Teacher Pays Off His Note : Education: Parents anted up when choir instructor faced layoff. A year later, district is still singing his praises.

When the budget ax came down at the Huntington Beach Union High School District last year, cutting 32 teachers, music instructor Ted Reid was luckier than most.

His students at Fountain Valley High rallied to save his job. And their parents, who raved about Reid’s ability to inspire their children and to instill in them an appreciation of finer music, vowed to raise every penny of his part-time salary if the district agreed to keep him on.

The students sang at pizza parlors, hit up people for money as they came out of supermarkets and appealed to business people to support the school’s performing arts. And in the end, they raised $28,000 and they saved the school’s music program.

This year, the students and their parents are again canvassing the community to raise more money, but this time to pay for a trip to Vienna, Austria, where Reid’s students have been invited to perform at a music festival.

Reid’s salary this year is being picked up by the district, whose officials decided to rehire him on a full-time basis even though enrollment continues to decline and money is as scarce as ever. It was a declining enrollment, officials said, that forced the district to reduce its staff and cut programs.

“We’re delighted,” said Pat Harney, head of the Vocal Music Foundation, the parent booster club for the choirs. “We felt all year long that that was sort of our goal, to keep him on so that the district, if it was financially better off later, would hire him back. If we had not been able to do that, Ted would have moved on. He had other offers.

“I would hope that our support had something to do with it,” she said. “Whenever a community is willing to show suport for a program or a teacher who heads that program, a school should be positive about this. And they have been. They hired him back this year. We feel that we did a real public service.”

Fountain Valley Principal Michael Kasler said there are 2,600 students at the high school this year, about 130 fewer than the previous year. The district enrollment overall continues its downward spiral.

“When you look at the declining enrollment we’re going through, the board has really had to make some tough decisions,” he said. “I don’t envy them.

“But they have made a commitment to the performing arts,” Kasler said. “To make a long story short, Ted Reid is with us again. I’m glad.”

Assistant Supt. Susan Roper said that in the last 11 years, the district’s enrollment has declined by 10,000 students, and the district’s budget has decreased by $34 million by today’sstandards.

Rehiring Reid, 35, did not mean that another teacher had to be fired or let go, Kesler said. Instead, through attrition and other resignations or retirements, the district managed to find a place for him.

Reid, who worked two other part-time jobs last year to supplement his salary from the part-time job at the high school, said he is grateful for the effort parents and students put out.

“Oh, it’s just really great,” Reid said about being rehired. “Things are kind of the way they were before last year.”

He said his program has grown in enrollment, and the choirs are now preparing to make a trip to Vienna, where they were invited to participate in the Austria International Youth and Music Festival in July.

Students and parents say that Reid has exposed his charges to a sophisticated range of music, from Leonard Bernstein to Mendelsohn and Brahms.

During one class this week, about 60 students, their voices working like finely tuned instruments, performed Scottish folk songs, selections from the musical “Pirates of Penzance,” which they will perform in concert soon, and even a rousing gospel number. Reid directed them with sweeping arm motions as he stood behind at a baby grand piano pounding out an accompaniment.

“Lots of high school choral programs are built around music as entertainment, i.e., music well-known through the pop media,” Reid said. “My philosophy is that we ought to be offering students the highest achievements that man has accomplished, in any discipline.”

The students say he pushes them, but that his dedication has made the choir a well-respected program in the school where a number of other extracurricular activities compete for their time.

“Two years ago I could have never seen myself in choir,” said James Ogle, 18, who was captain of the football team his freshman year. “I used to think, ‘No, you’re not a man if you’re in choir.’ But Mr. Reid treats us like men. He says, ‘Come on, men, we can do this.’ ”

Ogle said he no longer plays football because “I’m all choir now.”

The students say that the relationship Reid has with them is more special than other teacher-student relationships. He encourages them to achieve more, but he is close to them too.

“We’re more like a family,” said Frank Cabiri, 18, another choir member.

Cabiri said Reid recruits students to join the choir, and other students also help find new choir members. He joined when Reid was his freshman English teacher.

“When he heard me speak, he asked me to join,” he said.

“He challenges our voices instead of having us do just high school music,” said Chelsea Heneise, 17, a soloist with the choir.”

So excited are many of the students, Chelsea said, that about a quarter of the choir members are taking private voice lessons.

Harney is dedicated to the program, even though her five children--who were also choir members--have already graduated from high school. She said community support turned the tide for Ted Reid, but added that district officials should also be credited for allowing the parents to take on the unprecedented and difficult process of raising so much money for his salary.

“They probably figured, these people really mean what they’re saying,” she said. “They were very understanding and cooperative. They let us raise the money a little at a time, and it was such good faith on their part.”