Greetings:

The inviation for Lakeland's Westchester Classic is below.

There are three significant changes from last year -

(1) Lakeland is now a finals bid in PF

(2) We are adding JV PF and we are clairifying a few things regarding PF levels

Middle School PF -- ANY student in grades 5-8

Novice PF -- Any student in his or her first year of debate.  Students in ANY grade can particiipate in novice PF, but ONLY if it is his or her first year of debate. So, 9th graders who debated in MS CANNOT debate in this division. MS students CAN participate in this division IF it is their first year of debate, but only if it is their first year of debate. MS students @ any experience level can participate in MS Debate.

JV PF -- Any student in his or her second year of debate. Eligible? Any student who competed last year but not before last year.

Varsity PF -- Any student can can compete in varsity PF.

Students who are determined to be competing in the wrong division during the tournament will be removed from the pairing with no refund. 

(3) Round Robin.  We have added a round robin on the Thursday before the tournament. This is ONLY for  varsity PF debaters.

The application is here -- https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1T-xZBm5Ug0z3f5cyO_0R-mPkz-2Jik72b2Vnchy4xU4/edit

We wish to finalize  RR participants by mid-January.

Lakeland tournament invite --

Tournament Dates

March 3-4, 2016 
Note: Depending on the number of Policy entries, we may need to have the policy finals on the 5^th.

Registration is open on Tabroom

Events offered

Varsity Policy
 (semis TOC bid)

Novice Policy

Novice PF


JV PF

Varsity PF
 (finals TOC bid)

Varsity LD


Novice LD


Middle School PF


Middle School Parli

NOTE: Novice is for debaters in their first year of debate.  This does not mean the first year of high school debate.  If you would like to appeal a particular team (for example, if one of the debaters debated at one tournament last year), you can do so by emailing Stefan.Bauschard@gmail.com before the tournament.

JV is for students who have no more than one previous year of debate.  Again, appeals process noted above.

All debate events are “switch side” – students will be expected to debate both sides of the resolution. Entry fees

$65/team (PF, Policy)


$30/individual competitor (LD


&75/team (Parli – higher fee because of 3 competitors per team)

$50 school fee

The fees include dinner on Friday and lunch on Saturday for all registered participants.

$300 hired judge fee/4 debaters (one judge covers 2 policy teams, 3 PFrs or LDrs).

Judges in other events cannot be used to cover Policy and LD LD debate entries.

Deadlines

- We will accept registrations until Monday, February 27, 2017 (or until the tournament fills) - The tournament always fills, so enter early if you wish to attend
- In order to discourage frivolous registrations, there is a $10/contestant drop fee for every non- substituted contestant drop after February 1. That fee increase to $25/contestant after February 15th.

- Judge hire fees are frozen on February 15th.

Topics


PF: February NFL Topic (all divisions)

L-D: January/February L-D (all divisions) Policy: Surveillance Topic
Judges

Policy: The China topic

We expect that all judges will pay attention in the debates they are judging and will work to provide a fair decision based on the criteria they outline in their judge philosophies.

We also expect judges to behave in a way that is appropriate in a middle school/high school environment. Any judges that exhibit behavior inconsistent with this expectation can and will be removed from the tournament by the tournament director at his discretion. The financial costs of missed rounds will be passed on to the school that entered the judge.

Unless there is a violation of the Conduct policy by the judge or the team(s) in the debate, the tab room views the judge’s decision regarding all arguments made in the debates as final. If the tabroom determines that a judge or the team(s) violates a Conduct policy expectation, the tabroom may alter the decision in a way that it feels is fairest for the debaters involved.

Judge Assignment

We will use a standard ordinal rankings judge placement system in varsity policy and varsity L-D (as numbers permit).

We will not use preferences in the other divisions.

Conduct Policy

We expect all debaters and judges to behave in a way that is appropriate for a high school/middle school environment both in and out of debates.

While we do not have an extensive conduct policy, we view any behavior inconsistent with
(a) typical school and league conduct policies (including those of the Lakeland School District --

http://www.lakelandschools.org/policies.cfm?printme=168&printpage=1), (b) behavior that you would be proud of if it were viewed online, and
© social norms regarding appropriate language use
as a violation of our Conduct rules.

We expect that debaters will comport with the Lakeland School
District’s anti-harassment policies, which define harassment as "the creation of a hostile environment by conduct or by threats,
intimidation or abuse that (a) has or would have the effect of
unreasonably and substantially interfering with a student’s
educational performance, opportunities or benefits, or mental,
emotional or physical well-being; (b) reasonably causes or would
reasonably be expected to cause a student to fear for his/her physical safety; (c) reasonably causes or would reasonably be expected to cause physical injury or emotional harm to a student."

The District "strive[s] to create an environment free of discrimination and harassment" and "foster civility in the schools."

Therefore, we ask that participants, judges, and coaches refrain from conduct which is inconsistent with the District’s educational mission.

Students and coaches found to be in violation of the conduct rules can be removed from the tournament at the discretion of the tournament director.

This is the Lakeland School District’s policy on “Student Publication and Expression” (http://www.lakelandschools.org/policies.cfm?printme=157&printpage=1).

“All school-sponsored opportunities for student expression will comply with the rules set forth in this policy and in the Code of Conduct. All student publications will comply with rules for responsible journalism. Libelous statements, unfounded charges and accusations, obscenity, false statements; materials or performances advocating racial, religious or other prejudice, hatred, violence, the breaking of laws and school policies and/or regulations, or materials or activities designed to disrupt the educational process will not be permitted. Expressions of personal opinion must be clearly identified as such and bear the name of the author. Opportunity for the expression of opinions differing from those of the student publishers must be provided. In addition, the school-sponsored activities listed above which are paid for by the School District and/or produced under the direction of a teacher or other advisor as part of the school curriculum are not considered public forums. In such cases, the Board reserves the right to edit or delete such student expression which it believes is inconsistent with the district’s basic educational mission.”

