Richard Froese
South Peace News
Peace River School Division board discussed various issues with Peace River MLA and Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams at a meeting April 3.
Topics included several of the board’s advocacy policies, including concerns about mental health funding and the need for a long-term stable solution for PRSD schools, states a PRSD news release April 9.
Trustee Lori Leitch says the Division wants to be able to use mental health funding to students in the north in a way that is both sustainable and practical to face the challenges around accessing mental health professionals north of Edmonton.
“We don’t have a huge ask, we just want to do it differently,” Leitch says.
Trustees also spoke about how the provincial government needs to start considering solutions to supporting small rural schools.
As an example, trustees talked about funding for student bus transportation and how the grant calculations don’t always work out the way they are intended.
When the Division implemented the province’s new transportation walking distances, while more students became eligible for busing, the amount of funding the Division received from the Province for transportation actually decreased.
The number of students who live closer to their school, and who could now ride the bus, decreased the Division’s sparsity calculations and directly impacted the amount of funding received for transporting students who live farthest distance away from their designated school.
While the number of students who live in the rural areas did not decrease, there was less funding available to transport those students.
“We have five-year- olds whose work day is longer than their parents’,” Leitch says.
PRSD wants rider times under one hour.