon and Associates as the firm to conduct the search for a new Chief Administrator and Assistant Chief Administrator/Director of Personnel, the AEA 267 Board of Directors is moving forward with assembling focus groups to assist with the process.
Five focus groups have been identified including the following: Classified/Non-Union Support staff, Licensed Staff, AEA Administrative Staff, Superintendents, and K-12 Administrative staff. Each focus group will be comprised of 12 to 15 people and meet six times in order to discuss desired leadership characteristics, current issues impacting the agency, and participate in candidate interviews.
An advertisement for the Chief Administrator position has been published in the Des Moines Register and other pertinent sources. It is believed that the new Chief Administrator will be secured by April 2 and the Assistant Chief Administrator/Director of Personnel by April 20.
School districts and other educational agencies are encouraged to recognize the contributions of paraeducators during the month of February in observance of Paraeducator Recognition Month. The original proclamation recognizing paraeducators was issued by Iowa’s governor in 2006. Governor Chet Culver in January of 2008 extended and expanded the proclamation to be observed throughout the entire month of February.
According to the Iowa Department of Education 2009 Condition of Education Report, some 10,270 paraeducators (“aides”) were employed in Iowa public schools in the 2008-09 school year. That number, reported in full-time equivalencies (FTEs), reflects an increase of 62 percent over the 6,341 FTEs reported by public schools in the 1997-98 school year. “As the educational system in Iowa evolves to face the challenges of the 21st century, paraeducators will continue to play a critical role in helping to meet those challenges,” says Norma Lynch, Iowa DE consultant for paraeducators.
A resource designed to assist schools in implementing effective paraeducator practices can be found at http://www.iowa.gov/educate/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=773&Itemid=1297 <http://www.iowa.gov/educate/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=773&Itemid=1297> . Entitled Guide to Effective Paraeducator Practices, Edition II, the document can be reproduced in unlimited numbers. Contact: Norma Lynch, Norma.Lynch@iowa.gov <mailto:Norma.Lynch@iowa.gov> , 515-281-6038.
Mother Nature has provided plenty of opportunities over the past month to use our agency weather announcement procedures. Now that the weather has settled down (at least for now!), it’s a good time to step back and review. Below are three of the most commonly asked questions about our weather procedures.
If an AEA 267 service delivery center closes (i.e. Marshalltown, Cedar Falls or Clear Lake office), are all events scheduled in that office cancelled for the day?
Yes.
What about internal meetings? When professional development courses and workshops are cancelled are internal meetings automatically cancelled also?
No. Internal meetings are held at the discretion of the person leading the meeting. Many factors can be considered including the number of staff involved, where they are driving from and the length of the meeting. Be sure to check with the person leading the internal meeting if you have questions on bad weather days.
Sometimes it takes the news media or Snowcap awhile to share an announcement about an office closing or PD cancellations. Why is that? What if I need to know right away?
There are four ways to learn about whether the office is closed or PD is cancelled: 1.) the agency website; 2.) by calling our announcements line at 1-866-923-1089; 3.) signing up for email and/or text message alerts via Snowcap; or 4.) the news media. Of these four methods, the AEA 267 website and announcements line are by far the fastest. Generally speaking, within about ten minutes of a decision being made, these two resources are updated. The news media and Snowcap are “third party” carriers of our message and there are many variables that can delay timeliness including the number of other weather related announcements they are dealing with that day. When you need to know right away, check the website or announcements line first!
For a complete list of Frequently Asked Questions, refer to our staff website at: www.aea267.k12.ia.us/staff (user name: aeastaff and password: aea267ia) and look under “For Your Reference” on the right of the page.
As a reminder, if you are planning internal meetings that involve staff members from a distance, please remember to set meeting hours to start no earlier than 9 a.m. and end by 3 p.m. Having standard hours will promote car pooling among staff and allow for travel time. In addition, given budget constraints, please utilize technology for meetings whenever possible. This is highly preferred over face-to-face meetings that involve travel expense.
