The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

9 | The IFP -H alton H ills | T hursday,January 23,2020 theifp.ca We care about your hearing! Professional Arts Building 99 Sinclair Ave., Suite 210, Georgetown 905-873-6642 Serving the community of Halton Hills and surrounding areas since 1992 The Georgetown If your child suffers from frequent ear infections, and you can't pin point the cause, it may be something he/her ate. It's recently been found that food allergies may trigger ear infections, which left untreated can cause hearing loss. The allergies create mucous congestion in the nose, which then flows into the tube connecting the nose to the ears. Eventually the tube gets blocked and infection causing bacteria grow. To determine if food allergies are causing your child's ear infection have him/her tested. Once the troublesome food is discovered your physician can suggest alternatives. And take heart, kids often outgrow food allergies - and their tendency towards ear infections. For more information feel free to call… . . . Lend MeYour Ears Food ALLErgiEs MAY CAusE EAr inFECtions By Cory Soal R.H.A.D. 80 positions need to be filled - to help schools man- age too-large classes or other unexpected pres- sures. This year, there is funding for just 28.5 spots. And with 125 teachers not yet placed, "we have 125 sitting partially or fully on that recall list, with only 28.5 positions which may or may not be allocated, " Wolfe said. Even if all 28.5 are filled, "there are still over 90 people who are ei- ther fully without a (full- time) position or, at best, in halftime positions." Some teachers who worked full-time last year are already working as supply teachers. For each teacher lost, that is six clas- ses not available to stu- dents, Wolfe added. "We could have 580 fewer clas- ses, or 600 fewer classes" depending on final num- bers, she said. In the Halton District School Board, 26 teachers remain on the surplus list, with another 31 forced to scale back to part-time po- sitions, said Cindy Gage, president of District 20 of the secondary teachers' union. Given the loss of teach- ing positions and now larg- er classes, she said "stacked classes" have be- come more common - espe- cially in tech. (Stacked classes are those where multiple grades are com- bined into one.) "Two schools cancelled Writer's Craft, which is an extremely popular Grade 12 English course, " Gage also said. "It always runs - and they both had over 20 students in them, which in any other year would have run." Help for struggling stu- dents has also been hit, she said. "In one school, the math support at lunch was cancelled because they didn't have enough teach- ers to do all of the supervi- sions." Daryl Jerome, who heads District 21 in the Hamilton-Wentworth pub- lic board, said all teachers there have ended up with jobs, though some have gone from full-time posi- tions to long-term supply work, impacting their hours and benefits. He said the board is down 100 permanent teach- ing positions in high schools. "At the end of the day, the board has been very creative about keep- ing the number of course options open as possible, " he said. It cut the number of teachers working as con- sultants, moving those ed- ucators back into the class- room. While that protected classroom jobs, it has meant fewer professional supports and development for educators, he said. The board has also re- sorted to more stacked classes - in some cases, three or four grades com- bined in one course such as physical education, Je- rome added. Some Northern boards have had to combine differ- ent grades and subject ar- eas into a class "and they've had a lot of issues with stacking bizarre combina- tions" to keep courses go- ing because of their lower enrolments, Jerome also said. In a larger urban board like Hamilton, there is flex- ibility to "try to be creative with the money they have- ."Harvey Bischof, presi- dent of the provincial Onta- rio Secondary School Teachers' Federation, said, "It's clear from the fact that there are still laid-off edu- cation workers and teach- ers in places all across this province that the Ford edu- cation agenda isn't good for anyone." NEWS Continued from page 8 SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AT THEIFP.CA From Modern to Contemporary to Traditional. Product & Design That Complement Your Life. 348 Guelph St. Georgetown (Behind YoYo's, next to Cooper Standard) www.kabinetpro.com 905-702-7719 Authorized Dealer for