Each year the Saskatchewan Rivers board of education receives the Equity, Diversity and Inclusive Education Accountability Report.
This year, to get a glimpse inside the work the division does, four of the division’s Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) presented the report on Dec. 8.
Superintendent Kelly Gerhardt presented the Accountability Report to the Board and said the focus was due to some new language positions hired in the division this year.
“We were finding that we didn’t have in-house EAs that could prioritize the speech and language programming, and so we just hired four people that were specifically for that,” Gerhardt said.
As part of her presentation, a team of Speech Language Pathologists spoke about a unique programming decision the division has made this year that has dramatically improved access to therapy for SRPSD students.
SLP’s Brynn Michalchuk, Danica Schultz, Jillian Ervick and Sarah McComas expressed how excited they are to see the potential for growth in so many students during their report.
Gerhardt said that this adjustment in positions with the addition of language assistants made an impact because the division could reach more students with language challenges.
“It is making an impact,” she said. “We know that kids need to be able to communicate before they can learn to read. We know that our Grade 3 reading rates are not ideal necessarily, but it’s one more thing we can do to put in place targeted intervention to help support literacy down the road.”
The staffing breakdown included in her report shows there are currently six full time SLPs and six full time language assistants. There are also 33 Inclusive Education Coaches, three Intensive Supports Consultants, three Mental Health Coaches, one Occupational Therapist, 18.5 School Social Workers and four English as an Additional Language (EAL) teachers.
Gerhardt said the SLPs assess, diagnose and treat various communication issues in students. Speech-Language Pathologists have specialized training in all areas of communication including speech, language, hearing, and literacy. SLP training includes skills in assessment, intervention and consultation.
“I feel like that’s a lot of what we’re seeing, but it’s kids coming in who struggled with communication, so either receptive or expressive (language),” Gerhardt explained.
“If they can’t say words and speak properly, they don’t necessarily always receive it too, but it’s more that the expression of language because they can’t communicate.
“That’s their speech, their language, their voice, and their fluency, so it’s basically communication in more general terms.”
The SLPs provide programming that falls under targeted learning interventions.
“It is tailored to that individual child because there’s all sorts of reasons why kids have trouble communicating,” Gerhardt said.
The SLPs do a screener for students and then decide what that student needs and then provide programming.
“Because we have a large number of students who need that kind of programming, they haven’t been able, as their small group, to provide the regular programming and so now with language assistants, we can … hit more kids with more sessions,” Gerhardt said.
During the presentation, there was also anonymous video of students using SLP and language assistant interventions to show the board exactly what some of the language struggles are.
“I think showing it just really paints the picture of what we’re seeing in schools and the difficulties it is for those students, right? Like in terms of making their needs known, communicating with friends, communicating with teachers, and then also for teachers to be able to understand what the child needs and what they’re saying,” she explained.
She said that even to understand what they are learning is a challenge as well.
“They might understand a concept, but if they can’t communicate what they’re understanding, it’s hard to know whether they understand it or not,” Gerhardt said.
During her update, she said there are currently 398 elementary students receiving speech and language therapy from language assistants. Of those, 127 are in Pre-Kindergarten and 96 are in Kindergarten. These students are entering school after being born during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That has impacted kids coming into schools, because they weren’t socializing in those first couple of years, so maybe (it’s) not hearing as much language, not playing as much with other kids. I can’t say for certain all the factors,” Gerhardt said.
Following the SLP presentation, Gerhardt highlighted some other parts of the report for the board.
“As an intensive supports team, we’re trying to really be specific and clear around roles and responsibilities and what who is supporting what interventions, so we have different teams of people who support (students) and more targeted programming around autism, around the speech and language, just to try to use our resources in a more effective way,” Gerhardt said.
She highlighted how autism supports much like the SLP and language assistant supports, have to be catered to individual students.
Gerhardt said that the education sector is doing better work in these areas than they had in the past.
“I just feel like we do better now, right? We know more,” she explained. “When you know better, you do better, but we can always continue to get better. We’re just trying to use our resources in a more effective, efficient, and intentional way, like to meet more needs, essentially.”
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