Some questions have been asked by staff members in service delivery center offices (Clear Lake, Marshalltown and Cedar Falls) about whether they are able to paint and decorate their office space to their individual taste. All service delivery centers have color schemes that are allowed and should be followed to support a consistent look and feel. Please remember that requests for office painting and any non-standard office decor items must have prior approval from service area directors and the person in charge of buildings and grounds in each service area.
The AEA 267 Board of Directors met in a retreat prior to their regular board meeting this month to discuss plans for recruiting a new Chief Administrator and Assistant Chief Administrator/Director of Personnel for the agency. The board received proposals from four professional search firms and will meet by conference call on January 18 to select firms to interview. Interviews will take place on January 27 and a selection will be made so that the search can officially begin as early as February 3. It is believed that a new Chief Administrator and Assistant Chief Administrator/Director of Personnel will be in place by July 1, 2010. As shared before the holiday break by email, both Dr. Dean Meier, Chief Administrator and Dr. Ralph Bartelt, Assistant Chief Administrator, will retire effective the end of this school year.
In other business, the board:
Barb Ruiter, Special Education Secretary serving the Forest City office was recently notified that an article she had written about her love of paperdolls would be published in the March issue of Paperdoll Review Magazine, a quarterly publication. “I’m excited to be published again,” said Ruiter, a former writer with the Mason City Globe Gazette. She is also the author of several stories including Pink is Perfect for Pigs, a children’s book published several years ago. She currently shares her love of writing and paperdolls through guest speaking in area schools. Congratulations, Barb!
AEA 267 staff members representing the Special Education records department in Cedar Falls donated personal care products (cologne, Chapstick, deodorant, shampoo, nail polish, lotions), winter wear (socks, gloves, hats, scarves), food, and more to students at AEA 267 Devonshire school. The donation provided a needed boost to the school store and students were able to use their behavior points to stock up on items before the winter break.
Another recent donation came from Hartman Reserve Nature Center. Staff there requested help from naturalists and park rangers across the state for new and gently used books for the AEA 267 Devonshire library. The response was tremendous and the school received over 900 books. Also donated were five bookcases and a check to buy additional books. Students helped move the boxes of books into the school and were requesting check out before they were even inventoried.
“The generosity of folks across our state blows me away,” said Paula Goetz, AEA 267 Devonshire principal.
With the 10% across-the-board cut plus declining enrollment, I’ve shared some perspectives about our future in past editions of Intersections. A couple people replied wondering if an early retirement incentive might be the magic bullet or at least a piece of the solution. One person pointed out that early retirement incentives are used by some LEAs.
AEAs are funded quite differently than LEAs. An LEA covers the cost of the early retirement incentives with a special property tax levy called the Management Levy. There is no control or ceiling on this levy. AEAs do not have that option. An early retirement incentive comes right out of the General Fund. AEAs need to be very careful that an incentive program doesn’t actually cost the Agency more money.
The AEA 267 Board believes there is little financial advantage to our Agency if we implemented an early retirement incentive. We believe we can manage the current economic crisis with a thoughtful and gradual reduction in our workforce, accomplished primarily with retirements and other attrition, over the next two to four years. This belief does not guarantee there will not be some lay-offs, but for the most part, lay-offs can be avoided and certainly will not occur in large number.
–Dr. Dean Meier, AEA 267 Chief Administrator
Much has been reported in the news regarding the 10% across-the-board state cut and other economic problems in our state. Since many of you know that education is 45% of the state budget, it’s natural to start thinking about our situation as an agency and the challenges that may be ahead for us. Many people are wondering just how much money our agency has lost and how we can sustain our current level of service after withstanding a $1.5 million cut.
The answer is, we can’t. Simply put, with a $1.5 million across the board cut, declining enrollment, lagging state revenue and stimulus funds going away after next year, we will have to do things differently.
(Click on the video below to watch Dr. Dean Meier, AEA 267 Chief Administrator, discuss our agency’s budget situation and possible solutions.)
What’s likely to happen?
What may happen?
What likely won’t happen?
As an AEA employee, we’re sometimes asked questions that we may have NO clue how to answer. Or we’ve heard something about that topic in one of our meetings but don’t have a clear answer.
