IDEA during the Pandemic, Webinar series, More

July 21, 2020

Delivering Meaningful IDEA Services During the Pandemic

As schools prepare to reopen in the fall, there is a growing concern that school districts and educational service agencies will face unparalleled rates of litigation for their inability to meet requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) during the COVID- 19 pandemic. This concern is well-founded.

AESA joined a project to conduct a survey of its member to assess your concerns and areas of challenges.

Here's the full report.

Learning, Connections & Support

Visit our website

First Cohort is Full:

Now Enrolling Cohort II

Starting in August

AESA believes that authentic and collaborative relationships across all facets of our multi-dimensional membership will strengthen the impact of ESAs locally and nationally.

The Women's Leadership Network is specifically designed to inspire courageous leadership and to build collaborative relationships between women leaders from all roles within ESAs.

AESA Retirement Solutions

Help Simplify Your Employees’ Financial Future

PlanMember and AESA understand that these are stressful and anxious times for the education community, and we are fully committed to safely supporting educators during the pandemic. Because saving and investing for the future is more important than ever, we have partnered to provide you financial education programs and participant planning services can be delivered in a virtual format. We are dedicated to helping your plan participants know how the CARES Act and other pandemic-related legislation impact retirement planning.

The AESA PlanMember Retirement Program helps employers effectively meet the challenges of today's retirement plan world through model 403(b) and 457(b) plan solutions that combine a diversified collection of investment options with complete plan consulting, design, administration and compliance services. Offered through our national business partnership, the AESA PlanMember Retirement Program also provides a wide variety of employee education programs, as well as personalized planning services to help employees construct their personal retirement savings and investment strategies. Participants in the AESA PlanMember Retirement Program can also enjoy exclusive pricing brought by the collecting buying power of ESAs nationwide.

To learn more about the AESA PlanMember Retirement Solutions Program and what it can do for your ESA and its employees, click below or contact Steve Bresler at (800) 874-6910 ext. 2100, or by email at [email protected] .

News from AEPA

AEPA moves the needle with solid growth in 2019 . . .

The Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA) had solid sales growth in 2019 and expects to surpass $600 Million by 2022, according to AEPA Executive Director George Wilson.

In 2017, AEPA identified three key initiatives that would help move the needle and take AEPA to the next level. The first was increasing the number of new bid categories offered to AEPA member states. By contracting with a bid specification writer to help with writing the bid solicitations, and a bid manager to help with coordinating the bid solicitations, AEPA has been able to add seven new bid categories in the past three years. The second was improving relationships with key AEPA vendor partners. By setting clear vendor standards of performance, AEPA was able to improve communications with vendor salespeople, establish more prominent AEPA marketing plans, and increase vendor participation at local conference trade shows. The third was adding new member states to the association.

Over the past two years, AEPA added Illinois and Georgia and according to AEPA Executive Director George Wilson, “The opportunity to provide these states with access to AEPA’s contracts was a win-win for their schools and for AEPA. These two states combined have 6,700 public schools and 3.7 million students, contributing an additional $10 million of sales to AEPA.”

About AEPA:

The Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA) is a nationwide multi-state non-profit organization comprised of ESAs and political subdivisions who work collaboratively on cooperative purchasing contracts that benefit all schools and public agencies, regardless of size. Unlike other national cooperatives, AEPA leverages the buying power and expertise of 28 purchasing cooperatives to ensure its contracts are safe, legal, and compliant. By competitively bidding contracts on a national basis, AEPA enables school districts across the U.S. to obtain goods and services for over 27 million K12 students at significantly reduced costs. For more information, please contact George Wilson, Executive Director at 270-996-8970 or visit our website at aepacoop.org .

Business Partner Webinars

Research-Based Practice to Improve Student Math Outcomes

Tuesday, July 28, 2020 @ 2 pm Eastern (1 pm Central; Noon Mountain; 11 am Pacific; 10 am Alaska)

Math proficiency is a key indicator of future academic success, and yet so many of our students are not achieving a basic level of proficiency. Join us to examine common myths about math instruction and assessment, and how they impact classroom practices. We’ll look at what the evidence-based research says about how to improve student math outcomes, as well as how Spring Math has infused that research into its program.

Presenters: Lynn Lamers, Holly Nicholls

Lynn Lamers

Educational Implementation Specialist

[email protected]

Lynn leads the Sourcewell Technology Implementation Team. As an educator, she has over 20 years experience as a classroom teacher. Following her classroom career, she served six years as a district data coach and math coordinator. Prior to joining Sourcewell Technology, she was employed by two nationally known assessment companies, traveling the country training districts on data-based decision making. In her current role, she helps districts implement and fully utilize our many software solutions.

Holly Nicholls

National Client Manager

[email protected]

Holly is the national client manager for Sourcewell Technology. Holly engages with educators daily who are searching for tools and solutions that drive student achievement in the classroom. Holly has a passion for education and enjoys working with educators and recommending tools to educators that improve academic outcomes in their classrooms. Prior to Holly joining Sourcewell Technology, she spent time at large curriculum and technology companies providing print and digital solutions that engaged students and built confident teachers.

Distance Learning Up Close:

Teaching for Engagement and Impact in Any Setting

August 3, 2020

1:30 pm Eastern (12:30 pm Central; 11:30 am Mountain; 10:30 am Pacific; 9:30 am Alaska)

Presented by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie

All attendees will receive a free e-book after the event!

In this webinar Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie draw on their newly published Distance Learning Playbook to reveal what works best in teaching, assessing, and planning in an online

environment--per 25+ years of Visible Learning® research and evidence.

Learn how best to advise teachers to:

Get started during the first days of school.
Manage teacher-student relationships from a distance.
Plan instructional units, engaging task design.
Obtain equitable feedback for assessment and grading considerations.

Will you take a survey for Microsoft and AESA?

As a Business Partner of AESA, Microsoft has done an outstanding job putting together timely webinars for our members. They would appreciate your insights into what future trainings and webinars would be beneficial for your ESA. Please take a moment to share your thoughts! Thank you!

Survey: Next steps for training webinars

Reading Leaders Book Club

as reported by a Member

The Reading Leaders Book Club met last week and had a great discussion about the book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein.

Janelle Bailey, CESA 7, wrote this about the Book Club:

“… Learned how detrimental to African American people so many laws and rules and decisions enacted by government agencies were, and how racist so many corporations and government officials were. They determined so much about how African Americans would be treated for decades...generations...and how long-lasting the impact. They prevented them from obtaining mortgages; prevented them from purchasing homes and from others purchasing homes for them or creating cooperatives to encourage and support racial mixing in new neighborhoods; kicked African Americans out of their current homes with no promise of appropriate housing for them to move to as they built highways; zoned cities and prevented public transportation from serving those areas; and kept schools segregated long after segregation should have occurred...and more. Much more .”

The participants in our Book Club are glad we read the book. Reactions to the book were dependent on the person’s background and upbringing. While some found the book to be heavy reading, frustrating and infuriating that our “trusted” government officials would create laws and ordinances that kept segregation alive for decades, others in the group found the book to be liberating and affirming the stories they had heard while growing up.

Members of the Reading Leaders Book Club hope that you will take the time to read The Color of Law. Our next book club will discuss Emily Straub’s new book, All Adults Here, on August 20th at 7 pm (EST).