The application for round 2 of GEER 1, Component 2 funds is now open. These funds are set to support capacity building and professional development.
Competitive grants are available to eligible institutions, or a consortium of eligible institutions, to be used to ensure equitable access to quality online courses and curriculum in postsecondary education. Funds will be distributed on a reimbursement basis. Recipients will have until June 30, 2022 to claim reimbursement for eligible expenses.
The project and major activities should address at least one of the following areas for component 2:
- Promote best practices and strategies for effective online and remote instruction in postsecondary education, which may include high school teachers qualified to teach concurrent enrollment coursework, non-credit and adult basic education instructors;
- Support and train students and families, which may include credit, non-credit, adult and nontraditional students, to be successful in college/university virtual learning environments, e.g., advising, mentoring, tutoring and other support and retention strategies; and/or,
- Develop, curate, and support the adoption of open educational resources.
Application materials can be accessed here.
Individual institutions are encouraged to apply, and preference will be given to applications that demonstrate consortia-based systemic approaches or the ability to expand and share best practices with other institutions.
Please contact Kelly Friesleben, Education Program Consultant, Bureau of Community Colleges (kelly.friesleben@iowa.gov or (515) 868-2847) with comments or questions.
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On February 15, the division along with Governor Reynolds awarded three $1 million competitive grants through the new Career Academy Incentive Fund to prepare more high school students for success in college, postsecondary training and the workforce.
Eastern Iowa Community Colleges (EICC), Indian Hills Community College and Waterloo Community Schools each won a $1 million grant to increase access to career academy programs in high-demand fields through new and expanded regional centers. Students benefit from industry partnerships, earn high school and college credit and gain technical and traditional academic skills offered through career and technical education (CTE) programs. The Career Academy Incentive Fund aligns with the Future Ready Iowa goal of 70 percent of the workforce having education or training beyond high school by 2025. This is the second round of awards.
EICC’s grant will be used to create a new regional center in DeWitt to serve students from eight rural districts in eastern Iowa. Waterloo’s funds will be used to expand its career center, which serves seven surrounding school districts and three nonpublic schools. Indian Hills will establish a new regional center in Centerville for seven southern Iowa school districts. At these locations, students will have access to CTE programs in high-demand fields, including health care, advanced manufacturing, welding, engineering technology and agricultural sciences.
“Through these partnerships, students often earn industry credentials and certificates that they can take directly into the workforce and be highly marketable, or have a solid foundation to succeed in further postsecondary education,” said Iowa Department of Education Director Ann Lebo. “This is a great step toward ensuring all students have the opportunities career academies offer, and I am looking forward to more of these innovative partnerships being established.”
The Career Academy Incentive Fund was established by a 2019 law that extends a statewide penny sales tax for school infrastructure, called Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE), through January 2051. At least $1 million will be awarded annually to support career academy partnerships among community colleges, school districts, business and industry, Regional Planning Partnerships, Area Education Agencies and others to increase student access to college programs, state-of-the-art equipment and career paths in Iowa’s in-demand fields.
More information on the Career Academy Incentive Fund is available on the Iowa Department of Education’s website. The next round of applications for CAIF funding will be released this fall.
Please contact Jen Rathje, Education Program Consultant, Bureau of Career and Technical Education (jennifer.rathje@iowa.gov or (515) 326-5389) with comments or questions.
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In the latest round of GEER Component 2 awards, three Iowa consortia online projects were funded. Each project was awarded approximately $100,000-$275,000 to assist their efforts.
Led by Indian Hills Community College, a consortium of Iowa’s 15 community colleges will use GEER funds for the Iowa Faculty Development Collaborative Project, which will establish a high-quality, online professional development repository that supports growth for community college faculty statewide. The repository will be housed on the Iowa Association of Community College Trustees website and will include both asynchronous online modules and a platform for synchronous professional development courses that facilitate dialogue among faculty across the institutions.
“We will leverage subject matter experts already employed by the colleges to develop the courses,” said Darcie Woodruff, Director of Grant Development and Compliance at Indian Hills Community College. “Over 17 months, we aim for the project to serve 3,150 faculty members across the institutions.”
