March 2017 H.E.L.P. Blog

  

WHAT'S NEW

The Differentiated Accountability- Intervention System statewide pilot training was held in February.  GHAEA schools IKM-Manning and Red Oak participated. This “petal” of the atomic flower will be rolled out statewide in the Fall/ Winter of 2017.

New Universal Tier Tools: the former D2: Universal Instruction Facilitation Guide has been updated for improved usability. The content has not changed significantly; the format has been edited to allow for easier navigation. The Universal Tier Tools can be accessed at this website. 

The next Statewide C4K Leadership Webinar is scheduled for March 28 from 1:30-3:00. Topics to include: Teacher Leaders Continued, Leveraging Teacher Leaders Within School Improvement Work, TLC Framework and Roles, Outcomes for Leveraging Teacher Leadership, and the Principal’s Support for Teacher Leaders.  Follow the ZOOM Link to join: https://heartlandaea.zoom.us/j/3729173072

WHAT'S DUE

Starting the week of March 6, all Iowa public school teachers and administrators will have the chance to provide feedback on opportunities for collaboration, professional development, career advancement, and perceived quality and effectiveness of Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC). Survey links will be emailed directly to superintendents and principals for distribution. Follow this link for more information. 

Just because you do not take an interest in politics, 

doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.  -Pericles

February 2017 H.E.L.P. Blog 

WHAT'S NEW:

The word is out that implementation of Smarter Balanced is on hold. A related piece you may not have heard is that Iowa’s State Assessment (in it’s current form) did not meet all requirements during the peer review process. This could have an impact on distribution of Title I funds.  Click to view recent results of the peer review of Iowa's Assessment System. 

Differentiated Accountability Updates:

Intervention System training will be piloted during Spring 2017. Stanton, Treynor, IKM-Manning and Red Oak have been invited to attend a large group training in February and statewide roll out will be in the 2017-18 school year. 

A task team has been working to repackage the Universal Instruction Facilitation Guide to be more user-friendly. Hopes are that this will be completed in time for use with on-site visits.  New & improved versions (paper and electronic formats) will be released sometime this school year.

An additional task team is also working this spring to develop a plan for the expansion of early warning systems to the secondary level in the areas of Literacy, Mathematics and behavior.

The Iowa School Report Card delivers on a component of the comprehensive education reform legislation adopted by Iowa lawmakers in 2013. The legislation, House File 215, directed the Iowa DE to develop a process for evaluating the performance of each school on certain measures and to “arrive at an overall school performance grade and report card” that is posted to the Department’s website. The newly updated Iowa School Report Card includes information on student proficiency in math and reading, student academic growth, narrowing achievement gaps, college and career readiness, attendance, graduation rates, and staff retention. Based on each school’s performance over a two-year period, the report card assigns one of six ratings: Exceptional, High-Performing, Commendable, Acceptable, Needs Improvement, and Priority.

WHAT'S COOL

Red Oak Inman Primary and GHAEA Literacy staff presented at the well-attended Celebrate Iowa Success event on January 23 at the Iowa Events Center.  Red Oak shared their progress toward improving Universal Instruction utilizing the Universal Instruction Facilitation Guide and GHAEA discussed their Tier 2 training and support efforts.  Shout out to these educators sharing their expertise!

WHAT'S DUE

Stefanie Wager from the Department of Education is hosting a Social Studies Open Forum at Halverson Center on January 25 from 4:30-6:00 p.m. Participants will have an opportunity to give feedback and ask questions about the newly revised Social Studies Standards. No registration is necessary and all interested parties are invited to attend.

A #GoOpen Regional Summit will take place on March 3 at Lewis Central. #GoOpen provides an opportunity for classroom teachers, school librarians, instructional coaches, and district and state leaders to explore opportunities to expand the use of high quality, openly licensed educational resources in classrooms. For more information and to register for this FREE summit, follow this link.

Mark your calendars for C4K leadership offerings throughout the spring.  This link will take you to a document with webinar dates, topics and zoom information. 

December 2016 H.E.L.P. Blog

What's NEW

The Department of Education has recently released updated guidance around the Early Literacy Implementation: 3rd Grade Retention. Click here to read more.

In November, a small team from each district in GHAEA had the opportunity to be trained on key components of Iowa's new state assessment: Smarter Balanced Assessment system. There is an expectation that all teachers, administrators and supports will, in turn, be trained by their district teams by the summer of 2017. The Department of Education developed a talking points document to provide overall information about SBAC.

What's DUE

Please consider providing feedback on the Draft Iowa Social Studies Standards. The survey is designed to obtain the opinions and comments of educators and the public to the draft standards created by the Social Studies Standards Writing Team. Follow this link to complete the survey.

