Fund-Raisers End on High Note: Music Teacher Will Be Rehired

With $14,000 in donations, a group of Fountain Valley High School parents and students declared a victory Monday in their efforts to rescue the job of music teacher Ted Reid.

Thanks to a last-minute contribution from a local Rotary Club and proceeds from a weekend fund-raiser, the group was able to say that it would turn over a check for $13,364.03 to the Huntington Beach Union High School District on Wednesday. District officials had said the money would be needed this week if Reid, 34, was to be rehired.

“We said the community would support this, and they really did,” said parent Pat Harney, president of the group known as the Vocal Music Foundation. “Almost everything has been local people, but there were a few from outside the area that gave just because they thought this was important.”

Temporary Job

If the check is received as expected, Reid, 34, will be hired on a temporary basis, Huntington Beach Assistant Supt. Susan Roper said. “He will be hired for one semester to teach three classes at Fountain Valley High School,” Roper said. “We’ll hold to the agreement the board has made.”

The move to save Reid’s job began after he and 31 other district teachers received word last spring that, because of declining enrollment, their contracts would not be renewed.

Six weeks ago, however, parents and local businesses began an effort to change the situation. Saying that Reid is an excellent teacher whose job should be preserved, the parents dug into their own pockets and also began soliciting donations from music lovers and business groups.

The group originally set out to meet Reid’s salary of $43,000 for a full-time job for the school year, but it lowered its goal after school officials agreed to give Reid a part-time position if half the part-time salary (or $13,364.03) could be raised before Aug. 15.

‘Really Touching’

A local yogurt shop, Yours, sponsored a Ted Reid night and contributed a percentage of its profits to save his job. Students staged a singing marathon at Lamppost Pizza. Newport Beach lawyer Wilburn Smith III, donated $500.

“I don’t even know Mr. Reid,” Smith said, “but you read about terrorists and murderers all the time, and this was different. It was really touching. In the post-Proposition 13 era” that limits the ability of school districts and other governments to raise taxes, he said, “it was really sad.”

Even as recently as last Friday it was not certain that the group would meet its goal. The $2,000 donation from the Rotary Club and the more than $1,700 collected at an event Saturday at B’nai Tzedek synagogue in Fountain Valley took the group beyond their goal. The Saturday event featured performances by Reid’s former music students and a raffle of items donated by various businesses and organizations.

“Seeing so many kids and so many people getting together and giving their time and money to save the program was really something,” Reid said on Monday.

“The songs and everything else were great.”

Reid said that in addition to the half-time job at Fountain Valley High, he will work part-time at Orange Coast College, Southern California College, and at Community United Methodist Church in Huntington Beach.

Parents are preparing for another round of fund raising, hoping that they can strike a deal with the district to pay Reid’s salary for the spring semester.

“As long as the district will allow them to raise the money and the parents stay with this, we’ll stay here,” Reid said. “The students, the parents and everyone else are just the greatest.”