General Tournament Information & Policies

General Information

Both tournaments will be held on the Cy-Creek Campus (9815 Grant Road) just off Grant and Highway 249.

No smoking is permitted on campus.

For all TFA events, please read the below information:

As a TFA sanctioned tournament, we must abide by TFA Rules. The TFA Constitution indicates on Page 72 that "Texas students participating at TFA Tournaments must be affiliated with and a representative of the schools they are attending." As a result, if you are a Texas student, you must participate under your school's name and be affiliated with said team. This is not negotiable. If you are from out of state, please email vincent.beard@cfisd.net for any clarity on this policy - you will be handled on a case by case basis.

All competitors must have a school-approved adult representative present at all times during the tournament. If this individual is not a school official or teacher, a school official or teacher must email Perry Beard at vincent.beard@cfisd.net explaining that the individual chaperoning has permission to act on behalf of the student/school. All teams must register using their school name and official school Tabroom account.

Only high school students may compete in the tournament in any and all events. No middle school programs or any sort of private enrichment program may compete in ANY EVENT.

Any student or school in violation of these policies will be removed from the tournament. Any problems should be directed to Mr. Beard or Mr. Barrett by the Coach or School Employee Sponsor. Parents of student competitors have NO STANDING to challenge results.

Tournament Policies and Procedures

Contestants may not enter a room until a judge is present. Failure to comply with this rule will result in immediate disqualification. Please inform all students that video surveillance cameras are installed throughout the campus.

Students cross-enter in IEs at their own risk. Students cannot cross-enter in Debate and IEs within the same tournament. The Cy-Creek IE and Debate tournaments run concurrently, so students can enter IEs or Debate at the Creek tournament, but not both. Same with the Cy-Fair tournaments. At the Cy-Fair Tournament on Saturday, students may enter both DX and FX or DX and NX since the events are in two different sections. This is ONLY at the Cy-Fair Tournament on Saturday!

No food or drink is permitted outside the cafeteria.

Coaches may be assigned to judge 4-6 rounds. We are charging a 30% judge fee to offset the cost of judges; all collected fees go directly to pay qualified judges. We plan to contract a large number of judges.

Rounds 1 and 2 will be preset. Round 3 will be powered High/Low within brackets. We will NOT break brackets in debate.

Novice is defined as a HIGH SCHOOL competitor in their first year of competition or having less than 25 NFL points prior to our tournament. Middle school students may not enter, even in novice divisions.

Judges: We will panel when we can. Judges at our tournament consist of contract judges, college students, teachers, parents, community volunteers, and junior/senior Cy-Creek/Cy-Fair students (who will be judging novice rounds). We will also post our pool on Tuesday before the tournament. Please be aware that all judges could be in any pool, so don't assume that the LD pool will only be used in LD; that judge could also show up in Speech or PF or Congress. If there is a particular conflict with a judge in the pool, please contact Perry Beard at vincent.beard@cfisd.net so that a solution can be worked out.

Cypress Creek High School/Cy-Fair High School cannot be held responsible for lost or damaged laptops. (Should a student decide to use a laptop in the prep area, students must leave their computers in draw or in a closed bag while they are in the competition room. Students will not be allowed back into the draw room until extemp draw has been completed. Furthermore, Cypress Creek will not provide power sources for laptop use.

We will be using the NSDA Nov/Dec topic for LD and the NSDA Nov/Dec topic for PF.

Cy-Creek and Cy-Fair Schools reserve the right to prevent entries from any school at any time at their sole discretion.

SWEEPS: Individual Events, Congressional Debate, Duet Acting, Duo Interpretation, Novice LD, and Novice PF.

1st = 15 points

2nd = 10 points

3rd/Semifinalists = 5 points

Quarterfinalists in Novice Debate and all non-placing finalists in IE, Congress, Duet, and Duo receive three points.

SWEEPS: Varsity Debate Sweepstakes (CX, VLD, VPF, WSD)

1st = 20 points

2nd = 15 points

Semifinalists = 10 points

Quarterfinalists (if necessary) = 5 points