There are major changes underway at the Good Spirit School Division (GSSD) - all of which will be an added benefit to local students says the division's Superintendent of Student Services, Quintin Robertson.
The GSSD Student Services Department, under the guidance of Robertson has undergone restructuring for the 2011/2012 school year. This reorganization has come about as a result of the need to provide students with a team-centered, focused commitment in the delivery of student services supports.
"We have a great team in place throughout the Student Services Department but, after careful consideration and feedback from our own staff as well as parents over the past school year, it was determined that we needed to tweak our delivery methods in order to be the most effective we can be," says Robertson.
As a result, Professional Service Providers (PSP's) throughout the division have been relocated to three centralized locations in order to promote a team-centered environment and focus on working with students. Locations include Canora Composite School (North cluster), P.J. Gillen School in Esterhazy (South cluster) and Yorkton Regional High School (Central cluster).
Each of the clusters include a Student Services Coordinator, Speech-Language Pathologist, Speech-Language Pathologist Assistant, Educational Psychologist, and Occupational Therapist; the number of PSP's in each cluster differs due to varying staffing requirements in each of the three cluster areas. Student Services also wants to work more closely with partners in the area of curriculum and, as a result, the division's three literacy coaches will be relocating to the Yorkton Regional High School this fall as well to join the team environment.
Robertson explains, "This year, we are focused on communication, collaboration and capacity building among our professional staff. To enhance these main qualities in our service delivery, we needed to think differently in how we could do a better job of serving our students. As a result, the team approach is seen as the best route in which to accomplish this goal."
With offices now in similar locations, meeting as a team to discuss student needs and referrals will occur on a more regular basis. This will provide a hands-on approach in building capacity of our schools as well as enabling efficiencies in the way in which professional service provider's work together. As an additional step to enhance PSP's ability to deliver current programming requirements, the teams from each cluster will be strategically attending to each of their respective schools three times in the upcoming school year to keep abreast of current conditions.
"The ultimate goal of this shift is that writing student reports will become a collaborative effort with PSP's aware of what is occurring in specific student circumstances.
Instead of three to four reports for an individual student, there will be one report addressing all of the various aspects of a student's Personal Program Plan," declares Robertson.
A Personal Program Plan (PPP) is a written document developed and implemented by the Student Services team and contains a compilation of student outcomes that have the highest priority for the student during the year.
"This is the beginning of a long-term growth goal. We are working to ensure that, where there may currently be multiple reports on a student's cumulative file, there will now be one main comprehensive report clearly evident by all Good Spirit School Division staff working directly with a specific student."
As an extension to this change, GSSD recently joined forces with the Leadership Services Team (through TPM Software) and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education to develop software which can take data from multiple sources and insert it into a student's Personal Program Plan. This joint project is of great interest in the areas of incorporating functionality and ease of communication by way of inserting Student Services data into the MapleWood student software system currently in place divisionwide.
"This will have a major impact on the classroom teacher's ability to access up-todate information and knowledge of past as well as current plans and reports in place for individual students," adds Robertson.
"The Student Services Department works diligently to ensure that services and supports are comprehensive, integrated and address the needs of the whole child by focusing on prevention, early intervention and effective transitions.
