The Channel

As you may be aware, over the past several months, AEA 267 has been involved in conversations with each of the school boards of the “resident” school districts where we operate special schools on their behalf. (Specifically, we are operating Castle Hill School on behalf of Waterloo CSD; River Hills School on behalf of the Cedar Falls CSD; Bremwood School on behalf of Waverly CSD; Four Oaks Schools on behalf of Mason City CSD; and the Learning Center on behalf of Clear Lake CSD.) Last summer, AEA 267 and these districts learned that changes at the federal level required that the school districts either formally contract with the agency to operate the schools or make a decision to take ownership of the programming independently. Last year, every school elected to continue to contract with AEA 267, but as part of that agreement each school district had until March 1 to make a final decision about next year’s programming.

This past week we learned about two significant changes:

The Waterloo CSD has made a decision to assume the programming for the Castle Hill School. Thus, the school will close effective at the end of this school year. Students from Waterloo CSD who attended this program will receive services and programming from Waterloo CSD at sites within the district while students attending Castle Hill School from surrounding school districts will have an opportunity to take advantage of extended programming at the Bremwood School. Our AEA 267 staff members who have worked at Castle Hill will have an opportunity to apply for open positions with Waterloo CSD or potentially work in other AEA 267 program sites; however, change is unavoidable. Staff members are to be applauded for the grace and professionalism with which they have handled this challenging situation. It is evident through comments from parents that the AEA 267 staff who have worked in this program are highly respected and appreciated.

Secondly, some changes are on the horizon for the Four Oaks program. Mason City CSD will assume some elements of the program including transportation and “specials” instruction such as art and physical education. This change will impact those staff members who have provided these services in the past and individual conversations are taking place regarding next steps. The remainder of the Four Oaks programming will remain somewhat the same as in years past.

A huge thank you to everyone involved in this process including both union groups (Communication Workers of America and the AEA 267 Education Association), staff, administrators, and the news media for their patience, respect and desire to ensure that partnerships with our local school districts remained at the fore of these important decisions.

Let’s hope that the old saying that when March “comes in like a lion it goes out like a lamb” is true! The past two weeks have brought significant snowfall, ice, wind, and fog causing multiple cancellations of professional development opportunities and even some office closures. Recently, some cell phone users have experienced delays in receiving the text messages shared via Iowa School Alerts. U.S. Cellular customers have been especially impacted by the delays. If you are experiencing delays in receiving messages, please contact your cell service provider. Delays are typically not the fault of the Iowa School Alerts system but have to do with how individual service providers handle and relay the messages.

Iowa is making a renewed commitment to promote early literacy results across the state.  This issue has generated much support and interest from a cross-section of education stakeholders, including the Governor’s office, the Legislature, the Iowa Department of Education, community groups and businesses, higher education, Area Education Agencies (AEAs) and schools.

Over the next few years, stakeholders from across the system will work together to support implementation of the most effective early literacy practices in all Iowa schools.  To this end, the Department, AEAs, and schools have formed a collaborative to support and scale up the implementation of evidence-based early literacy practices across the state.  As part of this collaboration, high-quality tools, resources, and supports will be identified and made available to Iowa schools and teachers.

Read the entire letter from David Tilly, Deputy Director of the Iowa Department of Education here.

The AEA 267 Board of Directors met on March 6, 2013 at 6 p.m. in the AEA 267 Conference Center for their regular meeting. During the meeting, the board:

• Heard a program review regarding Collaborative Transition Protocol from Ann Lupkes, Transition Coordinator.
• Approved the Cooperative Student Teaching/Practicum Agreement with Iowa State University for 2013-14.
• Reviewed board policy 401.27R1-Employee Use of Cell Phones & Other Communication Devices Administrative Regulations and Procedures.
• Reviewed board policy 603.4 and regulation 603.4R1-Travel Compensation Allowance.
• Approved requesting quotes for wiring at River Hills for improved Internet capacity and to prepare for the installation of a new phone system.
• Approved the AEA 267 Equity Report.
• Approved a resolution between Woden-Crystal Lake and West Hancock Community School Districts.
• Heard a variety of reports from directors and fellow board members.

Immediately after the regular meeting was adjourned, a Board Strategy Session for Collective Bargaining was held.
Following the Board Strategy Session, the AEA 267 Foundation Meeting was held.

