About our teachers:

- Ethan Schaffer
 Hello, my name is Ethan Schaffer! I have over 11 years of experience coaching and competing in speech and debate. As a competitor, I won competitions at Yale University, Harvard, George Mason University, and the tournament of champions. I was ranked the number one competitor in the nation at the end of my debate career and have now devoted my time to helping students learn the art of public speaking and debate. I can work with all age groups and am currently a debate instructor with Brentwood Middle School and Paul Lawerence Dunbar High School. I have coached nearly 30 students to become state and national champions and a handful of those students are now attending ivy league schools with scholarships for speech and debate.

- Bill Thompson: 
     Bill has coached and instructed speech and debate for more than 30 years with a variety of University, high school, & middle school programs around the country. In the last decade, he has coached 7 high school national finalists and 11 middle school national finalists. He has coached 5 high school national champions and 3 middle school national champions in his career.     
     Bill has an extensive history of building curriculum to teach speech and debate in both intensive speech and debate camp and classroom settings. Central to his curriculum is a focus on helping learners find their voices and helping them develop skills that allow them to hear and appreciate others voices.  His classes are designed to meet learners where they are and develop their research, refutation, speech writing, speaking and overall rhetorical skills.