UPDATE:

Credit Card payment is preferred.

Link to our webstore to pay by card: https://vrhs.edpay.net/p-1499.aspx

Please make checks payable to Vista Ridge High School - Debate

Mailing address: Vista Ridge High School, Att: Jennifer Lee

200S Vista Ridge Blvd.

Cedar Park, Tx 78613

Welcome to the Vista Ridge Speech and Debate Tournament!

Date: January 13th, 2024

We are thrilled to invite you to our TFA (Texas Forensic Association) qualifying tournament, offering a full range of qualifying events. This is a great opportunity for high school students to showcase their skills in speech and debate and to compete for a spot in the prestigious TFA State Tournament.

It is our goal to provide you with a pleasant tournament experience. This year's tournament will be hosted in person at Vista Ridge High School.

If you have speech and debate experience and would like to be hired as a judge, please complete this form: https://forms.gle/t8i99Zro9LLG1YGo8

Key Details:

-Our tournament is a TFA qualifier and will follow TFA rules.

-An adult affiliated with your school has to be present and available at all times throughout the tournament.

-Judge obligations cannot be filled with current high school students without explicit approval from the tournament director.

-We will use online balloting through Tabroom.com throughout the tournament. This means all judges will need Tabroom accounts.

-A novice is defined as a student in their first year of speech and debate competition. For example, a student who competed in PF as a freshman CANNOT compete in Novice Policy or Novice LD as a sophomore because that student is not a first-year competitor.

Scheduling/Cross Entries:

-We will offer 4 prelim rounds in debate events.

-Section A includes DI, INFO, OO, Duo and Poetry

-Section B includes DX, IX, NX, Prose, Duet, and HI

-Students in VLD, NLD, VPF, NPF, and Worlds will be permitted to cross-enter in Extemp. Debaters who cross-enter in another IE are doing so at their own risk. We will not delay rounds for cross-entries. Students in CX are NOT permitted to enter any other events.

Elim Procedures:

-We will not break brackets in debate elims.

-Panels for TFA qualifying events will start in semis. If possible, we will panel debate quarters, but no guarantees.

-Except for novice events, we will not host debate elims that don't award TFA points. In the event that entries are too low to justify quarters, we will break straight to semis, which will take the place of quarters in the schedule. This means we will break to semis in CX, LD, and PF if there are only 10-15 entries. We will break straight to finals in World Schools if there are only 6-9 entries. Novice debate events will break straight to semis.

-We will only collapse Novice and Varsity divisions if collapsing is necessary to award any TFA points. We will not collapse the divisions if it simply means offering better points.

-IEs with 16 or fewer entries will break straight to finals after Round 2. In this case, Round 2 will take the place of Semis on the schedule.

Statement on Disclosure Norms:

-Under new TFA rules adopted at the 2023 TSCA/TFA convention, judges in debate events will be instructed at this tournament to not decide rounds on the basis of whether or not preround disclosure took place. Disclosure of cases, while heavily encouraged, is at the discretion of individual competitors and coaches.

Topics:

Policy Debate

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal

redistribution in the United States by adopting a federal jobs guarantee, expanding

Social Security, and/or providing a basic income.

Lincoln Douglas

Resolved: The United States ought to substantially reduce its military presence in the West Asia-North Africa region.

Public Forum

Resolved: The United States federal government should repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

World Schools

Rd 1: This House would implement a compulsory national service system.

Rd 2: This House would implement a compulsory national service system. (Opposite Side)

Rd 3: Impromptu

Semis: This House believes that NATO has done more harm than good

Finals: Impromptu

Congress Docket (SET in the following order)

Prelims: 1, 3, 5, 9, 20.

Finals: 6, 8, 10, 13, 17

Credit Card payment is preferred. If you need to pay by check/PO, please email jennifer.lee@leanderisd.org to let us know.

Link to our webstore to pay by card: https://vrhs.edpay.net/p-1499.aspx