In an effort to improve services to our partners, AEA 267’s Continuous Improvement Team (CIT) has been voluntarily working through the phases of the Schools in Need of Assistance (SINA) process. The phases completed so far are the audit, diagnosis and design. The audit phase focused on the collection and analysis of AEA 267 qualitative and quantitative data. The CIT did this to identify strengths and areas of concern in order to design action plans to increase our effectiveness in educational leadership, services and support to children families and educators we serve to build their capacity to positively impact and increase student achievement. From the audit phase 42 areas of further concern were identified. These areas were then themed into eight clusters. These eight clustered areas were narrowed into three prioritized areas, 1) focus on improving services that will impact student achievement and outcomes e.g. special education state performance plan, Iowa Youth Survey items, 2) focusing on improving the support given for implementation of professional development with integrity and 3) focusing on improving early literacy / numeracy services within and across the agency.

The diagnosis phase reviewed the three prioritized areas from the audit summary. Through a comparison of the current reality with the desired state, a gap analysis was completed. The root cause(s) that contributed to the three prioritized areas of concern were identified through a root cause analysis. Solutions and actions were identified to address these prioritized areas of concern. Then KASABs (Knowledge, Attitude, Skill, Aspiration and Behavior) were developed for each prioritized area of concern for each stakeholder group.

The design phase provided for the development of action plans to address each of the three prioritized areas. Action plans have been completed and recently peer reviewed by the Continuous Improvement Team. As a result of the peer review some polishing of these action plans will take place before implementation begins.

Details regarding the Continuous Improvement Team SINA process are available on our website.

Next month’s Intersections will feature video explanations of each of the action plans developed from this work. For more information, contact Dr. Jon McKenzie.

Do you have a particularly successful relationship with a student or school with which you are working?  We would like to hear about that!  We are always looking for stories showing the positive impact our AEA 267 services and programs are having with students/teachers/administrators throughout the year.  If you have a story to share, please send it to Beth Strike. We will plan to share the story in an upcoming AEA 267 newsletter and through our statewide Impacting Lives news blog which reaches all legislators and administrators in Iowa.

The Governor is recommending a continuation of the $20 million cut to AEAs, as well as 0% allowable growth rates for both fiscal years (2013-14 and 2014-15). If legislators don’t hear from AEA supporters, it will be easy for them to continue with the proposed cut.

The bottom line is that we need to generate as many contacts as possible to legislators letting them know of the effects of budget cuts to students and parents.  We need contacts from parents, board members, and all supporters of our AEA.

The message?  All AEA 267 staff members are strongly encouraged to use this template language (below) and share with your families. It’s essential that we act! (Feel free to also share this list of AEA 267 Legislators serving our region of the state so that they have contact information.)

To Your State Senator/Representative:
As a family whose child has received services from the AEA, I/we want you to support full funding to the AEAs. Please remove the excessive budget cut the Governor has recommended for the AEAs.  (Please add a reason why you think the AEA deserves your/their support. Share with the legislators a sentence or two about the services your child/family has received from the AEA).

Please remember when sending messages to legislators that it is important for you to personalize emails or letters with stories and send them from your personal email account or stationary. It is against the law for us to lobby the legislature using agency email or stationary. Also, do not send any such messages during agency work hours, as that would also be a violation of the law.

What can you do?
As an AEA 267 employee, we can do some, and maybe all of the following, to help us get through these challenging times. Here are at least 10 different things we can do to be positive and promote our AEA system:

1. Convey and protect a positive image of the AEA system by acting with integrity.
2. Provide remarkable service.
3. Truly care about those you serve and work with.
4. Be responsive.
5. Be dependable.
6. Contact your legislators.
7. Stay educated.
8. Tell the success stories from our agency to parents, community members and schools.
9. Focus on students, teachers, schools and families.
10.  Keep a healthy life-work balance so you can be your best at both.

Finally, the agency is making a concerted effort to reach out to as many families as possible to encourage them to “like” us on our AEA 267 Facebook page. This will allow us to maintain continuous contact with families regarding advocacy needs as well as to share pertinent tips and information. We need your help! Please encourage those families you work with to join us on Facebook. (We would like to “see” staff there, too!)

Have you signed up for Twitter? Every day, more Iowa educators join this growing social media network to share ideas and resources with one another.

We are collecting the Twitter “handles” of our AEA 267 staff so that we can create a Twitter list. A Twitter list is a curated group of Twitter users organized by what those people have in common. Our common denominator is the fact that we are all employed by AEA 267! We are also working to create lists of others to connect with through Twitter.

Take a minute and share your Twitter handle (e.g. @bethstrike) so that we can add you to the list. Email your Twitter handle to Beth Strike by the end of this month.

