Three staff members at Portage Collegiate Institute have received high praise from the government as they won an Excellence in Education award.

Grade 12 teachers Brett Geisel, James Kostuchuk, and Shannon Mulvey won the Outstanding Team Collaboration Award, and Geisel says they've been working on the project that won the award over the past two years. He notes it centres around allowing students to learn by going out in the community and getting out of the classroom.

"Our teaching philosophy is how can we engage students to achieve goals that they want and are suitable for the community?" Explains Geisel. "Does that mean trying to make it accessible for students to make it to other places around the community? And how do we make that work."

The program, titled Roving Campus, has allowed students to go to city hall for civic education, Camp Hughes, and more. He says while they don't receive any direct funding for the program as a result of the award, it can help them in the long run.

"What (the award) does, is allow us to leverage that into grant-funding applications," notes Geisel. "So, that's essentially how we've been funding the campus so far, by writing grants and acquiring them."

He adds he has no doubt the award will help them obtain grants more easily. He's excited to see what he, along with the other award winners, can do to grow the Roving Campus in the future.