Monthly Archive

This week’s issue of Friday News includes:

• Jerry Stremel joins the Friday News blog - Be aware of words
• Seating chart for agency PD
• May birthdays
• Contracts & salary schedules
• Licensure reminder

Genuinely Jerry:  Be aware of words

As dedicated professionals we take pride in our advocacy for children and families.  We expect the most of ourselves and of one another in providing quality services to our schools.  This sense of advocacy is a commendable trait that serves us well, and at times, can also put us and/or our colleagues in awkward and legally indefensible positions.

It has come to my attention that some of us, as Prairie Lakes staff, may inadvertently be sending compromising messages to our schools and families.  I am aware of at least two recent occasions when one, or more of our staff have led parents and schools to believe that we would happily provide more support services to students on IEPs if only we weren’t so short-handed. In both of these occasions, the service in question was speech therapy but it could easily have been in other disciplines or service areas.
 
Imagine what an awkward position that creates for the speech/language pathologist?  Imagine how we might defend that position should we be faced with a challenge to the provision of a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE)?  Imagine the difficulty our schools will have defending that position to the affected families?

How might we respond instead?  Consider saying, “We are recommending a level of service appropriate to the identified needs of the child.” or perhaps, “The services proposed will adequately address the child’s special learning needs.” As long as the data support the recommended services, we can both ethically and legally defend our service proposal and our professionalism. Remember, our responsibility is to provide an appropriate education, not to try and be everything to everybody. 

Please remember, it is very damaging to our public relations with both our families and schools if we in any way contribute to the idea that our services are less than satisfactory.  I know the passion all of you bring to your profession.  I only ask that you temper your advocacy with sound judgment in the manner in which you communicate with our constituents.  Always remember that what you say has an affect on other people’s perception of you, your colleagues and the AEA as a whole.

Seating chart

Check out the seating chart for the all-agency professional development day. Table 1 will be at the back of the Expo Center, by the restrooms and numbers will progress from there.

May birthdays

1 Dennis Feddersen 
2 Sam Salinas 
2 Sarah Glawe 
4 Jill Sundblad 
8 Kandy Martin 
9 Linda Williamson 
9 Melissa Wurth 
12 Annette Louk 
18 Patti Meyer 
19 Jeff Willer 
19 Emily Frostestad 
22 Coletta Jaeger 
23 Addy Leistikow 
23 Connie Pavelko 
24 Penny Nelson 
24 Pat Novak 
24 Doreen Debeck
25 Rich Feilmeier 
26 Shannon M Hagen
29 Radina Stuhrenberg
31 Scott Fosseen

Update on contracts & salary schedules

Contracts for classified staff have been sent out and are due back to Ginger Hoffman by May 7. The salary schedule for the PLAEA Education Services Association is here.

Licensed staff contracts were sent out on Thursday, April 24. Contracts are due to Ginger by May 14. The Licensed Staff salary schedule is here.

Licensure reminder

All licensed staff are responsible for ensuring that a current license is on file with the Board Secretary (Ginger Hoffman). This is a requirement for employment, and it also determines eligibility for Teacher Quality monies.  
 

To check your licensure expiration date go to:
http://www.state.ia.us/boee/
 
From there you can:
Search for Information on a Teacher’s, Administrator’s, or Coach’s License or Assignment
Apply for a license.
Renew a license.

It’s time to think summer!
Here’s a ray of sunshine on this rainy, gray Friday. All Prairie Lakes AEA offices will change to summer hours beginning Monday, June 9th.  Staff members have the option of working an extended four day week, or five, 7.5 hour days, for a total of 37.5 hours per week.  All offices need coverage from 8 a.m. to 4p.m., Monday through Friday.  Actual work hours must be approved by your immediate supervisor.
 
Normal work schedules resume on Monday, August 11th.

Get ready for the Prairie Lakes prom!
All agency staff will gather from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on May 2 at the Pocahontas Expo Center. While we celebrated homecoming at our fall agency professional development day, our spring learning will include with a prom theme. Those who wish, and perhaps are brave enough, are welcome to dress in the traditional prom attire.

Our agenda is as follows:
Welcome - Dr. Kay
Culture of Poverty Awareness by members of the Learning Supports Team - Linda Linn, Denise Wasko, Amy Gilman, Mary Kay Sharkey, Julie Nadrchal and Deb Lenertz.
Lunch & Association meeting
State of Prairie Lakes AEA Union - Dr. Kay
Years of Service celebrations and recognition for those retiring from our Prairie Lakes AEA family

The staff seating assignments will be included in next week’s Friday News. The day will begin promptly at 9 a.m.

