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June 2016

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COMMUNIQUÉ A PUBLICATION OF THE IOWA STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION – JUNE 2016 – Vol. 53, No. 7 IN THIS ISSUE: OPINION Transitions Quiz LEGAL Maternity Leave 3 10-11 15 Set it... Set it... and forget it! and forget it! E-DUES AVAILABLE NOW! E-DUES AVAILABLE NOW! FOLLOW US ON: How much do you know about ESSA? Thew new isea.org Take the quiz for a chance to win an ISEA swag bag full of neat stuff Pop quiz! What's an opportunity dashboard? What's a failing school? What prizefighter was granted a posthumous pardon in the Every Student Succeeds Act education law? Test your knowledge (or your Google skills) with the Iowa State Education Association's Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, quiz. ESSA is the federal law that replaced No Child Left Behind last year. In general, it does away with many of the federal mandates – AYP, evaluations tied to test scores - and gives authority to the states to decide how they want to measure student achievement. The last few issues of the ISEA Communique included one-page fact sheets on different aspects on ESSA. We've been working, too, with the folks from the National Education Association to help make sure we can take advantage of everything ESSA offers to educators and students. You'll find the quiz questions printed on pages 10 and 11 of this Communique. All the answers can be found either in the past issues of the Communique or at www.nea.org/essabegins, among other resources. To enter your answers and get a chance to get one of the ISEA gift bags, go to http://ow.ly/ tATq301g1N1 which will take you to an electronic version of the quiz. Just fill out your answers there and provide a name and non-school email address to submit. We'll accept entries until the drawing on Monday, August 1. So give it a shot. You got this. The Iowa State Education Association will launch a redesigned, better functioning and more user- friendly www.isea.org this summer. The site is a significant departure from the current isea.org visually and content-wise, but, because it's built on a Wordpress platform, will be familiar to many first-time users. Highlights include: • An interactive calendar to track local and state association events as well as professional development courses. • An interactive course catalog with category search functionality including date, credit hour and keyword. • A UniServ directory and space for individual district news and information. • Deeper legal, policy and professional content for members only. "Our website just wasn't serving the needs of our members any longer. It was difficult to navigate – especially from mobile devices – information could be hard to find, and, worse, was sometimes out-of- date," said ISEA President Tammy Wawro. "It was a source of frustration for our members and the ISEA Executive Board." Staff used information gleaned from a member survey, industry best practices and internal analytics to develop an RFP and the contract was awarded to Webspec of Urbandale. Design began in earnest in the fall and programming followed through the winter and spring. "The new website has a much cleaner look, it's easier to navigate and has several interactive features to help members find what they want more quickly," Wawro said. "Our goal was to develop a basic site members could go to get the information they need and then move on in their day." Most, but not all, of the new site is expected to go live in July. The critical parts – members only access, the calendar, the UniServ directory – are being tested now. Once those tests are complete and any bugs fixed, the site will go live. See pages 6 & 7 for a sneak peek at the new isea.org. Win one of these three ISEA totes filled with gear from the ISEA store when you take the ISEA's Every Student Succeeds Act quiz. Enter to win at http://ow.ly/tATq301g1N1 QUIZ on pages 10 & 11

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