One topic that continues to bubble up is the line item in a school district budget that indicates AEA flow-through dollars. Since AEA funds appear in the local district’s Aid and Levy Worksheets, it has led some people to the mistaken belief that these funds belong to the local school district.
When the Iowa Legislature created Iowa’s Area Education Agencies in 1975, it also created a separate funding stream for the AEAs specifically to fund its services. No school district dollars were ever reduced or reallocated in the creation of the AEA system funding.
With no direct taxing authority, AEA funding had to appear on some other entities’ books for accounting purposes. Because AEA funding is based on per pupil allocations tied to local district enrollments, funding shows up as flow-through funds from each individual district in the area. The AEA budget in total was, and still is, intended to be used to provide mandated services throughout the region for all of the public and private schools not for individual school purposes.
In February 2009, the Fiscal Division of the Legislative Services Agency issued this statement after its review of AEAs: “the method of distribution of AEA funding is strictly for accounting purposes, the school district budget is not impacted.”
The AEA flow-through money is intended to equalize, as much as possible, educational opportunities for all schools, both public and accredited nonpublic, within an AEA region. Without the cooperative services of the AEAs, inequities between school districts would increase and learning opportunities for students would vary greatly. AEAs require the allocated funds to provide equitable educational opportunities. Any reduction in funding would impact the ability of the AEA to provide mandated services to the districts.
The flow-through money is not, and has never been, district money. To allow those dollars to be “rolled-over” into a single district budget would result in harm to the group.
As ambassadors of Area Education Agency 267 and Iowa’s Area Education Agencies, please feel free to share this information when the situation arises.
The front page of the AEA 267 website will have a new appearance come Monday, December 7. While all your favorite links to the best instructional content will still be visible, they may be in a new spot to accommodate more space devoted to news, professional development offerings and AEA 267 service features. The new front page was developed in response to agency needs assessment data that show that educators want more information about what the agency has to offer and how services can meet their needs. Take a sneak peak at the new site today at http://www.aea267.k12.ia.us/new/
The 2009 AEA 267 River Hills School Holiday Program will take place on Friday, December 11, at 9:30 a.m. In the event school is cancelled, the rescheduled date will be Monday, December 14, at the same time. The school is located at 2700 Grand Boulevard, Cedar Falls. AEA 267 River Hills School is a public sponsored special school for students with moderate, severe, and profound development disabilities. The school serves students from birth through age 21. It is operated by Area Education Agency 267 and funded through participating local school districts.
Please change your voicemail greeting and set an away message to your email during the holiday breaks so that callers and/or e-mailers will know when they can expect to hear from you.
Voicemail Example:
“Hello, this is (your name). Our office will be closed beginning Friday, December 25 and reopen on Monday, January 4. Please leave your name, telephone number and a detailed message and I will call when I return. Thank you!”
Email Away Message Example:
Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office beginning Friday, December 25 and return Monday, January 4 and will respond to your email upon my return.
If you need assistance with either task, please visit with your administrator.
The AEA 267 Board of Directors met at 6:00 p.m. on December 2, 2009 in the AEA 267 Conference Center for their regular meeting. (The board met at 3 p.m. for a retreat to discuss the budget, progress on the AEA 267 Clear Lake Office remodeling project and the AEA 267 River Hills boiler repair project.)
During their regular meeting, the board:
Heard a variety of reports from directors and fellow board members.
Want more interesting trivia about our agency staff?
Jamie Osterbuhr, AEA 267 Teacher of Multi Disab SCI
AEA 267 Teacher of Multi Disab SCI, Jamie Osterbuhr, was among nearly 80 Iowa educators nominated for an Excellence in Education Award sponsored by the Iowa State Education Association, the Farm Bureau, WHO Radio, Staples, and KDSM Fox 17.
According to the Allison Bristow CSD & Greene CSD newsletter, “The Bearcat Clause”, Osterbuhr was recognized as an educator who “goes above and beyond and touches her students lives in ways that she will probably never know.”
