Glenbrooks Speech and Debate Tournament

2021 — NSDA Campus, IL/US

Judge Information and Hired Judge Considerations

Please note that all judges your school brings to the tournament must have completed a successful background check conducted by your school/district/institution. This process is the responsibility of the school hiring them. All judges hired by the Glenbrooks will be background checked. 

Because The Glenbrooks prides itself on the quality of the competitors and adjudicators, judges provided by the individual schools must be qualified to judge a national circuit forensics competition. Only persons who have graduated high school may judge, with the exception that high school varsity debaters may be used in novice policy. Judges must be designated for each division since the tournament will be held in multiple buildings.

Phone Numbers - We ask that you enter the correct phone numbers for all of your judges. You will not be able to enter a judge into the tournament without providing their phone number.

All policy and LD debate judges are required to submit a philosophy to tabroom.com by 5 pm Central Time November 10th. Schools that have judges who have not submitted their philosophies will not be allowed to submit a strike sheet. This is a self-reporting system – it is your responsibility to make sure the philosophy is published.

ALLOCATIONS

We do ask that schools provide as much qualified judging as possible. We can't guarantee that we can accommodate all hired judge requests but we will do our best.  Once you put in a request to hire a judge and that hired judge request has been approved, your judge has been hired.  There are no refunds for hired judging requests that have been approved. We strongly encourage you to provide your own judging as it is much easier to hire judging in a virtual environment. We urge you to look at our hired judging as a back-up, but please try to hire first. 

If you feel that you have judges that are suited better for other pools than what you are obligated to fill, please contact Alyssa Corrigan (acorrigan@glenbrook225.org) for possible arrangements to have judges in one pool covering your obligations in another.

A school is responsible for paying the hired judge fee or may not be asked to return if any of its judges miss a round for any reason, including failing to check both the varsity and the JV LD schematics. 

All debate judges are required to judge the first elimination round OR judge one round past the last elimination round in which their school participated (whichever comes last).

Placing judges in elimination rounds becomes more difficult each year because judges leave once their school’s competitors are eliminated from the tournament without fulfilling their commitment to adjudicate one round beyond their school’s last outround. Directors are responsible to make sure that their school’s judges are available to fulfill their ENTIRE judging commitment.  We try our best to release individuals as quickly as possible, but the tournament requires the highest quality judging pool possible even after any particular school is finished competing. Schools that have judges that do not meet their elimination round obligation will be fined. 

Given the need for LD and policy judges over the last several years, we are instituting an entourage rule for LD and policy. Any adult at the tournament that is capable of judging must be in the pool for at least 2 rounds and available to judge elimination debates. If there is a reason someone needs an exception, this must be approved by the tournament. 

You may not split one judge between two different pools unless you have coverage for elimination round commitments in both pools.

Splitting judges between two schools shorts us an elim judge. This will only be approved under certain circumstances and you must make arrangements at least three weeks before the tournament. 


Hired Judge Policy

A limited number of judges are available for hire through the tournament.

There are no refunds for hired judges - once we have accepted your hired judge request, you will be invoiced for the hire.   This is true even if you find a judge on your own after requesting one. 

1 Congress or Speech judge = $450

Each round of VLD = $100

Each round of judging for any other debate division= $75

No hired judges will be available after October 12th. This deadline is earlier this year because of our background check policy.   

If you are interested in hiring out rounds beyond your commitment in VCX or VLD ($30 a round), please contact Alyssa at acorrigan@glenbrook225.org.