Beth Eskin has always been argumentative. It’s a fine quality for the coach of the award-winning debate team, one of many clubs at Timber Creek High School suffering from legislative budget cuts.
But it’s not like the programs were swimming in cash before — the School Board gives a scant $25,000 to the performing arts budget, which drama, band, orchestra, chorus and debate get to vie for. To put that sum in perspective, the debate team travels 20-25 weekends a year, the equivalent of a three-season sport, for a total of $70,000. And right now three national championship competitions are set to cost another $20,000.
The debaters are more impressive than they’ve ever been — moving on to the national debate circuit, sponsored by Harvard, Yale, Emory and other renowned universities. In all of Orange County, Timber Creek is the only public high school to compete at this level, rivaled only by Trinity Prep and Lake Highland Prep, which are private schools. “In years past, Principal [John] Wright was able to pay for nationals out of his discretionary fund, as a way of rewarding kids for getting to that level,” Eskin said.
“This year, we’ve had more students do well, and less money to pay for it. Our principal supports our program, but he just doesn’t have the money.” Eskin was hired among the TCHS inaugural staff to begin the team (she also teaches Advanced Placement English for juniors and seniors). And since 2001, she has improved the debate team every year. This year the goal was to send one team to the national championship (TCHS sent two teams).
They needed two bids, or invitations (they had four). Fewer than 10 teams in the entire country had four bids to the Tournament of Champions on May 2. Students spend more than 100 hours a month outside of school preparing their arguments. They give up a couple of weekends every month to travel. So does Eskin, not that she minds. “It is intellectually stimulating. These are future presidents, congressmen, attorneys, school board members,” she said. “They have a great understanding of what’s going on in the world.
They’re the leaders who are going to one day make the decisions for us.” Perhaps most importantly, the students learn to argue for viewpoints they don’t agree with — learning invaluable critical-thinking skills. It makes them better students and better test-takers. Out of 14 National Merit semifinalists at TCHS, four are on the debate team. School-wide, AP tests have a 55 percent passing rate.
Debaters have an 85 percent passing rate, Eskin said. “I understand that people want to reduce their property taxes, but they need to understand the impact that a savings of $200 a year will have on schools and emergency and social services,” she said of the tax-reform package known as Amendment 1, which was approved in January.
“They need to weigh whether that’s really worth it. They’re going to pay for it somehow, whether there’s more crime or a fee for emergency services. “Debate is one of many programs at our school that does really good things for the community. It’s a shame people can’t understand the big picture, beyond the miniscule impact to their wallet.”
And the band played on
Brad Strella is a former football player, a golfer and a sales director for Westco Aircraft. He didn’t know anything about marching band, never mind the Timber Creek Regiment. “They make my football practice look like a walk in the park. They’re on the asphalt in the summertime for eighthour days.
To see how hard they work is unbelievable,” said Strella, whose daughter, Taryn, plays baritone and euphonium. “They’re doing things no other band is doing — most play Mozart and Beethoven, Timber Creek plays Led Zeppelin and Queen.
They stretch the envelope. It’s fun to watch. To see the whole audience light up... they were the only band at last year’s competition to get a standing ovation from the whole Georgia Dome in Atlanta (at the Bands of America Regional National Competition).”
With Rick Brown — another parent whose son, Austin, plays the trumpet — Strella is organizing a golf tournament as a fundraiser for the bands, scheduled for May 10 at Stoneybrook East Golf Club. They’re hoping for $10,000 to add to the Band Boosters fund. TCR is known nationally for its inventive field formations and score.
In its “Chaos Theory” show, the closer was a three-minute combination of Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train and a piece by Bach, layered over one another. Musically and visually, Regiment performances must inspire the students who spend several hundred hours in rehearsal, the parents who see the shows, the staff who teach it for six months, the football crowd that represents the main audience of the marching band and, of course, the judges.
“It’s evolved over the last seven years. We have a passionate interest in marching, and we take a unique approach: music that other people say, ‘I don’t know how that would work in a marching show,’” said band director and performing arts chair Rhett Cox. Just to operate the band program, it costs about $125,000 a year. Only about $60,000 comes from a per-student fee of $300, leaving more than half to come from fundraising.
And that fundraising share is about to get even bigger, said Cox, who directs TCR with Clif Walker and Devin Hoey. “We’re very blessed to have support from all the key areas: the administration, especially John Wright, students, parents and the community,” he said.
“Next year, it becomes much harder. It’s not as though we’ve been complacent. (Students and parents) already give so much and now you have to look at them and say, ‘You have to give more.’” Since before spring break, Timber Creek High has been consumed by one topic only — the budget. And the hardworking students with the most ambition stand to lose the most of all. “It feels like we’re free-falling now.
The bad news hasn’t stopped yet,” Cox said. “I wish people hadn’t voted the way they did. People were looking to save money. When somebody gets ready to vote and they see they’re going to save... I don’t think any of us understood the ramifications of that. I didn’t.”
Going once, going twice
Auctioneer Bob Ewald’s four kids all play different sports: Travis, a graduate, played lacrosse; Tad, a junior, swims and plays water polo; Trevor, a freshman, plays baseball; and Talley, a sixth-grader, hopes to be a cheerleader. So the Waterford Lakes resident is president of the TCHS Athletic Booster Club.
“It seemed like a logical way to be involved and help all the sports,” he said. There are a number of single-sport entities, but the Athletic Boosters aim to be a general fundraising body. “We’d like to get to a point where none of the sports have to do their own fundraising, that the Athletic Boosters can just write them a check, but we’re not even close to there,” he said.
Ewald is donating his services for the newly formed TCHS Fund’s first official event, the Talent of Timber Creek — which will include a live and silent auction, and performances by the orchestra and drama students — from 6-9 p.m. May 17. “It will be a showcase of the fine arts at Timber Creek and an auction to raise money for the Fund. It’s going to be a lot of fun, for a good cause,” said Darrell Garvey, board president of the TCHS Fund.
“We’re pulling out all the stops to come up with $50,000. [Avalon Park developer] Beat Kahli has agreed to match the first $50,000 the Fund receives.” Garvey, a real estate lawyer and father to Tom, a sophomore at TCHS, and two graduates, Darrell Jr., 20, and Meghan, 18, said the Fund has a two-pronged goal: to create an alumni association and to bridge the gap in technology. Tech-wise, TCHS needs new computers in the library, and wants classroom projectors that can stream videos from the Internet.
“A new school would get these things, but existing schools have to find other funds,” he said. The Fund was supposed to help the school as a whole, the things that fall through the cracks between bake sales and car washes. But now that the budget cuts are hitting, its role may evolve. With more students to educate and less money to spend overall, Garvey said he is waiting to see the full impact of the budget cuts.
“You hate to try to step in and take over for the state. We’re clearly not going to be able to raise the money required to do that,” he said. “But there may be a trickle-down situation. I expect a lot of money will go retain classroom teachers, the sort of things you can’t scrimp on, money the school might have spent on other projects.”
