In a dramatic reversal, the Alberta government has agreed to restore funding that was cut earlier this year for outreach services to help special needs students in Central Alberta.
Senior officials from the Chinook's Edge School Division, on behalf of nine school boards with the Regional Collaborative Service Delivery (RCSD) partnership, appealed to senior Alberta Education officials by video conference in early April that the loss of $1.4 million in funding would have a serious impact in hiring the necessary specialized staff to provide special needs services for hundreds of its most vulnerable students, including the visually or hearing impaired, and for those that require speech, language and/or communication supports.
The funding cut would have directly impacted about 200 Chinook's Edge students who require special needs support.
The RCSD partnership was developed several years ago with a mandate from the provincial government to provide cross-ministry services for a broad spectrum of students with special needs.
“They restored the funding, and they not only have done it for next year they have done it for the next three years so that really set us up for success,” said Kurt Sacher, the superintendent of schools for Chinook's Edge, adding the total package that was restored for RCSD was about $5.8 million over three years.
“I think the government really listened and I think we need to give the government credit when they respond appropriately to the legitimate concerns of their communities. It is a good news story.”
Sacher added that an important part of the discussion with Alberta Education officials was that the funding formula they used to make the initial cut was flawed and based on a model that was used for inclusion funding a few years ago.
“At that time boards had expressed concern that it wasn't working. We brought this up again in light of that and said, ‘this same formula is just not going to be sufficient',” he said.
“We talked to them about our most vulnerable students and the real need to get staffing in place and to get in place quickly.”
Sacher said he did not know whether the government, in light of the successful appeal, would now move to change the problematic funding formula.
“But based on the fact they made a significant change I think they know they have to revisit that formula but I have not had communication with them yet,” he said.
Sacher said the province's quick response to the appeal allows the partnering school boards to immediately secure the highly specialized professionals required to accommodate special needs students.
He said if the appeal was not successful it would have created serious challenges with teachers and support staff throughout the nine school boards.
“When we don't have these additional supports put together from the Regional Collaborative Service Delivery model it is just one more burden on our schools in trying to support every single child in their care and that is our mission and vision for the future,” said Sacher, adding there were strategies in place to move forward without the funding but he wanted to give the government a chance to respond to the appeal before moving on those alternative options.
“Not having those resources means you typically don't have the staff. If we don't have the staff it is more stressful on the ones you do have. We want our people to be put in a really successful position to move forward.”
