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Support services in schools

School divisions now in charge of providing supports and services

Mar 2, 2020 | 5:50 PM

Alberta’s schools will have to find new ways to provide support services in the coming school years.

The Provincial Government’s new education funding, which comes into effect next school year, eliminates the Regional Collaboration Services Delivery (RCSD) grant, which in turn supports the Peace Collaborative Services (PCS)

Cheryl Brown, the Regional Manager for PCS, says they are an umbrella organization in the Peace Region, which represents support services for students, teachers, and families, delivered within the school systems.

“We have mental health services, speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and we do supports for the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as for individuals with visual impairment.”

She says for the Peace Region, the top priorities include mental health, speech pathology, occupational therapy, and psychology. There is also a need for blind and deaf or hard of hearing supports in schools.

Starting in the 2020-21 school year, the RCSD grant is being eliminated, which means schools won’t automatically have access to support service organizations like PCS.

“Instead, they’re going to deliver those funds as per population and other modifiers to the jurisdictions themselves rather than have it be it’s own entity.”

It will now be up to the school divisions to determine what supports and services are needed in the schools and find ways to provide them. Brown says that could be through hiring or contracting new staff or finding some other program to provide the services.

She adds the PCS’s executive and leadership teams are working on understanding the impacts the budget will have on local school divisions. They will then determine how to move forward, though Brown says the PCS’s structure as a service provider representative will no longer exist.