Southern Minnesota District Qualifier

for the 2024 National Tournament

Judge Conflict Policy

Judges Currently Affiliated with a School: Any judge currently affiliated with a school should refrain from judging students from that school. School affiliation includes coaches, teachers, administrators, and parents with a child attending the school.

Family Members of Coaches: Immediate family members (parents, children, or siblings) and spouses and domestic partners of coaches shall be considered affiliated with the coach’s school.

Former students: Former students of a program who have not coached at any program will be considered affiliated with the high school they attended for a minimum of four years. After four years, the former student will be prohibited from judging any remaining active teammates.

Former affiliates: Any individual, such as a coach, teacher, administrator, parent, spouse/partner, etc., who has ended their affiliation with a particular school will not be assigned to judge that school for two full years after the affiliation has ended. For instance, if someone coached at ABC High School through June 2021 and then left to coach at another program, they would be ineligible to judge ABC High School in 2022 and 2023 but would become eligible to judge ABC High School in September 2023. The former affiliate should not judge any students who were on the team when they were affiliated. The former affiliate is also responsible for reporting any conflicts that might extend beyond this two-year period.

Summer Camps & Similar Affiliations: Instructors who work with students in a general summer camp setting (or a similar program) are not automatically considered conflicted. However, if the instructor has a specific connection to the student or to the speech (e.g., helped the student cut the piece or edit the oration), a conflict does exist, and the instructor is considered affiliated with that student (but may judge other students from the school). In speech and debate, a specific connection may involve the instructor having the student in their lab and working closely for several weeks. The judge has a proactive duty to inform the tab room about a specific conflict.

Judge Discretion: A judge should report any potential conflicts to the tab room before the tournament begins. A judge may choose to excuse themselves from judging a particular student or school for reasons beyond those mentioned above. However, a judge cannot override the conflict rules stated above to be placed as a judge.

Judges and coaches should proactively enter their conflicts within tabroom.com. Prior to the start of a round, judges and coaches should immediately report to the committee any conflicts that were not known to determine if remediation is needed.

We understand that it is impossible to indicate and identify all potential conflicts that a judge might have. We invite coaches and judges to always share potential issues prior to the start of a round.