January 23, 2017: Register today for Celebrating Iowa Successes- Early Literacy Symposium to hear from Kathy Patton, PRESS Literacy Coordinator; Scott Slechta, 2016 Iowa Teacher of the Year, and Deborah Reed, Director of the Iowa Reading Research Center. Topics to include: effective intervention components, reading skills for information and literary text, teaching spelling to students with reading difficulties, realigning Literacy Block based on data and providing a guaranteed and viable curriculum. The symposium will take place at the Iowa Events Center from 9:00-4:00.

WISHING YOU CHERISHED MOMENTS WITH FRIENDS & FAMILY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!

November 2016 H.E.L.P. Blog

November 2016 H.E.L.P. Blog

What's NEW

A newly enhanced report in Tier has been released.  It will replace the previous report on Students Staying at Benchmark over time and will be utilized to track students maintaining benchmark over time as well as students who move from below-benchmark to at-or-above-benchmark and those who start at-benchmark and fall below-benchmark in a subsequent screening period. Look for the MTSS Effectiveness Over Time report within the Summary Reports in TIER.

Social Studies Draft Standards have been released and will be available for public feedback.

There will be an EdInsight training on December 19 at the Red Oak office. The morning will focus on the canned reports, and while the training is not required, it will be most helpful to those that prefer face-to-face instruction on navigating the system.  Those that prefer a self-paced approach can use this Guide to EdInsight Reports to learn on your own.  Those wishing to access the EdInsight Cube will be required to attend the training.  Click here to sign up.

What's DUE

Registration for the two-day Universal Instruction is now available. Superintendents should have received an invitation from Mark Crady. Dates will be November 30 & December 1 in Creston or December 15 & 16 in Avoca.

October 2016 H.E.L.P. Blog

What's New

Iowa will begin using the Smarter Balanced Assessment System (SBAC) in ELA and Mathematics starting with the 2017-2018 school year for students in grades 3-11. This assessment system is aligned to Iowa’s statewide standards with formative, interim, and summative components. By the summer of 2017, there is an expectation all teachers, administrators, and supports will be trained on SBAC. A train-the-trainer session will take place in GHAEA in November, 2016. Superintendents have recently received an email with a registration link. District personnel will be trained to take information back to all staff.  GHAEA has also selected Consultants to attend the training.

What's Due

Reminder of training on Teaching Transparently: for Model Teachers, mentors, facilitators, and administration. Dates: January 16, 17, February 28, and April 13. Registration available on the GHAEA class registration site under workshop, leadership.

Cancelled Early Support Literacy Day- Due to Differentiated Accountability training, the November 7 Early Literacy Support Day has been cancelled. Schools are encouraged to attend the Celebrate Success Day in Des Moines for the January 23 date, which also will not be held regionally. We will continue to plan to hold the May 18 support date as scheduled.

September2016 H.E.L.P. Blog

What’s New:

• Dates are planned for Differentiated Accountability Universal and Targeted Support in Assessment & Data Based Decision Making and Universal Instruction within GHAEA.  Please see the Help calendar for dates. Superintendents should have received invitations to these trainings as well.
• ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act): Iowa’s Statewide plan is currently being finalized and vetted. This work will be on-going for approximately the next six months.

What’s Due:

• September 15: PK desk audits are due via the Iowa Education portal. Contact Jennifer.Adkins@iowa.gov with questions.
• September 15: District and AEA desk audits open in the portal. Desk audits are due by December 15. Contact Janet.Boyd@iowa.gov with questions.
• October 3: Special Education Count Day
• October 15: Certified Enrollment Deadline **YOU MAY WANT TO CLICK CERTIFY ON THE 14TH SINCE THE 15TH IS A SATURDAY AND STATE OFFICES ARE NOT OPEN ON WEEKENDS.**

August 2016 H.E.L.P. Blog

What's NEW

Differentiated Accountability:

Healthy Indicators for Intervention System have been added to those for Assessment & Data-Based Decision-Making and Universal Instruction.  To view these, head over to the H.E.L.P. Site.  Plans are being developed to support schools in the areas of assessment & decision-making and universal instruction. Support days will be offered regionally within each AEA. Stay tuned for dates. 

CASA:

Consolidated Accountability and Support Application has replaced the C-Plan. More information available on the Department of Education website.

New State Assessment:

There is a new webpage developed to help teachers, school administrators and parents prepare for a transition to Smarter Balanced assessments in English language arts and mathematics. 

What's DUE

August 15: Application for Early Literacy fund$ open$ on the Iowa Grant$ web$ite