How to comment on a blog
Did you read something on the blog and feel compelled to comment? Like to contribute news from your corner of PLAEA? Here’s what you can do to make that happen.

Under the headline, there is a line that includes the date the article was published and the word Comments. Click Comments and a text box will appear. You’ll also need to enter your name and email address in the boxes to the left. This is required! ONLY your name will appear with the comment. It is OK for you to identify yourself with a code name, i.e. Idea Girl or IMRunner.

ll comments are read to ensure comments are free from personal attacks and other inappropriate content. This is a family-friendly site. While the guidelines are being updated, these are the guidelines under which we are currently operating. Updated guidelines should be available next week!

Mentoring application reminder
Interested in mentoring a new member of our PLAEA ohana? Interested staff should complete the application and submit it to their Zone Coordinator or Supervisor.  The Zone Coordinator or Supervisor will forward applications to the AEA Induction and Mentoring Facilitator, which is Sandy Spangler. Applications are due by May 15.

PD sign-up
Remember to sign-up for one of the three agency professional development strands! Your zone coordinator and/or supervisor can help you with this process!

Interested in learning more about blogging or creating a blog for use in your work? Contact Connie Johnson!

News from the Iowa legislature - Wayne Haddy, AEA Governmental Relations Specialist

Final week?
While the final appropriation figures still need to be resolved between the
legislature and the governor and the need to act on several “must-do” bills
remains, the consensus around the capital is that the session will come to
an end late next week. 

Education Appropriations
The House passed the Education Appropriations bill this week.  Among many
items the bill includes the following:

* A new allocation of $2.19 million directed to the department of
Education to work with AEAs on implementing the Model Core Curriculum.  This
was reduced during debate from $2.59 million. 
* A reduction in the general allocation to the empowerment areas has
been reduced by $1.5 million, for a total of $22.3 million. This reflects
carry forward money of over 30% by 40 empowerment areas.
* An allocation of $15 million for the statewide voluntary preschool
program.
* A $75 million increase in teacher salaries for the student
achievement and teacher quality law is included in this budget. The total
appropriation for teacher quality included in this budget is $248.9 million.
* Language dealing with Medicaid reimbursement.
* The language from HF 2649, Senior Year Plus, was put into this bill.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

Core Curriculum
The House also passed the Model Core Curriculum bill.  SF 2216 requires that
all accredited public and accredited non-public schools adopt the Iowa model
core curriculum. Under current law a model core curriculum exists but it is
voluntary and schools do not have to adopt it. The bill establishes that the
Iowa Core Curriculum is mandatory in all grades.  The bill requires school
districts and accredited nonpublic schools to adopt a set of core content
standards. The content standards must align with the federal No Child Left.

The bill was complicated by the passage of an amendment calling for more
rigorous standards.  The amendment:

* Requires school districts to adopt minimum core content standards
for grades kindergarten through twelve that is identical to NCLB.
* Encourages districts to set higher expectations in local content
standards.
* Allows that the minimum core content standards not be adopted until
June 20, 2012.
* Directs the department of education to adopt rules that identify the
“core content” and “performance standards” with an implementation date of
July 1, 2010.

As of the end of the week the Senate was insisting that they would not
accept the changes made by the amendment.  The bill is being held by the
House on a Motion to Reconsider.

Open Meetings Law
On Monday the Senate passed a comprehensive new open meetings law that
included among many provisions:

* Expands the definition of meetings and includes reconvened meetings.
* Increases the penalties for violations of the open meetings law. 
* Defines records to include information stored in any manner. 
* Defines governmental records to mean those owned, created or
controlled by a governmental body; public records to mean a government
record that individuals have an unqualified right to see and copy and
confidential records to mean those designated as unavailable to the public.

It also creates the Iowa Public Information Board, sets the membership of
the board, allows complaints about open records to be filed with the board
and gives the board investigative and subpoena powers. 

On Tuesday the House State Government Committee determined that there was
not enough time left in the session to study the ramifications of the entire
bill and voted to delete all provisions with the exception of the board.

Other Actions
The following occurred during this past week:
* The Senate passed the IPERS Bill
* The Senate passed the DHS appropriations bill
* Senate Ways and Means committee voted out the SILO bill

Notes
* Still no word of resolution on the collective bargaining bill.
* The Standings Appropriations bill has not been filed yet, but as of
today the intent is to still include another $2.75 million in AEA
restoration funding.
* The Teacher Quality Bill and the bill to roll discretionary
education programs into a formula still await debate in the House.
* Governor Culver said that he has three initiatives that he wants
passed, Senior Year Plus, an appropriation of  $4.7 million for a Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education program at UNI and a model
core curriculum

Connecting with Kay: Whatever Happened to “Managing the Demand?

