Dear Speech and Debate Coach:                                                                                      

 

You are cordially invited to participate in the 4th Annual Never Again Speech and Debate Tournament hosted by Denver East on February 11, 2023.

 

Events:  The following events will be offered: CX Debate*, JV CX Debate*, LD Debate, Public Forum Debate, National Extemp, International Extemp, Drama, Humor, Poetry, Duo, Original Oratory, Informative, POI, and Student Congress. Three rounds and finals will be held in all events.
* Depending on the number of entries, we may combine the JV CX and CX pools.  If this looks like it will happen, we will email all coaches with JV CX and CX entries for input on how we will handle JV case limits.
 

Entries: A maximum of four (4) entries per school will be allowed in each event, except Congress, which will be limited to 10 entries per school. Additional entries can be placed on the waitlist and we will accommodate those entries if space is available.

 

Registration: All registration will occur at www.speechwire.com. Pre-registration will close at 9 PM on Wednesday, February 8, or earlier if the tournament fills. Registrations are handled on a first-come, first-served basis.  As always, we would appreciate knowing of any drops in advance of the tournament, in order to help with the scheduling of rounds quickly and efficiently on Saturday morning.

 

General Rules:

• A responsible coach must be present at all times.

• Competition is open to 9-12 grade students representing the school in which they are officially enrolled and doing so with the permission of their school administration and/or coaches.

• We will use CHSAA rules in all events, except Congressional Debate. 

Rules for Double Entry:

• Students in debate and extemp cannot double-enter in another debate or extemp.

• Competitors double-entered in OO and Informative cannot perform the same speech in both events.

Extemp Topic Areas:

Debate Topics:
We will use all current February NSDA topics in each of the debates:

• CX:  Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its security cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in one or more of the following areas: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and cybersecurity.

• PF:  Resolved: In the United States, right-to-work laws do more harm than good.

• LD:  Resolved: Justice requires open borders for human migration.

JV/Varsity CX Rules:
Please note: Depending on the number of entries, we may combine the JV CX and CX pools.  If this looks like it will happen, I will email all coaches with JV CX and CX entries for input on how we will handle JV case limits.

• Varsity CX Debate is open to all CX debate teams.

• JV CX debate is limited to freshman and sophomore CX debaters or students in their first year of competition.

• In JV CX, no kritiks or counterplans are allowed.

• In JV CX, we will employ the NFHS Novice case limits, meaning that all teams should limit themselves to these case areas:

  • Substantially strengthen federal surveillance and standards for lead in drinking water.

  • Substantially limit the use of hydraulic fracturing by energy companies in the United States.

  • Substantially strengthen federal standards for agriculture-related runoff into lakes and streams.

  • Substantially increase the protection of wetlands in the United States.

Fees and Payment: The entry fee will be $9.00 per student in events—$18 per team (PF, CX, JVCX, Duo)—and $7 per entry in Congress based upon the pre-registration numbers on Wednesday, February 16  Changes in pre-registration will be reflected in the final entry fees if made via the web site by 9 PM on February 16 After that time, net increases in entries will result in increases in final entry fees, while net decreases in entries will not reduce your final entry fees. 

If paying by check, please make checks payable to Denver East Forensics Team and mail payment to:

Attn: Seth Willden

1600 City Park Esplanade 

Denver, CO 80206

Inclusion & Equity Statement: At many tournaments, we embrace and support the mission of our school district, the vision of our school, the CHSAA Speech and Debate Inclusion Statement, and the NSDA Harassment and Discrimination Policy. Please review additional information on these statements here.

Our programs are committed to further developing equity, diversity, and inclusion in this activity. To that end, we have tried to remove some of the economic barriers that prevent teams from competing at tournaments, as well as taking steps to provide a more inclusive competition environment. Below are recent steps we have taken to increase access and affordability, as well as inclusiveness:

• Any school with a Free or Reduced Lunch rate of 60% or more is entitled to a discount on their entry fees. Please email us directly to receive the discount. 

• Diverse panels of judges for outrounds. 

• An implicit bias judge virtual training required for all judges before ballots are released to them.

• We will be implementing the practice of having Equity Officer(s) available to help address concerns throughout the tournament.

 

Judging:  We are requiring that each school provide enough judges to cover their team’s entries. Judges must be available for the three preliminary rounds and the final round--though you can divide judging requirements over multiple people based on availability throughout the day, so long as you have judges entered to cover the entirety of your obligation for the entirety of the tournament. 

• One judge must be provided for every 2 debate entries (since we aren’t constrained by physical space this year--and in the interest of minimizing screen time for our community as much as possible--our goal is to single-flight debate, hence requiring one debate judge for every two debate entries).

• One judge must be provided for every 10 Congress entries.

• One judge must be provided for every 5 events entries.

• Judges are responsible for checking for ballots at the appropriate times. Judge fees will be imposed for schools that don’t meet their judging obligations (we may also reduce your entries based on the number of judges you provide), for missing judges, and for judges who miss ballots.
  We will audit judge usage after the tournament to determine judge fees for those schools not meeting their obligations and contact coaches about unmet obligations.

Judges should be entered in Speechwire by Wednesday, February 10  in order for them to receive emailed communications from the tournament directors (this email will be shared with coaches for them to send on to late-entered judges). 

• Judges will be asked to complete a 15 minute Implicit Bias Training prior to receiving a ballot, as research has shown that though we all have implicit biases, recognizing our implicit biases help make us better adjudicators of speech and debate. Read more about implicit bias here.
  Please share this link to our Implicit Bias Judge Training with your judges: 

• AN IMPORTANT NOTE: Given the requirements from the Eaglecrest bookkeeper that we collect W-9s from each judge who wants to be paid and concerns about securely collecting and storing that personal information in a digital environment, we will not be paying judges, hence the decreased entry fees for the tournament this year. 

(vr)