North Texas Longhorns District Qualifier

for the 2024 National Tournament

Congress Information

We invite the member schools of the North Texas Longhorn NSDA District to attend the Student Congress portion of the district tournament. The paragraphs below should help schools prepare and compete in the tournament.

DATE AND LOCATION

The Student Congress will take place on Friday, February 23rd at the Sockwell Center in Plano. The address of the location is 6301 Chapel Hill Blvd, Plano, TX 75093. We have held our competition in this facility before and it meets our needs very well.

SCHEDULE

We will begin the first day with registration and check in at 8:00 am.Preliminary sessions will begin no later than 8:30am. They will continue until 11:30am by which time they must be concluded. If we have two or more Houses, we will break contestants so at least 12 students with equal representation from each chamber will qualify for the final session. The final session will begin no later than 1:00pm. Depending on the number of entries, we will conduct sessions until 3:30pm but no later than 4:00pm. Awards will take place as soon as possible at the conclusion of the sessions.

The rules for conducting the Senate are at the bottom of this page. If entries warrant, the same procedures as are being followed in the House will be followed for determining Senate finalists. Otherwise, the Senate will be treated as one chamber with a single session lasting the entire day.

SUBMISSION OF LEGISLATION

Schools wishing to enter the Student Congress will be expected to submit legislation to Neal White , no later than Tuesday, January 30. You may submit legislation to Neal by e-mailing Neal.White@pisd.edu The procedure to do that is listed below. Each school may submit no more than two pieces of legislation. Efforts will be made to guarantee that each school submitting legislation is represented in the district tournament docket. If insufficient items are submitted, we will supplement from other sources.

PLEASE USE A MS WORD DOCUMENT TO SUBMIT YOUR LEGISLATION, USING APPROPRIATE FORMATTING. MAKE SURE YOU IDENTIFY YOUR SCHOOL ON THE LEGISLATION. PLEASE USE THE TEMPLATE THAT YOU WILL FIND ON THE NSDA WEBSITE.

The templates for the legislation may be found on the NSDA website. Please use those to make sure your legislation is in the appropriate format. If you follow that deadline, we will return the proposed legislation to you by Tuesday, February 6. Hopefully, that should give you ample time to get your students started on researching the legislation. Please be aware of the following as well: NSDA rules require any legislation submitted be the original work of the school/students submitting the legislation. Legislation that comes from other sources will be treated as plagiarism and the penalties will apply.

Special Note: As long as the legislation fits the NSDA template, schools may submit the same legislation as those items from their school that have been a part of this season's TFA docket. You may not submit the work of other schools for consideration. The work must be the original work of the submitting school.

ENTRY RULES AND PROCEDURES

You must enter the tournament on the tournament website on Tabroom.com. You must also complete the single entry letter of intent designation/registration if your student has competed or will compete in either/both of the individual events and debate portion of the district tournament. That link may be found on the previous page. The entry fee for Student Congress will be $30 per student. You must provide payment or proof of payment when you register.

You must notify the district chair (David Huston) by February 16 of your intent to enter the Congress. You may do so by entering students on the Tabroom.com website. That intent should include the names of your students. Other procedures for conducting the Student Congress will be explained in the following paragraphs.

LINKS FOR REGISTRATION FORMS AND LEGISLATION

Legislation will be sent to all member schools as an e-mail attachment or a provided link to a Google doc by the deadline listed above. We will also post the legislation on the Tabroom.com website as well.

PROCEDURES FOR CONDUCTING THE CONGRESS

Special Rules for the House

a. Depending on entries, there will be up to four preliminary chambers with schools equally represented in each.

b.Schools with multiple entries will submit student groupings on the tournament website. Registration will have the option to place students in chambers. Schools must balance their entries.

c. If coaches do not assign their students to chambers, the district committee will do so.

d. The first session will be scheduled to allow for 10 minutes of debate per student in the chamber. The goal will be to keep each chamber at 12-15 in the chamber. That will allow us to follow a schedule of 8:30-11:30 for that preliminary round.

e. Tabulation of results will take place during student lunch. If entries warrant, we will conduct a final House session consisting of no less than 12 students (example - top 3-4 from each chamber of 3-4 chambers). That session will begin no later than 1pm and again, go the requisite time limit of 10 minutes per person in the chamber.

f. Nominations: The scorers in each preliminary chamber will rank and nominate the top 8 students in each chamber. For each scorer, all remaining participants will receive a rank of "9"

g. Tabulation will follow the procedure outlined in the district tournament manual to determine the placings for each student and placement in the final chamber.

h. If necessary and entries warrant, after this verification period, the tournament committee will post the persons participating in the Final Session.

Special Rules for the Senate:

a. Based on the number of entries received, there may be one Senate session that will have the same parliamentarian for the day. If entries exceed twenty entries, we will plan to hold two chambers of the Senate, and follow the same procedures as the House for breaking to a Final Session.

b. The first session will be scheduled to allow for 10 minutes of debate per student in the chamber. The goal will be to keep each chamber with less than 18 people in the chamber. That will allow us to follow a schedule of 8:30-11:30am for that preliminary round. If there are fewer than 20 persons entered in the Senate, we will have two rounds of competition, with the afternoon session beginning no later than 1:00 and following the same procedures as the first.

c. Tabulation will follow the procedure outlined in the district tournament manual to determine the placings for each student

d. After tabulation and the announcement of awards, coaches will be allowed to view the results with explanations from the district committee.

Special Rules for Final Sessions (House and Senate)

a. The Final Session will start no later than 1:00pm. The timeframe for the session will allow for at least 10 minutes of time for each speaker.

b. Nominations for the top students and those representing the district at the National Student Congress will be done using the combined scores of the adult judges. Those procedures are outlined in the NSDA Unified Tournament Manual.

c. Tabulation of the results will be done by the district committee. Results are not final until they are audited by the national office. Once announcements of results have been made, coaches will have the opportunity to verify the committee’s work.If errors are found, the results will be corrected before they are submitted to the national office.