An official with ACCENT Marketing Services, LLC, says the company plans to hire 25 new employees at its customer engagement center in Harlan, to support new client growth. Gene Gettys, ACCENT’s Harlan engagement center director, said the company will immediately begin hiring for 10 non-licensed customer engagement specialists to support a variety of home protection products, including warranties, service plans and homeowner emergency assistance programs.  Fifteen additional employees will be hired over the next four months.  In total, ACCENT will employ 50 people in Harlan once the hiring ramp-up is complete.

Gettys says ACCENT is seeking employees with at least six months of customer service experience and an aptitude for sales.  Additionally, applicants must be at least 18 years old and have a high school diploma or equivalent.  Individuals with an insurance license who are looking for a career change are also encouraged to apply.  All interested applicants can apply through the careers section of ACCENT’s website at www.accentonline.com. 

ACCENT will also host a job fair at the Shelby County Entrepreneurial and Technology Center located at 1901 Hawkeye Ave. in Harlan.  The job fair will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on March 15 and 16 and from 8 a.m. until noon on March 17.  The Harlan center is the only ACCENT facility located in Iowa and serves as a dedicated insurance and financial services customer engagement center. 

ACCENT opened the Harlan facility in February after announcing it had acquired the licensed agent line of business from a leading insurance solutions provider.  Under the agreement, ACCENT retained the provider’s employees and management as well as assumed its client contracts specifically related to the company’s licensed agent line of business. Founded in 1993, ACCENT employs more than 2,500 people across the United States, Jamaica and the Philippines.

A Red Oak man charged in connection with a September 5^th, 2011 go-cart accident that critically injured his two-year old son, was sentenced late last month to serve one-year in jail, with all but 90-days of the term suspended. According to on-line court records, on February 27^th 35-year-old Shawn Michael Soar entered a written plea of guilty, to Child Endangerment causing bodily injury, and 1^st offense OWI charges. The charges were reduced from felony offenses when the mother of Ryan Soar agreed to plea deal. Judge James Heckerman placed Shawn Soar on a work-release probation, and ordered him to treatment for one-year at Zion Recovery Services.  He must also pay fines and related court costs amounting to $2,000, plus attorney’s fees.

The incident which lead to Soar’s arrest took place at around 9:15-p.m. September 5^th, when the go-kart he and his son were riding hit a parked pickup truck, in the 700-block of East Grimes Street in Red Oak. Lab results indicated Soar’s alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit for allowed driving, in Iowa. Shawn Soar suffered minor injuries in the crash, but Ryan was flown by helicopter to a trauma center in Omaha. He was later released, but the child, who has since turned three, is still being treated for his injuries on an out-patient basis.

Information released Thursday by the Iowa Department of Education shows the state four-year graduation rate dropped by one-half percent in 2011. Jay Pennington is chief of the department’s Information and Analysis Bureau. “I think it is concerning that it dropped a half percent from this year to last year. This year’s class of 2011 is above the class of 2009. So that’s good, I think it means that we need to, not just as a state, but schools and districts to get as many kids as possible to complete within four years,” Pennington says. The statewide four-year graduation rate is 88-point-three- percent, compared to 88-point-eight-percent in 2010, and 87-point-three-percent in 2009. Locally, Atlantic’s graduation rate was just over 88%; AHST 86%; Anita 100%; Audubon 93%; Exira 83%; Griswold and Nodaway Valley 98%, and Harlan 95%.

“The state Board of Education has a stated goal of 95-percent of students graduating. I think that 95-percent is an ambitious goal, that goal was set several years ago, in the meantime the formula has changed slightly since that formula was set,” Pennington says. He says Iowa still has one of the top graduation rates in the nation. Five of the 10 largest school districts in the state — Sioux City, Waterloo, Iowa City, Council Bluffs and Cedar Rapids — saw an increase in graduation rates.

“Seeing those larger districts with an increase in percentage is good to see, I think we need to dig in a little bit more and see the majority of districts that did see a decline and see what kind of supports are needed there,” Pennington says. Storm Lake has the lowest four-year graduation rate at 57-point-four percent. Sigourney had the next lowest at 63-percent. The state saw virtually no change in the annual dropout rate and an increase in the statewide graduation rate for students who took an extra year to finish high school.

(Dar Danielson/Radio Iowa)

See the complete list of graduation rates on this Radio Iowa link:

http://www.radioiowa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/2010-2011GraduationDropoutRates.xls