Please remember that if you are sharing professional news and information on Twitter, to use the #aea267 hashtag.

Whenever you renew or add to your Board of Educational Examiners (BOEE) license, be sure to send a copy to AEA 267’s Human Resources department.  The BOEE will send a reminder 14 months before the expiration of the license if they have a current email address for you. You can check your email address and other information on the BOEE website.

Remember, it is your responsibility to make sure your license does not expire. By law, AEA 267 cannot employ personnel who are not certified for the position they hold in the agency.

If you have any questions, please contact Shirley Horak.  Thank you.

If you are considering retirement at the end of the 2012-13 year, please let the Human Resources office know as soon as possible. This will help to ensure that plans can be made for future staffing and also to celebrate your years of service with the agency.

Please contact Shirley Horak for more information.

The AEA 267 Board of Directors met February 6, 2013 at 6 p.m. for a public hearing on the 2013-14 AEA 267 proposed budget. The regular board meeting was held immediately following.

During the meeting the board:

• Heard a program review regarding the Audit Report.
• Approved the 2011-2012 Audit.
• Approved the AEA 267 budget for 2013-14.
• Named David Nicholson to the Audit Committee and Treasurer of AEA 267.
• Reviewed the mileage reimbursement rate and made a decision to maintain the current rate of $.37/mile.
• Approved the Annual Progress Report (APR).
• Approved the process for requests for a new phone system.
• Heard a variety of reports from directors and fellow board members.
• Thanked Dennis Scudder, Director of Finance, for his many years of service to the AEA system. Dennis will be retiring at the end of this month. (See related story in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.)

Immediately after the regular meeting was adjourned, a Board Strategy Session for Collective Bargaining was held.

As we welcome 2013, we know that many of you are working on professional goals as a part of the new evaluation process. Over the past few months, the administrative team has created a list of common themes regarding the professional development needs co-identified by staff and supervisors.

To assist classified and NUSS staff with meeting their professional goals, the following list of professional development opportunities has been compiled. Please review the list and collaboratively begin making plans with your supervisor to get registered or arrange to participate in the opportunity that best applies to your specific needs and goal(s) for the year.

Thank you to everyone who donated both cash and prizes for the 2012 Food Bank Drive. Together, we were able to raise $1,540 to help stock food pantries in Iowa. What a great accomplishment! Special thanks to Kerri Wilson, Amanda McMartin, Barb Ehrig, Donna Perry, Lori Thomas, and Beth Strike  for their support and assistance with this process.

On December 18, a random number generator was used to pick the winners of the prizes donated by our administrative staff. The winners are:

Google Apps for Education is a free suite of hosted communication and collaboration applications designed for schools and universities.  AEA 267 employees have access to a variety of Google tools including Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, Google Groups, etc.  AEA 267 employees do NOT have access to Google Mail (Gmail) and are expected to keep their Exchange calendar current.

The purpose of Google Apps at AEA 267 is for AEA 267-related work that supports the goals and objectives of AEA 267.  You should not use your AEA 267 Google Apps account for personal use and AEA 267-related work should reside in your AEA 267 Google Apps account, not in a personal Google account.

AEA 267’s Acceptable Use Policy also applies to the use of Google Apps.  When using your AEA 267 Google Apps account, AEA 267 manages and owns the data. Accounts can be suspended if there is a violation of the agency’s acceptable use policy.

As with any file, if an employee has a file(s) that is vital, it is the employee’s responsibility to back-up those files in multiple locations (e.g. download the file(s) from Google Docs to an AEA 267 server, an external hard drive, flash drive, or download all your data from Google using Google Takeout.)

In addition, AEA 267 employees are responsible for protecting confidential information and must adhere to AEA 267 policies and federal policies as outlined by the Family Educational Right and Responsibility Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).  AEA 267 employees are responsible for taking the necessary measures to ensure that confidential information is not shared inappropriately.

It is important and part of your professional responsibility as an AEA 267 employee to protect student and other personal information.  Keeping your passwords safe and secure is one way to ensure that this information is protected.  Keeping a list of passwords where they are easily viewed by others is a risky and unsafe practice, e.g. passwords written on scraps of paper, or listed in a text document on your computer.   Remember, the person whose name is on the account is responsible at all times for its proper use.

If you feel that your password has been compromised, contact AEA 267’s Information Tech as soon as possible and then change your password. The privacy and protection of personally identifiable student and employee data is of paramount importance.