Similarly, a second consortium between Allen College and St. Luke’s College will expand the number of online and hybrid courses that align with the eight standards of Quality Matters, which are designed to promote evidence-based best practices in online learning. Aptly named, the Quality Matters Project seeks to achieve this goal through a combination of faculty training workshops, training for reviewer roles, course certifications and the collection of student feedback.
“The GEER award will allow us to enhance and expand programming in order to successfully incorporate a culture of Quality Matters across both colleges for the first time,” said Adrienne Urban, Grants Coordinator at Allen College.
The final consortium between Iowa Private Academic Libraries (IPAL) and 18 IPAL member institutions, which consists of private, nonprofit colleges and universities, will use GEER funds for an Open Educational Resources Project (OER). By definition, open educational resources are textbooks that have been funded, published and licensed to be freely used, adapted and distributed.
“As a consortium, IPAL represents 30 institutions and served nearly 49,000 full-time students in Fall 2019,” said Erik Hoekstra, President of Dordt University, lead agency for the consortium. “The IPAL Open Educational Resources Project will encourage faculty at member institutions to incorporate OER in their courses to reduce barriers and enhance student success.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the ways learning opportunities and professional development are provided to Iowa teachers. As priorities have shifted, the need for more virtual education opportunities and online communities has increased. In response, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Component 2 of the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund provides an avenue for institutions, or a consortium of institutions, to support such capacity-building and professional development. GEER funds ultimately help provide equal access to quality online education courses and curriculums, which benefits both teachers and students.
“GEER Component 2 funds really promote innovation in its use of virtual and online resources,” said Kelly Friesleben, Consultant at the Iowa Department of Education. “Applicants must choose to promote best practices for effective online and remote instruction, support and train students and families to be successful in a virtual environment or adopt the use of open educational resources.”
It is anticipated that future GEER Component 2 funds will be available for institutions who want to expand their online capacity-building and professional development. Any regionally accredited, undergraduate public and private not-for-profit colleges and universities eligible for title IV funding and domiciled in Iowa are open to apply.
Learn more about GEER funds and its three components here.
Please contact Kelly Friesleben, Education Program Consultant, Bureau of Community Colleges, (kelly.friesleben@iowa.gov or (515) 868-2847) with comments or questions.
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 The Association for Career and Technical Education's National and Iowa's Annual Hybrid Work-based Learning Conference 2021 will take place April 29-30, 2021. The conference is an opportunity for participants to learn about best practices in work-based learning from across the country. This conference will take place April 29-30 on-site and online.
Register here.
Please contact Kristy Volesky, Education Program Consultant, Bureau of Career and Technical Education (kristy.volesky@iowa.gov or (515) 281-3615) with comments or questions.
 The Iowa Department of Education will host the Second Annual Social Justice and Equity in Education Virtual Conference on April 14, 2021. An invitation only pre-conference will be offered on April 13 to include a special training session for administrators. The goal of the conference is to continue the conversation of promising practices and research-based strategies to ensure access to equitable and safe learning environments and to address the needs of underrepresented students. This conference will examine institutional practices and policies and the impact on the educational experience of all Iowa learners, including marginalized student populations.
Register for the conference here.
The Department is looking for advocates in the field of equity to facilitate discussions on supporting and maintaining a culture of equity and inclusion at every level of education; practicing data-driven decision-making and strategic resource allocation; and setting the expectation that equity and inclusion are core values underlying the work of every stakeholder in education.
Proposals may be submitted with a focus on the following topics:
- COVID-19 and Class Disparities
- Disability Rights and Special Education in the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Immigration Issues in Education
- Poverty and Homelessness in Education
- Preventing Violence in K-12 and College Settings
- Race/Racism
- Religion and Politics – Guidance for School Leaders
- School to Prison Pipeline and Disparities in Special Education
- Sex, Gender, Gender-Based Violence
- Social-Emotional-Behavioral Health
- Teaching History in Multicultural Classrooms
- Teaching LGBTQ+ Youth: Creating Inclusive Classrooms
- White Privilege
- Other relevant topics of interest
If you are interested in being considered as a presenter, please submit your 50-minute proposal by filling out the Call for Proposals Form by March 5, 2021.
