Iowa Area Education Agencies
(AEAs) are regional service
agencies, which provide school
improvement services for
students, families, teachers,
administrators, and their
communities.
Learn more at
www.iowaaea.org
.
STATEWIDE
INITIATIVES
WHAT THE AEAS
PROVIDE
State law mandates AEAs provide services to schools in nine areas:
› Diverse Learners
› Curriculum Instruction and Assessment › Professional Development › Instructional Media › School Technology › Leadership › Multicultural, Gender-Fair › School-Community Planning › School Management
This brochure touches on some (but not all) of the services available to schools, students and families.
WHY WE HAVE AEAS
The Iowa legislature created the AEAs to fulfill three important roles in the schools:
› Equity
› Efficiency
› Excellence
Many of the roles that AEA staff perform, especially in the many rural school districts across Iowa, require less than full-time work by individuals. The AEAs can hire many of these professionals as full-time employees and provide critical services to multiple schools.
AEAs are also integrally involved in assisting districts in meeting requirements of public mandates such as No Child Left Behind, the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its related state performance plan,
Iowa Core, and the Iowa Teacher Quality Initiative.
AEAs exist to embed into Iowa schools improvement and learning processes that will ensure that every student has an equal opportunity to succeed in school.
Iowa currently has nine area education agencies, covering every school district in Iowa. The AEAs are also required to provide services to parents home-schooling their children and to accredited, nonpublic schools.
STATEWIDE INITIATIVES
AEAs provide special education support services, media and technology services, a variety of instructional services, pro-fessional development, and leadership to promote school im-provement.
Below are areas in which the AEAs continue to collaborate to create efficiencies:
AEA PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
ONLINE
The AEAs work systemically to provide professional develop-ment online which allows Iowa’s 9 AEAs to share resources, eliminate inefficiencies, provide equity, and create more access for all Iowa educators. This initiative includes the delivery of online courses, trainings, and communities of learning; virtual meetings; and other professional development resources.
AGGREGATE INTERNET BANDWIDTH
AND INFRASTRUCTURE SUPPORT
AEAs are part of a cost effective system for providing Inter-net bandwidth to Iowa schools. AEAs aggregate the bandwidth that comes from the schools and then pass that traffic to the ICN. This system is more cost effective than if hundreds of schools were to send traffic directly to the ICN. The AEAs also provide technical support for schools on the support of their ICN connectivity and other technology infrastructure needs.
AUTHENTIC INTELLECTUAL WORK
(AIW)
The purpose of the AIW Initiative Alignment is to make clear connections between the Iowa Core and Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW). It highlights examples of how the knowledge and skills gained through participation in AIW builds capacity to implement each of the Iowa Core outcomes.
Teachers, administrators, liaisons, and coaches form profes-sional learning communities focused on the successful imple-mentation of AIW. Leadership is provided with additional support through Leadership Meetings that focus on expansion within a school, appropriate allocation of resources, and deep understanding of the AIW framework. Instructional personnel develop a common vision of quality instruction that is support-ed by research and aimsupport-ed at improving student achievement. Teachers apply AIW to everyday classroom practices and be-come more introspective and reflective of their instructional practices.
CHALLENGING BEHAVIOR TEAMS
The AEA Challenging Behavior Teams were organized to pro-vide consistent statewide professional development and con-sultation to support learning for students ages 3 to 21 who are displaying serious behavior concerns. These services promote respect, compassion, and positive behavior supports enabling every learner to perform at his or her highest level within a safe, healthy, and least restrictive environment.
Development of the Behavior Team (Technical Assistance Consultants) is a collaborative effort of the Iowa Department of Education, the Center for Disabilities and Development at the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital, and Iowa Area Education Agencies.
CHILD FIND
Child Find requires states to identify, locate, and evaluate all children with disabilities, birth to 21, who are in need of early intervention or special education services. Child Find is a ma-jor component of the Statewide Special Education Procedures and has far reaching impact on Iowa’s AEAs, local school dis-tricts, and the Iowa Department of Education. In addition to fol-lowing and effectively communicating Child Find guidelines, AEAs must also be able to ascertain the number of children with disabilities who are receiving special education and re-lated services and show data about how funds are being used.
CONCEPTUAL TEACHING AND
LEARNING
Concept-based learning is an overarching idea that brings to-gether many initiatives related to curriculum and instruction. For example, AIW, CORI, Inquiry-based learning, and the Iowa Core all relate to concept-based learning. Through con-cept-based learning, teachers and students shift from a topical or fact-based focus toward the central understanding as the fo-cus of learning.
