UPDATE: Fedeli, Near North board issue statements in response to teachers cuts

ALMAGUIN – Sundridge's Chris Bell and his wife Leah, both Almaguin Highlands Secondary School teachers were informed on Tuesday, April 23 that they are both losing their jobs.

Leah sat in on a meeting with all AHSS teachers while Chris listened from his vehicle en route to a press conference announcing the news to the world that the Near North District School Board will be axing nearly half of their secondary school teachers.

The numbers – 114.7 full time equivalent teachers, or 121 actual teaching positions – are unfathomable, he said immediately after the conference.

“I’m at a loss of words right now. This number is unreal,” he told this newspaper. “I might have some idea of what to say if there were 30 to 40 teachers laid off across the board, but 120? It’s ridiculous. It could almost be considered laughable if it wasn’t so devastating. I don’t know how we are going to fill schools.”

Bell, a history and geography teacher at Almaguin’s only secondary school has been full time for four years, and Leah, a lifelong Almaguin resident, phys-ed and special education teacher, has been at the school for nine years.

“The fear of September and both of us being out of work? I don’t know what we are going to do,” he continued. “This is our home, and when you make the decision to settle in a small community like this, you’re kind of all in.”

Bell, a father of three, has clarified that, based on the information that they have been provided - which is cuts being made based on seniority - 24 of 32 teaching staff, including him and his wife, will be laid off. Official notices must be issued by Wednesday, May 1.

“Let me be clear,” said District 4 Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation President, Glen Hodgson during the press conference. “This is not business as usual, last year we had zero redundant teachers, the year before that, we had zero redundant teachers. In the past 12 years I have been president, we have had at most, a couple of redundant teachers purely as a result of declining enrollment, and every single one of those teachers was rehired before the beginning of the next school year. This is not part of a normal staffing process, this is not business as usual, this is clearly a direct result of the cuts to education by Mr. Fedeli and Mr. Ford.”

The announcement, he added in a question period, was not a case of fear mongering but rather the passing on of information that the Near North School Board had handed the union.