Challenging the Education Narrative
In a nation full of budget cuts, one Ohio middle school places emphasis on extracurriculars
By Emily Dattilo
Miami University journalism student
Forward: According to the August 2019 Talawanda City School District Finance and Investment Report, the district is currently operating in deficit spending and will continue to do so in 2020.
Holli Morrish, district director of communications and public relations, says that Talawanda still has “a healthy amount of reserves” which keeps the district in good financial standing.
“But of course careful spending/careful care with the budget will need to be practiced to continue to keep the district financially stable,” Morrish said.
While some schools in similar situations might immediately begin cutting extracurriculars and clubs, Talawanda Middle School (TMS) takes a very different approach.
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As the clock hits 2:35 p.m., most TMS students stream out the doors, leaving hallways empty and classrooms quiet. One particular classroom, however, hosts a slew of sewing machines, seven students and two teachers.
Craft Club meets here from 2:35–3:45 p.m and is led by co-chairs Carolyn Ratliff, a Life Skills teacher, and Cherie Day, a language arts/reading teacher.
Kids scatter about the tables, clutching blue scissors, selecting fabric and snipping around the paper pattern outline — today the kids are making coffee cozies — and Ratliff lays out a bunch of fabric swatches with patterns ranging from Strawberry Shortcake to zebra print to pink-and-white checks.
A middle-school girl with glasses and a wave of blonde hair settling about her shoulders sets to work pinning a pattern, joking “you don’t want to stab yourself,” as the girl across the table laughs, “I already did!”
While the kids work on stitching and pinning, Cherie Day sits at the same table, grading English assignments with a red pen. Christmas music rises from her open computer, mixing with the whirr of sewing machines.
With her dark-framed glasses resting in her dark-blonde hair, Ratliff wanders about the room offering sewing suggestions, including how to cut the pattern and how to use a seam ripper to how to fix sewing machine malfunctions.
During the school day, Ratliff teaches multiple classes at TMS including “Introduction to Family and Consumer Science (Life Skills),” a requirement for most seventh graders, and “Principles of Food” and “Textiles & Interior Design,” both of which are electives generally for eighth graders.
“That program (Life Skills) was a Butler Tech program and Butler Tech removed the program from the building, and the district saw value and let us hire Ms. Ratliff,” Mike Malone, Talawanda Middle School principal, said. “The kids really love cooking and sewing, so that’s one of the more popular ones (classes) that we’ve had.”
This trimester, Ratliff teaches four sections of the Life Skills class and two sections of Principles of Food. In all of her classes, Ratliff requires students to understand safety rules and procedures before moving onto beginning skills, like sewing on a button, and then to actual projects.
To fund projects and activities, Ratliff has a budget and each of her classes has a small fee. It’s $12 per student for the Life Skills class and the two elective classes cost $14 each. Students enrolled in the Life Skills class are currently creating coffee cozies (the same project as Craft Club) which require fabric, buttons and hair-ties, and the materials cost totals one dollar.
“I just think you get a lot of bang for your buck,” Ratliff said. “For a dollar, they get kind of a fun little project.”
Donated fabric and buttons offer students a wide variety of creative options, and Ratliff says that most of the coffee cozies end up being given as holiday gifts.
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In light of budget cuts requested by the U.S. Department of Education, local school districts are reconsidering funding priorities. For Talawanda, budget cuts are taken seriously, but helping students explore creative pathways outside of the classroom has remained a priority.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily that the district is in a financial crisis, but we’re planning in the future so it doesn’t get to that point,” Malone said. “We’re spending more than we’re bringing in right now, so what the district is always looking at is ways to accommodate.”
TMS partners with outside organizations to strengthen and support its activity offerings. Malone says that there’s been a partnership with Miami University as long as he’s been part of the district (over ten years), and he definitely sees the benefits.
“I think just with the close proximity, it’s an easy connection and it’s really a nice partnership to have,” he said. “I think Miami, I would hope would say values it as well.”
Malone says TMS teachers certainly see the value in offering students a wide array of activities, with many of the teachers working with clubs for free.
