High School Debate Remix

Last week we had our annual high school debate.  Though the Girls High School did not field any teams this year, the competition was no less intense.  As the national high school debate topic for this year focused on the many challenges the United States is facing due to the sorry state of our transportation infrastructure (ranked 21st in the world, got a "C" on a internal assessment in 2009), we invited officials from the Tennessee Department of Transportation to serve as our judges.

Here is the email they sent me the day after our debate:

Good day Rabbi Perl,   We would like to thank you and the academy for allowing us the opportunity to participate in your annual debate.   The young men where superb in their oratory deliveries as well as being very knowledgeable in regards to the challenges we face in improving and maintaining our national, state and local infrastructure.   The plans that were presented by each team were all sensible in their approach in addressing not only the financial challenges but also the environmental and livability challenges when it comes to improving upon our transportation network.  The aptitude that the young men at Margolin Hebrew Academy have are great representations of the future of public policy.  All the young gentleman were effective in their discourse and therefore they are all winners in our book.  Tell the young men we said hello and best wishes.   

Once again we would like to thank you and the academy for the opportunity and we wish the young men much future success.  If we can assist in anyway in the future, please feel free in contacting us.  Oh, by the way if we could get a copy of some the pictures it would be great.  Have a pleasant weekend. 

Carlos B. McCloud

TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Transportation Coordinator,
Office of Community Transportation Region 4

AURY S. KANGELOS

COMMUNITY TRANSPORTATION PLANNER

OFFICE OF COMMUNITY TRANSPORTATION

TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Special congratulations go to our winners:
1st place team: Ethan Cooper and Yaakov Kaplan
2nd place team: Dylan Cooper and Jake Pollack
3rd place team: Gabriel Goldstein and Bradley Goldmeier / Aaron Noble and Natanel Brakha (tie)

1st place speaker: Ethan Cooper / Dylan Cooper (tie)
2nd place speaker: Jake Pollack
3rd place speaker: Yaakov Kaplan

Below you'll find some more pictures from the event and a remix of video clips that will give you a sense both for the intensity and challenge of our debate program, as well as the remarkable job all of our students did in rising to meet - and surpass - that challenge.