By Liam Verster

education supports

PCS to be funded through new school division partnership

May 7, 2020 | 1:58 PM

A new partnership of school divisions will help fund Peace Collaborative Services (PCS), an umbrella organization that provides and coordinates supports and services for students and teachers in the Peace Region.

Previously, PCS was funded through a provincial grant, and would provide a range of services, from blind and visually impaired services, to emotional behaviour supports, to speech language pathology services.

However, when the province announced the new education funding model in February, that grant was taken away, and dispersed into the Student’s Services and Supports fund, which school divisions will receive and choose how and where to spend.

Six of the eight school divisions that previously benefited from PCS’s services (Grande Prairie Public School Division, Peace Wapiti School Division, Holy Family School Division, Peace River School District, Northern Gateway, and Northland), are now coming together to provide funding, so PCS can continue to coordinate and provide services for students in the Peace. Grande Yellowhead and the Grande Prairie and District Catholic Schools are the two divisions who are not involved in the new partnership.

Cheryl Brown, the Regional Manager for PCS, says the schools who have formed the new partnership have come to the conclusion that maintaining PCS was the right move economically.

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“Especially in the North where it’s much more difficult for recruitment and retention of specialists. So they are working very, very hard to try and maintain as many of the specialists in the area as they possibly can, and they are looking to try and continue with as many other structures that would be very economical, such as a joint referral system and sharing of information as students move from one jurisdiction to another.”

She says this partnership, which will see the school divisions pool their funding together to fund PCS’s services, is still in the early stages, and the finer details still need working out.

“Just like when, generally, people or corporations form, and they have to have partnership agreements so that everybody makes sure that their own interests are wisely taken care of. They’re still finalizing contracts and finalizing the terms of reference for how the interaction will be. That stuff going forward will be our work for the next two months.”

Brown says they will work hard to make sure this plan comes together in time to provide services and supports in the next school year.

She says the funding PCS will be provided hasn’t been finalized yet, but Brown expects it to be significantly less than in previous years, and they will likely lose about half of their 65 staff members in the process.

Meanwhile, PCS is still coordinating and providing services virtually while kids are learning from home. Brown says there was a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to provide those supports online, but adds that the team has really started to shine, and are doing good work with the local students.

“We’ve been doing lots of virtual speech therapy sessions, and [Occupational Therapy] consultations, and we’re actually even moving into attempting to do some autism virtual assessments. So everybody’s really been working hard to still get these supports and services to the families and teachers who need it.”

She says, if schools have to remain shuttered in September, these specialists will be ready and able to help out, and continue to provide the supports and services that are needed through an online portal. Brown does add, however, that they would all prefer it if they were back in the classroom.