EARLY
ACCESS
Early ACCESS is a set of statewide procedures that were devel-oped by the AEA system and approved by the Department of Education. Early ACCESS meets the implementation require-ments for the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act, Part C – Early Intervention Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities (IDEA-2004) and is based on the Iowa Administra-tive Rules for Early ACCESS. Early intervention services are provided to infants and toddlers, birth to three years, and their families.
EARLY CHILDHOOD STANDARDS –
IOWA QUALITY PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
STANDARDS
Iowa’s QPPS were developed to engage in implementation of quality standards for early childhood programs to work toward accreditation with the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) program standards and criteria. The QPPS were designed to be used with programs having funding linked to the Iowa Department of Education includ-ing those operated by local school districts: Early Childhood Special Education, Title 1 and district operated preschools and childcare centers. The QPPS are provided at no cost to pro-grams and are available to download from the Iowa Depart-ment of Education’s website.
HOW AEAS WORK
Unlike school districts, the AEA system has no taxing authority. The agency is funded by a per-pupil assessment designated by the state legislature, federal funds, various grants, and sale of services. Some services, such as Professional Development, are supported by fees charged to participants.
EDUCATION IS
CHANGING
School improvement efforts are placing increased emphasis on student achievement and accountability.
AEAs work as educational partners with public and accredited, non-public schools to help students, school staff, parents, and communities meet these challenges.
AEAs provide special education support services, media and technology services, instructional services, professional development, and leadership development to help improve student achievement. AEAs were established by the 1974 Iowa
legislature to provide equitable, efficient, and economical educational opportunities for all Iowa children. AEAs are widely regarded as one of the foremost regional service systems in the country. AEA budgets include a combination of direct state aid, local property taxes, and federal funds. AEAs have no taxing authority. Funding appears in each local school district’s budget and “flows through” the school budgets.
EBOOK STUDY GROUP
This newly-formed committee is currently investigating eBook options for LEAs. This committee is building on the successes of the statewide collaborative of Iowa AEA Online. The pur-pose of the committee is to study options available and make a recommendation to provide an eBook service to LEA staff and students.
A literature review and trend analysis shows that eBooks are a valuable resource in student learning. Literature also shows a tight link between reading achievement/enjoyment and eBooks.
EDINSIGHT
EdInsight provides the Iowa education community consistent and accurate longitudinal information on education outcomes and the analytical tools needed to improve decision making and student success.
EdInsight, Iowa’s educational data warehouse, provides AEAs, districts and schools with a system to evaluate individual student and group performance data over time. A dozen pre-formatted reports have been developed and are available from three major data sets with plans to extend in both reporting, data sets and training both now and in the coming year. With assessment data being updated monthly for all statewide loca-tions, educators can quickly assess student outcomes and com-pare them with other locations around the state.
EDTECH ARRA GRANT
The EdTech American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Grant is focused on providing exemplary electronic digital learning experiences for learners in Iowa, including the development of digital eCurriculum aligned to the Iowa and Common Core. The grant supports teachers as they transition to teaching effectively with digital tools and resources by pro-viding professional development opportunities. The grant has also supported framework for engaging teachers implement-ing the Iowa Core aligned eCurriculum in “Communities of Practice and Innovation” in order to provide mentoring, just-in-time, and authentic professional development experiences over time. The grant is a consortia between AEAs and UENs in the state to provide a repository with e-curriculum
EDUVISION
EduVision is a video streaming platform for Iowa schools. Each AEA has a portal through which video content may be shared, managed, and distributed. Each district has the capabil-ity to upload and run their videos through their own website using EduVision.
ENHANCING EDUCATION THROUGH
TECHNOLOGY (E2T2)
The primary goal of the E2T2 program is to improve student ac-ademic achievement through the use of technology in schools. It is also designed to assist every student in crossing the digital divide by ensuring that every student is technologically literate by the end of eighth grade. It encourages the effective inte-gration of technology with teacher training and curriculum de-velopment to establish successful research-based instructional
methods. AEAs in the state provide professional development to area schools that focus on the integration of technology into math, reading, and science.
E-RATE SUPPORT
E-Rate is a program under the direction of the Federal Com-munications Commission and provides discounts to schools for Internet and Telecom services. The AEAs provide consul-tative support to schools in the E-Rate application process. Last year, schools in Iowa saved almost $13 million through the E-Rate program.
EVERY CHILD READS
Every Child Reads (ECR) K-12 is designed to develop the ca-pacity of the educational system to support structured school improvement effort in reading. It also develops and refines professional development strategies for large-scale, building-based structured school improvement focused on accelerating the reading achievement of students in kindergarten through 12th grade who are experiencing difficulty.
