Educator Connection

This brochure features the products available to help you, your classroom, and your school shine! Our Creative Services Team is ready to create a wide variety of educational, promotional, and office materials – almost anything educators need to help students achieve and schools run smoothly! Our team focuses on working with educators to create and produce items that meet and exceed your needs and expectations. The possibilities are endless!

We're offering several opportunities available that combines compliance with requirements of the Future Ready Iowa Act (HF 2629) with creating a comprehensive K-12 computer science plan designed to set your students up to be successful. Check out this Computer Science Workshop flyer to register your K-12 team today!

See more information about the computer science requirements, the K-12 computer science plan, grants, webinar, etc. in the PLAEA Computer Science Information document.

If your district would like to coordinate with other districts some common days to hold the Computer Science workshops to create your K-12 computer science plans, please contact PLAEA’s Computer Science Lead: Julie Graber ~ jgraber@plaea.org

This issue features: Our Brains Were NOT Built For This Much Uncertainty plus 3 Ways to Help Us Get from “Overwhelm” to “Something Manageable.”

Please download, post, and share through your district channels!

Early Childhood Principal Huddles - The IQPPS 2021-2022 preschool desk audit is open. The second of three huddles to support principals in meeting all 10 IQPPS standards will be from 1-2 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 21) at this Zoom Link. (The last Zoom support session is planned for Nov. 16.)

The role of the principal/superintendent is to gather information, conduct observations, and upload responses in CASA. (Deadline to upload into CASA is Dec. 15.) Teachers may assist or provide feedback, but the DE is looking for implementation tools and processes that ensure the standard is met by administrators. PLAEA Early Childhood Consultants created an IQPPS Desk Audit Toolbox for 2021-2022. Recordings, standards, resources and tools can be found in the IQPPS Desk Audit Folder.

PLAEA Early Childhood 2021-2022 PD: All IQPPS classrooms per standard 6.4 & 6.5 attend specialized PD.

Fall Teaching Strategies GOLD checkpoint (for preschool) is quickly approaching. Preschool teachers need to have their data finalized by Nov. 22. Here is the link to the TS GOLD and myIGDIS checkpoint windows for the 2021-2022 school year.

Great Prairie AEA, Green Hills AEA, Mississippi Bend AEA, and Prairie Lakes AEA would like to invite you to present at our first ever collaborative virtual Inclusive Classroom Conference. We would greatly appreciate it if you would be willing to donate some of your time to present. The Inclusive Classroom Conference will be held virtually on Feb. 9 from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. CST.

The virtual sessions will be recorded for participants to watch later if they are unable to during the session time.

Deadline for submission is 4 p.m. Nov. 8 CST. Presenters will be notified via email by Nov. 15 if their session has been accepted or not.

Our keynotes will be Mike Marotta, Karen Janowski, Chris Bugaj, and Beth Poss the authors of Inclusive Learning 365.

We would love to have you present for us with a focus on inclusive classroom strategies for all learners. If you are willing to present for us, please click on the Call for Presenter Form link

PLAEA is offering Youth Mental Health First Aid and Child Mental Health First Aid agency-wide in person. The training helps educators to sharpen their noticing skills to the signs and symptoms of mental illness. Child MHFA is designed for educators who work with children ages 5-12 and YMHFA is designed for educators who work with adolescents ages 12-18. It is a one day training, 8:30-3:30 with 30 minutes for lunch. Participants must attend the entire day to be certified as a Mental Health First Aider.

Child Mental Health First Aid

Nov. 5 - Pocahontas AEA office

Registration deadline: Oct. 29

Click HERE for more information and to register.

Youth Mental Health First Aid

Dec. 6 - Fort Dodge AEA office

Registration deadline: Nov. 24

Click HERE for more information and to register.

Anyone is welcome to subscribe! Click the "Follow" button located on the right side of this newsletter. This newsletter is published each month.

Email: cjohnson@plaea.org
Website: www.plaea.org
Facebook: facebook.com/plaea
Twitter: @plaea

It is the policy of Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency to not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, physical traits, gender identity, national origin, gender, disability, religion, age, political party affiliation, socioeconomic status, or actual or potential parental, family or marital status in its programs, activities or employment practices. The agency is committed to affirmative action. There is a grievance procedure for processing complaints of discrimination. If you have questions or a grievance related to this policy please contact the agency’s Equity Coordinator, Michelle Dowd, 1235 5th Ave S., Fort Dodge, IA 50501 or phone 515-705-7138. Email: mdowd@plaea.org