Ontario school board launches 'Latinx' educators' group
Despite the community's preference for "Hispanic" or "Latino," a school board in an eastern Toronto suburb is launching an "inclusive" group using a controversial term instead.
An Ontario school board has launched a new community group targeting individuals who identify as "Latinx" or Hispanic.
The Durham District School Board announced the Latinx Hispanic Educators Alliance of Durham (LHEAD) on June 24 as part of its ongoing commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Despite the end-of-school-year launch in 2025, the group says on its website it was first founded in 2024.
It exists to “amplify Latinx/Hispanic voices, honour identity, and build spaces of joy, belonging, and representation within the Durham District School Board and beyond,” reads a statement from the group.
While LHEAD is an educators' group, it says it also includes “staff, students, and families committed to equity, cultural celebration, and community care.”
“We are so proud to launch LHEAD and to do it in a way that reflects the joy, culture and strength of the community it represents,” LHEAD chair Marianan Spena, said as reported by Clarington This Week.
But the term "Latinx" isn't without controversy. In the U.S., researchers found a vast majority of Hispanics are opposed to using the term.
Among Hispanic adults, polling from Pew Research in 2023 showed 75% of respondents agreed that “Latinx should not be used.”
Support for the term (40%) was highest among those who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.
Pew also found that about half of U.S. Hispanics were unfamiliar with the term — though awareness of it had risen from just 23% in 2019 to 47% in 2023.
Even with an increase in awareness, researchers found no change in the number of Hispanic adults using the term to describe themselves, with just 4% of respondents saying it was their preference instead of Hispanic or Latino.


COMMENTS
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Bruce Atchison commented 2025-07-02 22:17:23 -0400Whatever happened to the inclusiveness of Canadian values? These supposedly inclusive folks exclude white males in the stupid belief that two wrongs make all right again. What reprobate thinking that is!
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Bernhard Jatzeck commented 2025-07-02 22:02:55 -0400Have you forgotten that Trudeau Jr. abolished “Canadian” values?
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Don Smith commented 2025-07-02 21:42:56 -0400It would be nice if the school board promoted CANADIAN values.