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American Heritage School of Boca/Delray is proud to welcome your middle school competitors to the First Stallion Middle School invitational Speech and Debate Tournament! This tournament is open to ANY student who is in middle school with a registered program. *A student, whose school is not attending, but is an active member of a team, may attend the tournament as an independent.

Events: We will offer the following Debate Events (Congressional Debate, Public Forum Debate, Lincoln Douglas Debate) and the following Speech Events (Original Oratory, Impromptu Speaking, Declamation, Duo Interpretation, Oral Interpretation and Dramatic Performance (Combined HI/DI). We will offer two rounds of competition (and one, two hour session of Congress); students are only able to enter a single event. We will utilize PBCFL rules and ballots for all events with the exception of Impromptu where we follow NSDA rules.

Judges: We encourage you to bring your high school competitors and/or competitors from your area to judge middle school students. These should be juniors or seniors with varsity experience or sophomores with at least 250 NSDA Points. Please specify in the "notes" section what their preferred event areas are; they could be used in more than one event if needed. In addition to being able to learn by serving as a judge, we will offer them a small judges’ lounge, volunteer hours for service organizations, and of course, they are able to collect NSDA points for their service. We are also allowing PBCFL JUDGE TRAINED parents to judge the tournament. Judges should be instructed to provide POSITIVE and CONSTRUCTIVE feedback, as our purpose of this tournament is to encourage students to keep participating in speech and debate activities. Please provide 1 judge per 2 PF entries, 1 judge per 2 LD entries, and 1 per 5 speech entries and 1 per 5 congress entries (or fraction thereof). We did set up separate judge categories for Speech and Congress but know your judges cannot always be used in the category in which you entered them, so the notes really do help. Please indicate on your judge entry what area your judge specializes in and if they are an INDEPENDENT judge which means they have no ties to your students or students from other schools.

Registration: Each student must pay a registration fee of $12.00 (so, Duo Interpretation and Public Forum Debate is $24.00 per entry). The cost includes a slice of pizza, a bag of chips, and a beverage. Your judges will be provided with a free meal as well.

Student observers will be charged $6.00 to cover the cost of their meal. Please ensure that all student observers are registered before the tournament. Parents will NOT be allowed to watch their children in rounds.

Registration is due and fees become permanent on Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 5:00 p.m. After the website closes, please send all changes to pj.samorian@ahschool.com.

There are NO LIMITS to the number of students you can bring in each event. There are no limits to the number of student observers you can bring, however they must be registered ahead of time!

Please make sure you have covered your judge commitment. Uncovered judges will cost $25.00. Please ensure that you have all of your judges registered by the drop date to avoid this fee. Judges will be assigned before the tournament to ensure that no issues during the day of the tournament. Please make a note of your judges’ preferred event in the notes so that we may assign them accordingly. Your school will be assessed the $25.00 uncovered judge fee for any judges who no-shows on the day of a tournament.

Any changes made to your entry after 11:59 am on December 9 or on the day of the tournament (such as drops or shifting students between events) will incur an additional $12.00 fee. Our desire is not to take your money; we just want to ensure smooth operation of the tournament.

Arrival instructions: American Heritage Boca Delray Campus is located at 6200 Linton Blvd, Delray Beach, FL 33484. We are attempting to offer an earlier schedule.

ARRIVING BY BUS: We ask that busses enter the East entrance to the school (Not the main entrance), make the first right passing the pool toward the main entrance, drop students, judges, and coaches at the main entrance, and then proceed off campus until 4:00 pm. (There are several shopping plazas nearby where buses can wait) Students, judges, and coaches will be escorted to the dining hall where our security will be searching any bags and providing wristbands.

ARRIVING BY CAR: Parents who are bringing students in a personal vehicle may park on the berm (Grassy area) in front of the main entrance to the school. After parking, students, judges, and coaches will be escorted to the dining hall where our security will be searching any bags and providing wristbands.

Please do not arrive earlier than 2:00 pm and do not arrive later than 2:45 pm. At 2:45, our dismissal process begins for lower school, middle school and upper school.

Parents who are coming after the tournament has begun will be able to enter campus after 4pm and can park anywhere on the right or west side of campus.

We will have plenty of volunteers to help expedite this process as well as help students find rooms.

If you have any last minute changes, please text PJ Samorian at (312) 925-8667 with school name, competitor or judge name, and what needs to be done. We would like to receive these anytime during the 24-hour period before the tournament. If you are on your bus and you know you have drops, just text that, it will help us start on time.

Awards: We will provide awards to all students who place in the top 6 in their event category as well as any ties. The best presiding officer in each chamber will receive an award.

Impromptu Topics: Round 1 – Famous Proverbs, Round 2 – Pop Culture Quotations.

Impromptu Rules: The student will pull three slips of paper, choose one of the three to speak on and put the other two back. The competitor will take approximately two minutes to prepare a speech, which addresses their choice. They will be able to speak for up to the remainder of the seven minutes (Prep for 2 min speak for 5 min) on the topic with a 30 second grace period. No notes or previously arranged materials are used in the preparation; the student may NOT use a note card or paper during the presentation, however they make notes during their prep time. The event calls for creativity in expressing ideas and the ability to organize thoughts.

Congress Topics: Taken from the November PBCFL 2019 Legislation: (http://www.pbcfl.net/)

1. A Bill to Grant Citizenship to Illegal Immigrants with Children Born in the U.S.

NOTE: The Docket is preset in the order above. Students may not adjust the order of legislation. Students are allowed to call the previous question after one full cycle of debate on any piece of legislation however the focus of this tournament is to provide everyone with a voice. Voting blocks to previous question for the purpose of blocking a student from giving a speech are highly discouraged. We invite MS students to prepare to preside for one hour of the two-hour session. A separate award will be given for the best presiding officer. Although the Presiding Officer will be instructed to use recency and geography, a competitor who is not active in the chamber is not guaranteed to speak unless they have not given any speeches.

Public Forum Topic: 2019 November/December Topic is Resolved: The benefits of the United States federal government’s use of offensive cyber operations outweigh the harms.

Lincoln Douglas Topic: 2019 November/December Topic is Resolved: The United States ought to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels.

If you have ANY questions, please do not hesitate to contact PJ Samorian at pj.samorian@ahschool.com or Bo Lint at bobby.lint@ahschool.com

PJ Samorian
Email address: pj.samorian@ahschool.com
Phone number: (312) 925-8667

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