EVERY LEARNER INQUIRES
Every Learner Inquires (ELI), the state of Iowa science initia-tive, was a multi-year professional development opportunity focused on capacity building at the building or district level to support teachers and administrators in accelerating student achievement. The vision of the ELI project was one in which all students engage in investigating significant scientific ques-tions in a supportive environment.
GOOGLE APPS FOR EDUCATION
In the summer of 2010, the AEAs entered in a three-year state-wide agreement with Google for free and unlimited access for all schools in the state. Iowa AEA consultants received formal certification in Google Apps and apply the training to help teachers in their local schools learn how to use Google Apps effectively in the classroom. Schools have the option of be-ing connected to a common e-mail, chat, and calendar system (Gmail, Google Talk, & Google Calendar), cloud collaboration tools (Google Docs, Google Sites, & Groups), and multimedia tools (Google Sites & Video) that enable them to work together and learn more effectively.
INSTRUCTIONAL COACHES
After an initial Instructional Coaching Academy workshop which featured research-based content and was designed to support local school districts and AEAs in supporting profes-sional development efforts in accordance with the Iowa Pro-fessional Development Model, the AEAs decided to develop a statewide team of professional developers who were charged with the task of developing online modules that contain materi-als and resources based on the training received in the coaches academy. Two strands are currently under development and will be available for training across the state in June 2011:
• Competency skill sets for AEA staff to develop relation-ships when they are in districts to lead conversations around teaching and learning to improve student achieve-ment.
IOWA AEA ONLINE
Iowa AEA Online provides digital resources that support student learning and directly link to the Iowa Core content. Students, edu-cators, and parents have 24/7 access to the online information and resources that is reviewed and chosen to support preK-12th grade. Online databases are purchased through a RFP bid process.
IOWA ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATIONAL
PURCHASING (IAEP)
The IAEP is an organization formed by the Iowa Area Education Agencies (AEAs) under Chapter 28E of the Iowa Code, to assist member schools with the purchase of products and services that enhance their school meals programs in support of the educational goals of students. Member schools include Iowa public schools, ac-credited non-public schools and any other institution participating in the National School Lunch Program and served by the Iowa AEAs. The IAEP administers a cooperative food purchasing program.
IOWA CORE
The Iowa Core is the platform for school reform. The Core was put in place to address these critical issues:
• To set high expectations for students and educators • To attend to the learning needs of students
• To break through the achievement plateau • To address global and local challenges
Each school district and accredited non-public school in Iowa is re-quired to develop a written implementation plan for the Iowa Core. The Self Study & Implementation Plan Handbook is provided as guidance for use by schools. Leadership Teams are encouraged to engage teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders in ongoing dialogue about alignment of content, instruction and assessment; improved teaching practices; improved systems of support; and in-creased student engagement.
The Iowa Core Network team consists of Department of Education, Area Education Agency, local school, college, and university staff who are charged with providing professional development and sup-port to districts as they implement the Iowa Core.
IOWA EDUCATORS CONSORTIUM
Iowa AEAs formed the IEC as an independent, tax-exempt, nonprof-it instnonprof-itution supporting the mission of the Area Education Agencies. The IEC offers purchasing programs that are bid statewide. The IEC is self-supported by a minimal administrative fee built into the pric-ing and paid by the vendors.
IOWA EVALUATOR APPROVAL
The AEAs provide professional development for administrators to meet endorsement requirements for evaluator approval that were de-veloped at the state level. “Assessing Academic Rigor,” the required two-credit course for Evaluator Approval, will be offered beginning in June 2011. All of the Evaluator Approval courses have identified content, skills, and outcomes that the participants will gain as a re-sult of the coursework.
IOWA SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR
SCHOOLS AND DISTRICTS IN NEED OF
ASSISTANCE (SINA AND DINA)
AEAs have been given the challenge and opportunity to sup-port schools and districts that have been identified as in need of assistance under the No Child Left Behing Act. AEAs provide assistance to Schools in Need of Assistance (SINA) and Dis-tricts in Need of Assistance (DINA) in systematic planning and facilitation for comprehensive improvement.
MANDATORY TRAININGS
This online training system has been developed by Heartland AEA and is used by all AEAs in the state to meet the needs of educators and school personnel in the state of Iowa. Vari-ous regulations mandate employers to provide training to em-ployees on a variety of subjects. Examples of these subjects include:
• Child and Dependent Adult Abuse • Bloodborn Pathogens
• Medication Administration
• Section 103B (Corporal Punishment Compliance)
Use of this system is intended for employees of Iowa Area Edu-cation Agencies, employees of the public and private school districts, and other authorized users.
