Phillipsburg High School

1 Stateliner Boulevard

Phillipsburg, New Jersey 08865

Dear Forensic Moderators and Coaches:

We are offering competition in the following events:

FOOD

All competitors will be provided with a lunch consisting of a main dish, salad, dessert, and a drink. The fee for lunches has been added to the entry fee for all events, totaling $7 for individual events and $10 for partner events. There will be other items for sale -- breakfast items, baked goods, candy, fruit, and soda. Food will be provided for all judges and coaches.

COMPETITION

There will be three preliminary rounds and a final round in all individual speech events, as well as two sessions & a final round of Congress.  If an event has fewer than 4 contestants, the event will not be held.  There will be four single-flighted rounds of Parliamentary, LD, and PF debate.  Each will have 3 divisions:  novice, JV, & varsity, which will be collapsed if numbers warrant.  Novice is only open to 9^th or 10^th graders in their first year of debate. All NSDA and NJSDL rules for registration, source integrity, ethics, and timing are in effect.  **Please remember that the same piece can NEVER be used in 2 different events.**

Students may double enter in any of the speech events but may not double enter if competing in student congress or debate (LD, PF, or Parli ).   Mavericks in PF are not permitted.   We ask that you make sure to mark all your novice high school speech competitors (in their first year of competition) in registration so that we can recognize the highest-placing novice at awards or hold novice honors rounds if numbers allow it. 

E-BALLOTS

All coaches must have a team roster with accurate email addresses uploaded onto Speechwire.  Likewise, coaches must ensure that judges are trained to complete electronic ballots and have a linked Speechwire account. 

REGISTRATION

All registration must be done online at www.SpeechWire.com.  If you need assistance using this site, let us know.  Only 6 entries per school per category will be registered.  The rest will be placed on a waitlist for review to ensure rooms are balanced.

Registration will begin Saturday at 8:00 am and continue until 8:45 am at the community entrance of Phillipsburg High School.  We hope to begin Round 1 promptly by 9:15 am.  A complete tournament schedule will be available on speechwire.com as well as on a livedoc that will be shared a few days before the tournament.

DEADLINES

Please submit all Congress bills to fraulaurie@hotmail.comby Friday, October 23.  We will upload the bills to SpeechWire by Saturday, October 24.  We will try to utilize all pieces of legislation submitted, but if the number is excessive, some may not be used.

REGISTRATION WILL CLOSE ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27th  @ 3PM.  We will begin to assess nuisance fees for any registration changes other than name changes after this deadline.  The names of all judges are due on Thursday, October 29, 2026 @ 3pm. 

FEES

Please send payment in the form of check or purchase order.  Make payments out to:  Phillipsburg Forensics Team

• School entry fee--$30 per school
• Individual Speakers (including Congress)--$22 per entry
• All LD Debaters--$27 per entry
• All PF, Duo, and Parli Teams--$35 per entry
• Administrative Fees   
  • Late entry fee--$20 per entry after 3 pm on 10/27
  • Drop fee--$10 +  entry fee after 3 pm on 10/27
  • Entire school late withdrawal fee—50% of entry fees and full price of judging fees for hired judges after 6 pm on 10/27; 100% for day-of or no show 
• Judge fees
• $150 per missing judge, per requirements below
• $175 dropped & non-replaced judge after 9 pm on 10/30
• $30 per missed judge call

JUDGES/JUDGING QUOTAS

LD & PF Debate

• Teams must provide 1 judge for every 2 entries or fraction thereof.
• Student debaters with at least 2 full years of experience may judge Novice LD or Novice PF ONLY, as long as they are clearly marked in registration notes.  Failure to do so may result in a judge fee being assessed. 
• Student judges cannot be used to fulfill judging obligations for JV & Varsity entries
• Student judges may not be used to fulfill a school’s entire judging obligation

Parliamentary Debate

• 1 judge for every 2 teams or fraction thereof.
• No student judges allowed

IE Events and Congress

• Teams must provide 1 judge for every 5 entries or fraction thereof.
• No student judges allowed outside of novice honor rounds in Speech

Judge Requests

• Deadline for Hired Judge requests—Friday, Oct. 23rd 
• If you have any extra judges, please call or email Laurie Schmid

**Please stress to your judges that they are obligated for the entire tournament and must be available to judge the final round of any event. 

When registering your judges, if you have a judge who is able to judge your own team without conflict, please mark him or her as “Clean” on the drop-down menu.

We may be forced to assign judges based on need, regardless of category.  This is something we will try never to do, but if circumstances demand it, it would be helpful for coaches to let us know of any judges who would feel comfortable doing other events.  However, speech judges will be used to judge Congress.  Please let your judges know this.

Please make sure your judges are trained prior to the tournament because we will not have the time to adequately train them before the tournament begins.  Schools will be holding judges training sessions throughout the month of October.  Please see the NJSDL website for the dates.  If any of your judges would like to attend our in-person training session, tell them to come to PHS on Wed, Oct. 21^st from 7 – 8:45 pm in Room 227.

AWARDS CEREMONY

The awards ceremony will be held in the auditorium.  The top 6 Congress entries, speech finalists, contestants in debate events, top non-advancing novices or finalists in novice honor rounds, and sweepstakes awards will be presented.