Moving one step closer, the Iowa State Board of
Education issued a Notice of Intended Action on September 14 for the
substantial revision of 281 Iowa Administrative Code Chapter 32. This
rule proposes the specific pathways for students to demonstrate competency that would lead to the issuance of HSEDs by the Iowa Department of Education, which
includes a HSED program based on:
- a department-approved test;
- attainment of high school credits through an approved adult diploma program;
- a postsecondary degree; and
- a foreign postsecondary degree.
The Noticed Rule will be published in the
Administrative Bulletin on October 11, and a public hearing will
be held on October 31 at 10:00 a.m in the State Board Room of the
Grimes Building. After the public hearing, the Noticed Rule
will go before the Administrative Rules and Review Committee in
November.
Contact Jayne Smith, education consultant for adult education and
literacy, at jayne.smith@iowa.gov or 515-725-0046 with
questions.
A car, much like a career, can look great based on pictures and reviews, but once inside you might feel entirely different about it. For that reason, most people wouldn’t purchase a new car without first taking it for test drive. Yet, high school students often choose a career path, one of the biggest financial and professional decisions of their lives, with little to no real-world, test-driving experience. But that is changing for high school students across the state.
The Iowa Intermediary Network, a statewide network comprised of 15 community college regions that work with every Iowa school district, is helping high school students test-drive careers so they can make informed decisions about future college majors and job training.
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The Iowa State Board of
Education recently adopted amendments to Iowa Administrative Code (IAC) 281
chapter 21.32(321J) that increase the amount that offenders of Iowa’s OWI law will be charged to take the state-mandated drinking driver course. The increase reflects
the recommendations of the OWI Education Advisory Committee and takes into
account the increased costs of providing such courses.
There are 13 community colleges and 43
licensed substance abuse treatment agencies in Iowa that provide either the course or a substance abuse assessment to
over 13,000 individuals annually. Since January 2003, the course fee was set at
$85. The new fee will
increase to $140. In addition, the administrative fee to the Iowa Department of Education will increase from
$10 to $15. The Department will be issuing implementation guidance to all program providers in the near future.
Contact Barbara Ledvina, education consultant, at barbara.ledvina@iowa.gov or 515-242-5036 with
questions.
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For the
second consecutive year, the Iowa Department of Education (Department) provided community
colleges access to a data validation tool to assist with submitting academic
year 2016-17 data. The tool allows colleges to validate the data based on
provided documentation, to run and examine confirmation reports, and auto-generate
data files according to the MIS Reporting Manual specification for submission
to the Department. The overwhelming majority of community colleges
submitted their verified data by the September 18 deadline.
Comments from the colleges substantiate that the validation tool helps to
improve both data quality and the timeliness of its submission.
In the
past, data cleansing was a lengthy process that involved the generation of confirmation
reports by the Department that were provided to the colleges. In contrast, the data
validation tool identifies data errors and allows corrections to be made prior
to data submission with confirmation reports available instantly. As a result, the majority of community colleges were able to submit verified data prior
to the deadline, as shown in the chart below. We want to thank Hawkeye,
Northwest Iowa, Southeastern, Southwestern, and many other community colleges
for their diligent work towards quality and timeliness of the required data.
Contact Vlad Basis, education consultant, at vladimir.bassis@iowa.gov or
515-281-3671 with questions.
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The American Association of Community Colleges recently highlighted Iowa’s implementation of the Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA) through a story about Western Iowa Tech Community College’s (WITCC) experience, written by Erin Volk, Director of Institutional Research at WITCC.
Designed specifically with community colleges in mind, the VFA contains measures which encompass and reflect the full breadth of the community college mission and the diversity of students' goals and educational experiences. Partnering with the community college presidents, the Department of Education’s Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation supports the statewide initiative through centralized data processing, calculation, and submission, utilizing the Management Information System (MIS).
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“They asked me to name the two main ingredients in hollandaise sauce, and I didn’t know,” recalls Joy Jackson of her failed interview attempt for a culinary job at a Columbia, Missouri, Holiday Inn.
“I would never miss that now,” she said. “It’s one of the first things I learned as a student in the culinary arts program at Scott Community College.”
Jackson represents a growing segment of the working adult population returning to school to enhance skill sets to qualify for good-paying jobs. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, enrollment of adults age 25 and older in degree-granting institutions is expected to increase 18 percent over a 10-year period ending in 2025.
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