MICROSOFT SETTLEMENT CY PRES
The Cy Pres program was created from half of the unclaimed funds from the Microsoft Settlement agreement between the litigants of a court case. Eligible school buildings (1154 based on Free and Reduced Lunch count for 2007) could apply to access these funds for the purpose of acquiring technology to support their implementation of the Iowa Core.
AEAs assisted schools to understand the application process, recommended products for the eligible items list and continue to provide the necessary professional development to use the acquired technology.
SECOND CHANCE READING (SCR)
Second Chance Reading (SCR) is a program that provides a specific course for struggling readers at the middle and high school levels who are reading below grade level. In middle school, struggling readers are assigned to a SCR class rather than their regular reading class. In high school, SCR classes are treated as an elective course. SCR focuses on comprehension skills but also targets vocabulary development and fluency in both fiction and non-fiction texts. Based on a comprehensive analysis of research on reading, SCR combines multiple strate-gies and practices into a structure for reading instruction and has proved successful in both urban and rural settings.
SPECIAL EDUCATION COLLABORATIVE
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
In collaboration with the Iowa Department of Education, this initiative was designed to move AEAs toward a statewide sys-tem of professional development for special education. The
AEA system has deployed a team of experts from multiple AEAs to develop materials for statewide presentations, col-laborate with AEA training teams for dissemination of infor-mation and support for implementation, develop a variety of professional develpoment delivery methods and help coordi-nate delivery in the field, identify needed areas for professional development, and link efforts to existing statewide initiatives (e.g., Iowa Core, IDM).
STATE LITERACY PLAN
The state literacy plan is being developed by the State Literacy Leadership Team in response to a federal mandate which re-quires all states to submit a plan to the U.S. Department of Education. The focus of the work during the 2011-12 school year will be to build AEA consultants’ capacity to help schools develop and implement a literacy plan for their school which is based on the process and evidence-based practices reflected in the state plan.
SERVICES TO STUDENTS WITH AUTISM
Autism Services are provided across the state for children birth through 21 years of age who are identified with an Autism Spectrum Disorder or who demonstrate autism-like character-istics.
SUPERINTENDENTS’ NETWORK
Each Area Education Agency (AEA) in Iowa offers superin-tendents an opportunity to join a Superinsuperin-tendents’ Network. Coordinated through the Iowa Leadership Academy, networks are supported by the AEA statewide system and School Admin-istrators of Iowa. Networks use a process called instructional rounds, which is an explicit practice intended to build knowl-edge and skills of participants and provide helpful feedback to the host school.
The instructional rounds process incorporates a site visit during which members of the network observe in classrooms around a problem of practice. A process to analyze evidence collected is utilized with members of the network providing support to the host in the district continuous improvement process.
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS STRATEGIC
INSTRUCTION MODEL (KU-SIM)
The Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) is a comprehensive ap-proach to teaching adolescents who struggle with becoming good readers, writers, and learners. It is based on the reality that to meet high standards, adolescents must be able to read and understand large volumes of complex, difficult reading materials. Additionally, they must acquire the skills to express themselves effectively in writing.
Iowa has a large group of SIM Professional Developers who all belong to the International Professional Development Net-work. The SIM includes multiple pieces. The two most promi-nently used in Iowa are Learning Strategies (LS) and Content Enhancement Routine (CER).
www.iowaaea.org
All Iowa AEAs are required to adhere to state and federal laws that prohibit discrimination in programs, activities, and employment practices. For specific information, contact your AEA. 7/29/10
AEA 267
3712 Cedar Heights Dr.
Cedar Falls, IA 50613-6390
(319) 273-8200
Grant Wood AEA
4401 Sixth St. SW
Cedar Rapids, IA 52404-4499
(319) 399-6700
Great Prairie AEA
2814 N. Court St.
Ottumwa, IA 52501-1163
(641) 682-8591
3601 West Ave. Road
Burlington, IA 52601-9456
(319) 753-6561
Green Hills AEA
Halverson Center for Education
24997 Highway 92
Council Bluffs, IA 51502-1109
(712) 366-0503
Heartland AEA
6500 Corporate Dr.
Johnston, IA 50131-1603
(515) 270-9030
Keystone AEA
1400 Second St. NW
Elkader, IA 52043-9564
(563) 245-1480
Mississippi Bend AEA
729 21st St.
Bettendorf, IA 52722-5096
(563) 359-1371
Northwest AEA
1520 Morningside Ave.
Sioux City, IA 51106-1780
(712) 222-6000
Prairie Lakes AEA
500 NE 6th St.
Pocahontas, IA 50574-2204
(712) 335-3588
IOWA AREA EDUCATION AGENCIES
For information, contact:
Brent Siegrist
Director of AEA Services