Wow!  I can’t believe I am actually blogging…and have this incredible opportunity to communicate with Prairie Lakes staff in this way.  This is actually a piece of the answer to managing the demand for myself.  As I continually struggle to prioritize my tasks in order to be the administrator that you deserve,  it often feels like I am far too disconnected from YOU…the folks I most value (next to the kids we impact of course!)  So…this medium will become another way for us to communicate.

In our inaugural edition of the Friday News blog, Connie mentioned that I had the opportunity to share our integrated services model with the Governing Boards of the AEAs earlier this month.   In that session, I shared that we are still trying to figure out how to manage the demand for time and resources.  (An audio recording of this session is in Documents>The Source. A presentation on branding the AEA system can also be found there. This was presented by members of the State AEA PR Team.)

The RISE study and our tiered services model are two of the ways we are trying to learn how to do this.

The RISE study has not vanished into the woodwork despite seeming like it happened long ago and has not been heard from since.  The Iowa State researchers have taken all the data gathered from the interviews and are doing their analysis.  We originally expected a report from them in May and I was hoping to have this in time for our May 2 All-Agency Inservice.  However, Robin reports that they will not have the report ready until the end of May.  We will plan to share as soon as we have something and will have a more extensive conversation about the report at our fall All-Agency Inservice.

The tiered services model is a strategy to help manage the demand that was the result of a series of meetings last spring and fall involving various staff members.  The tiers were shared at the September 2007 All-Agency Inservice and your ideas were added to those of the initial group.  The tiers were also shared with the LEA Advisory Group (superintendents, principals, and teachers representing each zone) for their reaction and input.  We continue to hone this strategy with the intent to roll it out to the superintendents and with district leadership teams as we develop new Individual District AEA Service Plans.  We haven’t moved fast on this because we continue to have concerns about our own understanding of how this might work…we don’t want to propose this to our schools until we (AEA staff) are comfortable with the idea.

 So…we will continue to work on strategies to manage the demand for our services.  James Surowiecki, in The Wisdom of Crowds, provides evidence for what I know to be true at Prairie Lakes AEA – that there is synergy in groups of people.  The decisions made based on the information aggregated by the group are consistently better than those made by the individuals.  I have no doubt that the aggregate of the Prairie Lakes staff will solve the problem of managing the demand in ways that will maintain Prairie Lakes as a great place to work AND provide high quality service to our schools, kids, and families.

Consider being a mentor for a new member of our PLAEA ohana
Applications are being accepted for those interested in mentoring staff new to Prairie Lakes AEA. The selection of the mentor for new employees is an important component in the induction process for our new employees to Prairie Lakes AEA.  Interested staff should complete the application and submit it to their Zone Coordinator or Supervisor.  The Zone Coordinator or Supervisor will forward applications to the AEA Induction and Mentoring Facilitator, which is Sandy Spangler.  Applications are due by May 15. Mentors will be assigned to new staff as needed.  If no new employees are hired, applications will be kept on file for future years. 

If you have any questions, please call or email Sandy Spangler.

A mentor must be willing to..

• help build a supportive environment within the AEA.
• promote the personal and professional well being of a new employee.
• build a relationship based upon trust and permission.
• maintain confidentiality.

A few of the responsibilities of a mentor:

• Is accessible to the new staff member-via face to face, cell phone, home phone, work phone, polycom and/or email
• Provides useful feedback to the new staff member that stimulates ongoing reflective practice.
• Supports the new staff member in learning to develop new professional skills. 
• Coaches the new staff member on strategies to solve problems/conflicts. 
• Is able to refer the new staff member to appropriate agency resources.
• Celebrates successes with the new staff member.

The complete list of responsibilities and characteristics can be found in this document. The application and mentor selection process documents also have a permanent home in Documents>Forms & Templates.

PD strand sign-up
Sign-up for the three strands of professional development for AEA staff (facilitation, differentiated instruction and coaching) is underway! Each zone coordinator/supervisor will be visiting with staff and work together to make this decision. Sessions can only welcome a limited number of participants. Sign-up sheets are due to Sandy Spangler by May 1st!

Internal Tech blog…check the Blogroll!
Looking for information regarding technology services at the AEA? Check out the Internal Technology Blog where you can find tech tips, repair and request forms and other interesting information regarding technology. The blog can be accessed from the blogroll of Friday News or from the Agency Tools area of AEA Manager. New information will be posted to the blog on a regular basis, so consider bookmarking the link or subscribing with your favorite RSS reader.