“It’s not something that anybody’s paying them to do,” Malone said. “They’re doing it because they care about kids and they want to do the right thing for kids.”
TMS staff can turn their passions — be it fishing, engineering or sewing — into an after-school club, providing a creative outlet for students. The Parent Teacher Group (PTG) supports such endeavors by supplying materials for lures for Fishing Club, for instance, or materials for Craft Club.
“So it’s not a huge amount of funds that they need,” Malone said. “But if we can get them small things just to keep the kids engaged, PTG’s always willing to work with them to get them what they need.”
Social studies teacher John Brinck has been PTG president for the past six years. When asked how many people are a part of PTG, he laughs for a moment before answering.
“One,” Brinck said. “It’s just me, but I have a committee of parents every year that will help. There are usually about four or five parents who will help organize things, but primarily it’s me.”
Melissa Ely is one of the parents who helps out with PTG, and she’s seen how many opportunities TMS has to offer first-hand. Her daughter is in eighth grade at TMS and is involved in Art Club and other activities, while also taking two classes for high school credit. Ely enjoys volunteering as a part of PTG because she wants to give back to the teachers who dedicate so much time to their students.
Brinck helps handle bank accounts for the annual class trips (Yellow Springs, Ohio for sixth graders, Columbus for seventh graders and Washington D.C. for eighth graders). The class trips are paid for by students through fundraisers like pie sales at Thanksgiving and cookie dough sales in February/March.
Owen Berg, an alum of TMS, went on the Yellow Springs and Washington D.C. trips. He also participated in jazz band, cross country, Power of the Pen (a competitive writing club), Math Counts and a class that taught him about Photoshop.
“You were able to really get an interest in stuff that wasn’t just sports,” Berg said. “And no kid’s gonna be like super passionate about doing education-related stuff outside of school unless there’s a club that goes off of something you’re learning about in class.”
Today, Berg is a Miami University sophomore double majoring in journalism and interactive media studies. He’s also the assistant design editor for The Miami Student newspaper.
While at TMS, one of Berg’s teachers was Gary Robertson, the current advisor for Art Club. This is the second year that Art Club has partnered with the Oxford Community Arts Center, and this year, students are working on a project with packaging tape and lights to build figures for a lights festival in Oxford this winter.
Robertson says that a number of years ago, art used to be a requirement for sixth-graders, but after health classes got added, art was no longer a requirement (though it’s still available as an elective for seventh and eighth graders). About 20–24 kids show up to Art Club on a typical week.
“There’s sort of an excitement about staying after and doing something that they don’t get during the day,” Robertson said.
The Oxford Community Arts Center buys some of the art supplies and Robertson fills in the gaps with his own materials. There is no student fee for Art Club.
On top of Art Club, TMS has everything from Builders Club to Chess Club to Garden Club. Other schools in the area don’t have such a diverse array. Madeira Middle School in Cincinnati, Ohio has ten extracurricular activities listed on its website. TMS has nearly twice that amount.
In terms of athletic teams, at Madeira Middle School, students can select from golf, cross country, volleyball and football in the fall, basketball and wrestling in the winter and track in the spring. At TMS, the longer list includes golf, swimming and even lacrosse.
According to the Kids Play USA Foundation website, pay-to-play fees for one sport, which can cover equipment costs, uniforms and other team payments totaled nearly $400. (Pay-to-play refers to the fees some schools require students to pay in order to play on a sports team).
Last year, Talawanda decided to get rid of “pay-to-play,” allowing students whose families might not have been able to afford to pay the fees to participate.
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Back at Craft Club, 3:45 p.m. draws nearer and Ratliff reminds students that parents will soon be arriving. Some kids are wrapping up their projects, others are still in progress and the room brims with middle school chatter.
A girl with short dark brown hair wearing a turquoise jacket approaches Ratliff with her project in hand, “I think I did it right!”
Behind the sewing machines, behind the shy middle-school smiles glittering with braces, are seven kids with an interest in sewing that might have gone unnoticed somewhere else.
At TMS, those interests are not only noticed, they’re prioritized.