Please contact Jeanette Thomas, Education Program Consultant, Bureau of Career and Technical Education (jeanette.thomas@iowa.gov or (515) 281-3636) with comments or questions.
Regional Planning Partnership 9 (RPP9), the Mississippi Bend AEA and Eastern Iowa Community College have approached program development using professional learning communities (PLCs) in a way that has opened up opportunities for students to gain valuable industry-recognized credentials and work-based learning experiences in the form of apprenticeships and industry-recognized certifications, according to Mike Zimmer, Director of Secondary Education at Pleasant Valley CSD. North Scott, Davenport and Clinton CSDs collaborated to offer welding registered apprenticeships with Bettendorf and Pleasant Valley districts participating through North Scott. After planning and discussions that included multiple schools in the Quad Cities, Davenport established a software engineer high school registered apprenticeship in partnership with John Deere Global IT that will start this spring with two to five students.
Districts in the region also offer industry-recognized and EICC certifications in deaf studies, automotive technology basic service, small business management, basic culinary arts, Child Development Associate, Certified Nursing Assistant and basic welding. National certifications in information technology include MOS excel, MOS PowerPoint and MOS Word.
Marta Brooks, RPP 9 and Mississippi Bend AEA Coordinator, says that PLCs have been established for each Career and Technical Education (CTE) service area in RPP 9. Teachers are working together to create pathways with introductory, intermediate and advanced courses. Whenever possible, the PLCs include concurrent courses through EICC so that students can earn college certificates and be prepared to continue their education to earn degrees through the college program.
Brooks explains that district core curriculum areas have PLCs where all the teachers in a specific core area, such as math, look at education materials together. Since there is usually only one teacher in a service area at a small school, or two to three at a larger school, these PLCs have become a valuable resource for connection. For example, RPP 9 determined that they would host PLC meetings for Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) teachers to meet with all of the FCS teachers in the region. PLCs such as this can be broad or specific; for example, FCS teachers can include teachers who mainly teach child development or culinary arts, and applied sciences can include teachers who mainly teach engineering, welding, construction trades or automotive technology. Typically, a content expert faculty member from EICC attends which allows for a clear program pathway from secondary to post-secondary if a student chooses that route. The participation of college faculty in the PLCs “has been a game changer regarding our ability to secure LEA instructors as adjuncts, provide summer training at the CC for our teachers and, most importantly, create trusting partnerships between secondary and postsecondary program instructors” says Zimmer.
According to Brooks, during the PLC collaborative work, teachers may identify needs for equipment, technology, training or student experiences in business and industry. The teachers can create a funding proposal and present it to the RPP Budget and Finance Committee each year. If approved, the purchased resource is made available to all districts within RPP 9.
For more information about the work of the RPPs, please contact Dr. Jane Bradley, Lead Consultant, Bureau of Career and Technical Education (jane.bradley@iowa.gov or (515) 281-4707).
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Over the first two weeks of February, the Iowa Department of Education hosted a series of introductory webinars for each of the eight (8) approved Iowa career and technical student organizations (CTSOs), including BPA, DECA, FBLA-PBL, FCCLA, FFA, HOSA, SkillsUSA and TSA. These webinars covered the basics of the CTSO, including history, membership, conferences, programming and additional resources to help school districts plan for addition of CTSOs to CTE programs. Each session was recorded for later viewing. A complete playlist is available here.
Please contact Chris Dzurick, Education Program Consultant, Bureau of Career and Technical Education, (chris.dzurick@iowa.gov or (515) 419-4792) with comments or questions.
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We are seeking a talented individual is passionate about excellence in education to fill a new position within the Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation.
We don’t just talk about inclusion: it’s how we do business. Our team is globally diverse and we seek candidates whose differences will challenge our ideas, spur innovation and ultimately help build stronger programs serving the people of Iowa.
The division is currently seeking applicants to fill an education program consultant position. The position provides leadership for OWI programs and corrections education career pathways.
To learn more about opportunities within the division, please contact Jeremy Varner, Administrator, Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation (jeremy.varner@iowa.gov or (515) 242-6187.
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