Mockingbird District Qualifier

for the 2020 National Tournament

The Deep South District

of the 

National Speech & Debate Association

     This is your official invitation to have you and your students participate in the District Tournament for the Deep South District of the National Speech & Debate Association which will be held in Montgomery, Alabama on the campus of Huntingdon College and Montgomery Academy on Feb. 28-29. For those of you who might not know, the District Tournament serves as the qualifying tournament for the NSDA National Tournament, which this year will be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico in June of 2020.

This is the MOST important tournament of the year - the number of students at districts determines how many students move on to nationals to represent all of us - PLEASE ENTER THIS TOURNAMENT AND FILL YOUR SLOTS!!!!!!!

The rules for this tournament are outlined on the NSDA website. They are lengthy and involved, but I will highlight a few of them. If you want every detail you can go to speechanddebate.org - scroll down and at the bottom, click on  “Forms & Manuals” and you can print out the entire manual. WE MUST FOLLOW THESE RULES. Here are a few highlights that you need to know:

1) The school must be an affiliate or chapter school within the National Speech & Debate Association. Your school must be a member in good standing, meaning the school membership dues have been paid.

2) Any student entered must be a member of the National Speech & Debate Association. If you go to the NSDA website and go to your account, you can click on “School Roster” - you should see a list of student members and a column that says “Districts Eligible”, you should see a blue check mark by students name and that means they can compete. If the student is not listed or if there is no blue check mark, they can’t participate unless they are a member on record at least (7) days prior to the tournament. They must also be listed on your tabroom.com account - you might have to “merge” your NSDA account and your tabroom.com account and there is a button on the right hand side on your tabroom.com account when you log on to register that will walk you through this. If you need help, please ask!!!

3) A student must attend the high school they represent at the district and national tournament.

4) Prep time for Policy is 5 minutes; Lincoln Douglas is 4 minutes; Public Forum is 3 minutes - We are using the piloting rules of the NSDA for Public Forum so 3 minute summaries as well for PF.

5) Topics - the Policy topic is the one for the 2019 - 2020 school year; the LD topic is the one for Jan/Feb; the Public Forum topic is the one for Feb, which will be released on January 1st. We will also be using the evidence rules as outlined in the Tournament Manual for all debate events.

6) Any student competing in Oratory and/or Informative must have a copy of the speech signed by the coach and student in their possession in the rare event of a protest. You must also enter the title of the speech on tabroom.com when you register for the tournament.

7) For the Interp Events - title, author, and publishing information must be entered on the tabroom.com website. There is an obscure rule that prevents students with the same interp piece from hitting in prelim rounds - we must know the titles in order to prevent this from happening. 

8) Any student that double-enters, must pre-declare which event they will do if they double-qualify to Nationals. There is a link on your tabroom account to do this. This must be entered BEFORE the District Tournament begins.

9) Students may double-enter except with the following combinations:

A) No doubling in team events - Policy, Duo, Public Forum - example, a student may not enter duo and public forum.

B) A student may not do both US and International Extemp

C) No double entry between 2 debate events.

D) Congress does not count - so if you have a student doing Congress, they can also enter 2 events at Districts. 

10) The number of entries a school has is based on the number of members and degrees on record with the NSDA. When you register on tabroom.com it is supposed to not let you enter more students once you have reached your cap.

11) ALL COACHES ARE REQUIRED TO STAY UNTIL THE CONCLUSION OF THE ENTIRE DISTRICT TOURNAMENT - WE WANT TO HAVE AT LEAST 1 COACH ON EVERY FINAL ROUND PANEL.

12) Entry fees - $15.00 for IE entries and $15.00 for Debate entries.  School fee - $20.00 Team events are 1 entry so Duo is $15, Policy is $15.

13) The use of electronic devices has been approved for ALL EVENTS, but you are not allowed to do live research once the round has started. Note - this rule will change next year, 2020-2021, but for this year, we will use the same rule that will be used at the NSDA National Tournament for 2020.

14) Deadline for Entry in the Deep South District Tournament  - *February 21st*. You must be registered at tabroom.com by this date. Yes, you can make changes to your entry. Also, by this date, you must have all points on record for your students with the National Speech & Debate Association.

Deep South Districts Congress

Congress will take place at Huntingdon College which is located in the Old Cloverdale section of Montgomery. Session 1 will be on Friday, Feb. 28th from 9:00 am - 12:00 pm with Session 2 occurring on Saturday, Feb. 29th from 8:00 am - 11:00 am. I will send coaches the building name and room numbers closer to the competition date. 

Deep South Districts IE’s and Debate

I.E.’s & Debate will take place at Montgomery Academy beginning on Friday, Feb. 28th at 3:45 pm - 10:00 pm concluding on Saturday, Feb. 29th beginning at 12:30 pm with an All-Events Awards Assembly as soon as we can on Saturday - hopefully around 6:00 pm.

Lunch on Friday and Saturday will be on you, but in between Huntingdon and Montgomery Academy on Zelda Road there are a plethora of eating establishments that we are certain will satisfy everyone.