The full Code of Conduct can be found here and some additional parts are reproduced below--

http://www.lakelandschools.org/policies.cfm?printme=168&printpage=1

Card Clipping

Judges who determine that a debater has “clipped cards” should assign the debater zero speaker points and a loss. This debater will be ineligible for any speaker awards. If the tab room also determines that card clipping occurred, the person will be removed from the tournament.

Forfeits and decision time

All policy ballots are due within 2 hours and 15 minutes (135 minutes) from the scheduled start time of the debate. If the debate you are judging starts late, you will have less time to decide.

Debaters are responsible for finding the room they are debating in. If a debater or team is more than 10 minutes late, his or her 2-person team will be forfeited.
Housing

We can provide housing for the first 150 contestants and we are working to find additional housing slots. If your team is able to stay in a hotel, please do so in order that we can accommodate more programs of more limited financial means.

Housing can be requested through tabroom.com. Any questions about housing should be directed to Stefan.Bauschard@gmail.com

Independent/Unaffiliated Entries

Like some other tournaments, we accept entries from non-school based individuals and teams. The tournament director does have the discretion to reject an entry if that entry appears to designed to create a “super team” and when other reasonable school-based entry opportunities are available to the students.

Students are not permitted to compete independently if their school and or coach prohibits their participation as a member of their own school team.

As per TOC policy, independent/unaffiliated students are ineligible to receive TOC bids. Maverick Entries

Maverick entries are permitted at the discretion of the tournament director. If there multiple mavericks in any division, it is expected the two individuals will debate together. Mavericks are eligible for awards.

Tournament Director Discretion

Since the tournament director is an employee of the Lakeland School District and the tournament is sponsored by the District, the tournament director has discretion to make decisions regarding tournament practice and administration that are needed to ensure compliance with all Lakeland School District policies. Compliance with these policies is not debatable.


Friday, February March 3

12-2pm – Registration


2:30 – pairings


3pm – Round 1 (all events)

5:30 pm – Round 2 (all events)

6:30-8:00 – Dinner (included)

8:00 pm – Round 3

10pm – Housing

Saturday, March 4

7:45 – R4 all events
1

11am – R5 – all events


1-2pm -- lunch


2pm – R6 –policy,

1st elim in other events, elims in all other events will continue throughout the day.

Elims in all events except varsity policy will conclude on Saturday.

5pm – 1st elim policy (All 4-2 teams, UP TO 32 teams) in varsity and (4-2 teams, up to 16 teams in novice policy)


7:30 – 2nd elim policy
10pm – housing

Sunday 8am

Remaining elims in policy

Some other portions of the Lakeland School District’s Conduct Policy

Visitors are expected to comport themselves in a manner that does not disrupt the order of schools or the educational process and in accordance with the law and this Code of Conduct.

The District encourages students to participate in curriculum related extra-curricular activity clubs and/or organizations. To the extent that the District authorizes meetings of non-curriculum related clubs or organizations, the same shall be subject to the constitution of the student government and shall be conducted in accordance with any applicable federal or state law, as well as Board of

Education policy or regulations.

Student Expression - Students shall be allowed the opportunity for the free expression of ideas consistent with rights established by the federal and state constitutions. However, a student’s freedom is subject to limitation in that the constitutional protections will not extend to libelous, slanderous, vulgar, lewd, indecent or obscene words or images or to words or images which by their very use incite others to damage property or physically injure persons. Any assembly or public expression on school grounds or at school activities that advocates the use of drugs or other substances that are illegal to minors is prohibited.

Harassment - means the creation of a hostile environment by conduct or by threats, intimidation or abuse that (a) has or would have the effect of unreasonably and substantially interfering with a student’s educational performance, opportunities or benefits, or mental, emotional or physical well- being; (b) reasonably causes or would reasonably be expected to cause a student to fear for his/her physical safety; (c) reasonably causes or would reasonably be expected to cause physical injury or emotional harm to a student; or (d) occurs off school property and creates or would foreseeably create a risk of substantial disruption within the school environment, where it is foreseeable that the conduct, threats, intimidation or abuse might reach school property.

The District will report any acts of violence against persons that constitute a crime, threatened acts of violence, and other violations of the Code of Conduct which constitute a crime and affect the order and security of the school to the appropriate local law enforcement agency (e.g., theft; destruction of school property; assault; false fire reports; arson; bomb threats; use, possession, distribution or sale of drugs or alcohol; use, possession, distribution or sale of a dangerous or deadly object or a potentially dangerous or deadly object) when the child is over the age of 16 or is 14 or 15 years old and qualifies for juvenile offender status.

The Board of Education recognizes that a learning environment that is safe and supportive can increase student attendance and improve academic achievement. A student’s ability to learn and achieve high academic standards, and a school’s ability to educate students, is compromised by incidents of discrimination or harassment, including but not limited to bullying, taunting, hazing and intimidation. The District will, therefore, strive to create an environment free of discrimination and harassment and will foster civility in the schools to prevent and prohibit conduct which is inconsistent with the District’s educational mission.

All Lakeland School District policies can be found here

http://www.lakelandschools.org/policies.cfm?sid=5

Stefan Bauschard
Tournament Director
Debate Coach, Lakeland Central School District