News from the AEA Government Relations Specialist

SILO
On A 59-41 vote the House approved the SILO legislation on Wednesday.  The legislation changes the local option school infrastructure sales tax into a state tax so that the state sales tax is raised to 6%.  The bill requires school districts to approve a revenue purposes statement for spending the funds.  It also allows voters to petition for an election on the revenue purpose statement.  Purposes for which the tax may be used includes the reduction of bond levies, regular and voter approved PPE levy, the public educational and recreational levy, and schoolhouse tax levy, and spending for infrastructure.  If the voters reject the district revenue purpose statement it requires the money to be spent in the order listed above.

An amendment was offered during debate by Rep. Kraig Paulsen of Cedar Rapids to divert 1% of the funds to AEAs for maintenance purposes.  It was defeated on a voice vote.  The defeat should not be construed as a negative toward the AEAs, but rather the fact that they strategically did not allow passage of any of the some 15 amendments.  The Senate is expected to take the bill up next week and pass without any changes.

Teacher Quality Cleanup Bill
The TQ cleanup bill passed committee this week.  Included in this bill is an appropriation of $1.165 million to the DE to work with AEAs to develop Early Childhood Staff Development that is designed to support the statewide preschool program for four-year-old children. The bill also:

* Increases the allocation for national board professional teaching certification to $915,000 in FY 2009, with up to $250,000 to implement the national board certification program. 
* Allocates $10 million to schools for professional development, related to core curriculum, and extends certain professional development changes through 2009. 
* Requires school with a whole grade sharing program to include the disposition of the money for student achievement and teacher quality in the agreement. 
* Raises the minimum salaries for teachers (beginning teacher, $28,000, first-year career teacher to $30,000) and eliminates other minimum salary language. 
* Reduces the pay-for-performance and career ladder pilots to $335,000 from $2.5 million for FY 2009.
* Defines regular compensation when a school district and a teacher’s union have not reached an agreement for distributing teacher salary funding.
* Makes the three-year review for teachers subject to funding, rather than limited to certain areas. 
* Increases the amounts for mentoring programs to $600 a semester.
* Eliminates the Market Factor Pay incentive.

Compulsory School Age
The Ways & Means Committee passed legislation raising the compulsory school age to 17 effective July, 2009. The bill also:
* Encourages a student who turns 18 during the school year and who wants to drop out to file a formal notice and to have an exit interview. 
* Requires the school to try and determine the reasons that the student is dropping out and to notify the parent of the formal declaration.
* Requires the DOE to create a working group on compulsory attendance and to gather information on different options to keep students in schools, including support programs and financial options for schools to pay for support programs.   A report is due by January 2009.

Vision Bill

SF 2251, which deals with eye exams for children prior to entering school was amended and passed by the House this week.  The Senate accepted the amendment and the bill is on its way to the Governor.  The bill requires that a parent be given a student vision card from the Iowa
Optometric Association when registering a child for kindergarten or pre-school programs, with the goal of every child receiving an eye examination by age seven.  It also requires AEAs to work with local organizations to make vision screening available to children between the ages 2-4. 

Prior to the House amendment the bill allowed a student to receive an eye exam pursuant to the adoption of an individualized education plan.  Even though the bill stated that the parent was to make sure that the student receive this exam, AEAs were concerned that this would shift the cost of
such exams to the AEA under federal special education laws.  

The House amendment struck the provisions on students receiving eye exams as part of an individualized education plan and instead allows schools to encourage children to receive eye exams prior to receiving special education services.  We still have concerns about this language, but it is better than the language it replaced.

The bill does not take effect until July 2009.

Elections bill goes to governor
The election bill passed both chambers this week and is on its way to the governor.  The bill changes the terms of elected school board members,
directors of AEAs and directors of merged areas from three years to four years under a transition phase.  The first election for four year terms
occurs in 2009.

This bill also sets specific dates when special elections can be held.

• In even-numbered years, on the first Tuesday in February, the first Tuesday in April, the second Tuesday in September or the first Tuesday in December. 
• In the odd-numbered years, on the first Tuesday in February, the first Tuesday in April, the last Tuesday in June or the second Tuesday in September.

