WASDL Public Forum Policy and Congress MetroFinals

2026 — Arlington, VA/US

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Arlington Congress

Event Description:

Washington Area Speech and Debate League Student Congress Metropolitan Championship Final Tournament

March 13 - 14, 2026 (March 13 - virtual / March 14 - in-person)

Washington Liberty High School, 1301 N Stafford St, Arlington, VA 22201

These instructions will guide you to register eligible students and judges for Student Congress MetroFinals on Friday-Saturday, March 13 - 14. Please adhere to deadlines and other instructions carefully. To ensure that students have a reasonable amount of time to prepare for Metro Final competition, exceptions to this schedule or deadlines cannot be made.

Please note that although this is a two-day tournament, Washington Schools compete only on Saturday (in-person) while Arlington Schools compete on both Friday and Saturday. with Friday being virtual.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

1. Student registration has three components. Both the student registration and legislation upload must be completed by 9 pm on Tuesday, March 3, 2026.

1. Each eligible student must be entered by the coach in Tabroom.com. It is the coach’s responsibility to enter students in the correct diocese. If your school is in DC or MD, you are in the Washington Diocese. If you are in Virginia, you are in the Arlington Diocese. In Tabroom, you will be asked to indicate how the student qualified for MetroFinals. WASDL does not identify eligible competitors, but it does validate and confirm your registration.

2. For schools with multiple student entries, one piece of legislation should be submitted per 2 students or fraction thereof. For schools with 1 student, 1 piece of legislation should be submitted. Legislation is on a topic of their choice and must be in proper PDF format to be included.

3. In addition, each Arlington school must submit one piece of legislation on a topic of their choice to be considered during the Final round on Saturday afternoon. Coaches must upload legislation via Tabroom.com. It should not be emailed.

Please ensure that your student's name and your school name are on the legislation. Only your school name should appear on the school legislation for the final round.

1. Judge Registration. Each school must provide one judge (with experience judging at least two WASDL Student Congresses) for every three students, or fraction thereof. Each school must assume that their judges will be judging any and all rounds in which their Diocese is competing.

2. Legislation may be on any topic of the student's choice. However, frivolous legislation, whether frivolous in topic choice or in treatment of a topic, will not be considered. In addition, poorly written and incorrectly formatted legislation will not be selected. Please examine the bill and resolution template found on the WASDL website for the proper format. Templates are also at the bottom of this document. Also confirm the legislation contains the proper numbering. When there are duplicate topics, the best legislation will be selected for consideration at the MetroFinal tournament.

3. In Tabroom.com, after you enter a student into the tournament, you will see a “Legislation” tab. By clicking on that tab, you will be able to upload the legislation for each student. You will need to provide a piece of legislation for every 2 students or fraction thereof and indicate if the legislation is Domestic, Economic, or International. As the coach, you want to make sure the legislation from your school is distributed across all three (3) categories.

4. To upload the piece of school-provided legislation for the Final Sessions, please add a “Competitor” to your team in Tabroom with the first name “LEGISLATION” and last name of your school. Then when uploading the legislation, please indicate the “School” category. Legislation should be uploaded as PDFs. When uploading the PDF file in Tabroom, ensure the Legislation Title follows this naming format exactly: topic area, letter, number, colon, title. For example: I1401: A Bill to Fix the Universe.

5. MetroFinals legislation will be posted on Tabroom.com no later than the evening of Thursday, March 5 at 9:00 pm.

6. Call-ups, if any, for the Metro Final tournament will begin March 4th.

7. The drop deadline for students is Tuesday, March 10 at 9:00 pm. Any drop reported after that date does not relieve a school of judging obligations nor of Metro Final entry fees.

8. Registration fees for MetroFinals are in addition to the annual league membership dues. Schools must pay $20 per student entered into the tournament.

9. If there are any questions or concerns, coaches can email Sheryl Gusman at sheryl.gusman@lcps.org.

TOURNAMENT INFORMATION

1. 1. This is a two-day tournament for Arlington and one-day for Washington. Please understand that actual registration numbers could create a need to change the session times on either day. As soon as we know the registration numbers, we will notify you of the schedule. Results for Arlington will be posted Friday night, indicating students who qualify to compete on Saturday. Judging requirements on Saturday are the same as Friday, one judge for every 3 students or fraction thereof. Times are firm. We will begin promptly. If students are not there, we will begin and students risk being dropped from the competition. Please ensure that students have their own copies of each piece of legislation in advance of the tournament. Students must participate in all preliminary sessions of the MetroFinal tournament in order to be eligible for qualification to the NCFL Grand National tournament. Tournament Format is laid out below but actual registration numbers could necessitate changing the session times or sizes on either day. We will confirm the numbers after registration closes

• Arlington, Friday, Quarter-Finals, All Competing

• We anticipate 4- 6 Chambers of approximately 15 students each

• 2 Speeches are required to advance

• The Top 6 from each Chamber will advance to the Arlington Semis

• Arlington, Saturday Morning, Semi-Finals

• We anticipate 2-3 Chambers of approximately 15-18 students each

• 1 Speech is required to advance

• The Top 6 from each Chamber will advance to the Arlington Finals

• Arlington, Saturday Afternoon, Finals

• There will be 1 Chamber of approximately 12 students

• 1 Speech is required to advance to NCFL Nationals

• The Top 6 from this Chamber will advance to NCFL Nationals

• Washington, Saturday Morning, Finals

• There will be 1 Chamber of approximately 15 students

• 1 Speech is required to advance to NCFL Nationals

• The Top 5 from this Chamber will advance to NCFL Nationals

1. A seeding list determines who shall preside and who will be chairpersons of committees during the Metro Final tournament. If no seeded persons choose to preside, elections will be held. Only those students with previous presiding officer experience this year will be eligible to act as presiding officers at the Metro Final tournament.

2. Students will not know their chamber assignments in advance to the competition. If students attempt to engage in pre-competition or pre-session communication in order to strategize how session activities will occur, our expectation is that these communication activities will be: (1) accessible to ALL who desire to participate; (2) conducted respectfully and in the spirit of collegial sportspersonship; and (3) inclusive of all students from diverse backgrounds and identities. Any inappropriate communication or actions should be brought to a coach’s attention, who should bring them to WASDL officers. WASDL will turn the matter over to the appropriate school authorities.

QUALIFICATION FOR NCFL GRAND NATIONAL TOURNAMENT

Six students from the Arlington Diocese and six students from the Washington Archdiocese will qualify to the NCFL Grand National Tournament over Memorial Day weekend.

STUDENT CONGRESS METROFINAL TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE

Friday, March 13, 2026 - Arlington Only, Virtual

Registration (Arlington Only) 3:45 – 4:15 p.m.

Committees 4:15 – 4:45

Judge Briefing 4:15 – 4:45

Round 1 of 3 4:45 – 6:00

Dinner 6:00 – 6:45

Round 2 of 3 6:45 – 8:00

Round 3 of 3 8:15 – 9:30

Saturday, March 14, 2026 - Arlington and Washington, In-person

Arlington Diocese:

Registration 8:00 - 8:30 am
Committees 8:30 - 9:00 am

Session 1 of 2 9:00 - 10:15 am

Session 2 of 2 10:30 - 11:45 am

Lunch
Arlington Finals, Announcements & Committees 12:30 - 1:00 pm

Arlington Finals, Session 1 of 1 1:00 - 2:30 pm

Washington Archdiocese:

Registration 8:00 - 8:30 a.m.

Committees 8:30 - 9:00 am

Washington Finals, Session 1 9:00 - 10:15 am

Washington Finals, Session 2 10:30 - 11:45 am