05/28/2026
A bit of a political post but here goes because I'm so saddened with this news.
School boards cannot claim to support student mental health, literacy, inclusion, and behaviour while simultaneously cutting the very professionals who identify and treat the underlying causes of these challenges.
Our local public board , GEDSB, has chosen to lay off two Speech-Language Pathologists and three Psychology staff positions — not because of funding cuts, but as an administrative decision to replace these roles with social workers and behaviour staff.
Let’s be clear: social workers and behaviour professionals play an important role in schools. But they cannot complete speech and language assessments, provide speech-language intervention, or conduct psychoeducational assessments. These are specialized, regulated professions with entirely different scopes of practice.
Communication and learning difficulties are often at the root of:
• anxiety
• school avoidance
• emotional dysregulation
• behaviour challenges
• literacy struggles
• social difficulties
• low self-esteem
When children cannot understand language, express themselves effectively, process information, or access learning, behaviour is often the symptom — not the cause.
By removing Speech-Language Pathologists and Psychology staff, the board is removing the professionals trained to identify these hidden barriers early. The result? Longer wait times, delayed identification, increased student frustration, escalating mental health concerns, and families being pushed toward costly private services simply to access supports their children need to succeed in school.
This creates a two-tiered system where only families with financial means can access timely speech-language therapy or psychoeducational assessments.
Early intervention matters. Language matters. Learning matters.
We should not have to choose between supporting behaviour and supporting communication, literacy, and learning. These systems are interconnected.
Something is very wrong with this picture.