IPERS/403(b)
During on-going discussions of the IPERS bill, meetings have been held to make changes to 403(b) annuities.  It appears that after several meetings the final language will incorporate the following:

Allow local decision of:
     Adopting the State of Iowa sponsored plan or
     Locally designing and sponsoring an individual plan
Above option determined by equal representation from board and association (similar to TQ)

If adopting State of Iowa plan:
     Initially adopt vendors of the existing 457 plan covering 12,000 public employees
     State will bid 403(b) vendors by January 1, 2010 (not enough time to bid before January 1, 2009)
     Local boards could adopt state as their plan provider
     Local board plan would be simplified to be the “State Plan”
    
If choosing locally sponsored plan
     Vendors must be selected through a competitive bid process
     Since bidding is not possible prior to January 1, 2009 the bidding requirement will not go into effect until January 1, 2010.
     For January 1, 2009 board may select up to 5 vendors and the unions may select up to 3 vendors, which  will sunset as of January 2010.
 

Welcome to the new face for Friday News! At its finest, a blog shares information and also provides an opportunity for readers to comment and add their own thoughts on the subject. Dr. Kay will be frequent, featured blogger offering news, thoughts and other perspectives that affect Prairie Lakes AEA.

What can you expect?

1. A reminder with the URL will be sent out each Friday.
2. This site can be bookmarked and referenced whenever you wish.
3. All information is archived on the site. Thanks to the search box and tags that help make searching easier, information can be retrieved without reviewing past issues of Friday News.
4. A link has been placed in the Agency Tools box in AEA Manager. If the URL is forgotten it can be accessed through that point.
5. Are you RSS feed savvy? Simply subscribe and your feed reader will alert you when the Friday News is updated.

How to add your comments, ideas, thoughts to the blog

Did you read something on the blog and feel compelled to comment? Like to contribute news from your corner of PLAEA? Want to read comments left by others? Here’s what you can do to make that happen.

1. Under the headline, there is a line that includes the date the article was published and the word Comments.
2. Click Comments and a text box will appear. You’ll also need to enter your name and email address in the boxes to the left. This is required!
3. When your comment is approved, ONLY your name will appear with the comment. It is OK for you to identify yourself with a code name, i.e. Idea Girl or IMRunner.
4. All comments are read before being published on the site. While the guidelines are being updated, these are the guidelines under which we are currently operating.

Let’s get started with the new format for Friday News!

Agency calendar

The board has approved the 2008-09-staff-calendar

AEA Board of Directors’ Conference

Each spring, the state AEA system welcomes its board members from all of Iowa’s AEAs to a conference specifically for AEA board members. This year’s conference, Learning…Whatever it Takes” began on Thursday with a panel presentation that included our very own chief administrator, Dr. Kay Forsythe. During this session, representatives from three AEAs (,PLAEA, Heartland and Grant Wood) shared how each have redesigned and restructured to effectively meet the changing demands of schools, students and families.

A Friday session, The Board’s Role in Student Achievement” was led by Sandy Spangler and Harry Heiligenthal, Leadership Development Director with the Iowa Association of School Boards. Prairie Lakes AEA board members Steve Peterson, Bruce Bahnson and Dean Saunders, as well as  representatives from AEAs 9 & 13, each shared the work being done on the Lighthouse Project. Here’s the session description:

Do some school boards create higher student achievement than others? The Iowa Association of School Boards conducted a groundbreaking research study to find reliable, quantifiable measure to answer that question. Results from this Lighthouse Project, identified links between what school boards do and the achievement of students in schools. Presenters will share how Iowa AEAs have partnered with IASB and local schools to create conditions that support school improvement.

Prairie Lakes AEA has six school boards participating in this project:

• Eagle Grove
• Pocahontas Area
• Pomeroy-Palmer
• Ruthven/Ayrshire
• Spencer
• Titonka

The PLAEA Board of Directors is also participating in the Lighthouse Project. Thanks to all involved for sharing some of the great work being done in Prairie Lakes AEA!

Early ACCESS

Early ACCESS is the topic of a podcast prepared by the State AEA Communications Committee. This podcast, as well as previous podcasts, can be found on the state AEA website. Details? Contact Connie Johnson.

April birthdays

1 Jennifer Zhai
2 Carla Berkler
3 Denise Gajewsky
7 Jerita Nelson
7 Robin Montgomery
8 Bill Heileman
8 Cheryl Petersen
10 Esther Mullen
11 Holly Hinrichs
12 Dawn Fode
12 Christine Wells
13 Tim Youngdahl
16 Sandy Johnson
16 Paula Smith
17 Mary Berkenpas
17 Sandee E. Bonner
21 Karen Ackerman
22 Becky Kinnander
23 Carrie Kee
24 Sara Trueblood
24 Kathy Petersen
26 Trudy Anderson
26 Jodee Jorgenson
27 Tammy Berger
30 Wendy Hopkins