Community integration and benefit is at the heart of the Purcell Collegiate engagement model. As a school designed to complement, not compete with, the local public school system, PCS will extend and enhance the opportunities it will produce to maximize its economic and social impact in the Kimberley/Cranbrook area.

PCS will achieve this by limiting the admission of local students to high-level athletes who would otherwise have to leave the Kimberley/Cranbrook area to attend sports academy programs in larger school districts or distant private schools. As a result, our local high schools, Selkirk Secondary School and Mount Baker Secondary School, will not lose students to Purcell Collegiate who weren’t already going to leave anyway. This ensures PCS does not compete with the public-school systems in Kimberley and Cranbrook.

Here’s how PCS complements them: students from Selkirk and Mount Baker will be welcomed onto campus to participate in PCS’s suite of after-school clubs and sports which will provide them with learning and training opportunities only found in large metropolitan areas. This pioneering approach enables and ensures both maximum benefit and minimum disruption while simultaneously enhancing the value proposition afforded to international students whose opportunity to live and learn in Canada will be extended beyond the cohort of students at Purcell Collegiate to include those with similar interests and goals in our own two local high schools.

The value proposition for our communities is likewise enhanced and extended when PCS’s international students leave campus, whether it be to engage in community activities and events or to volunteer with local service organizations.  International students (and their visiting friends and family members) will be introduced into the Kimberley/Cranbrook economy, frequenting local shops and restaurants and utilising local tourist amenities to enrich their time here. Although it is the students who travel to PCS who will receive a world-class education, acceptance into a welcoming community and an unforgettable, quintessentially Canadian experience, they will in turn enrich the social, cultural, and economic lives of our own communities by bringing the world to the Kimberley/Cranbrook area.

We invite you to explore our website to learn more about Purcell Collegiate school’s commitment to community integration, or contact us with any questions you may have by emailing us or engaging with us on Facebook at @purcellcollegiate.