Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the 2020 NPDL-TOC has been cancelled. We will not be holding an online TOC this season. The full text of the announcement can be viewed by clicking on the button in the sidebar on the right.

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Dear Competitors and Coaches,

We are delighted to invite all qualifying teams to the 2020 NPDL Tournament of Champions, which will feature seven preliminary rounds of parliamentary debate, followed by elimination rounds. We will bring together the most successful high school parliamentary debaters in the United States for the premier tournament of the year.

Links

Tabroom: http://npdltoc.tabroom.com/

NPDL: http://toc.parli.us/

Schedule: see sidebar

Staff: see sidebar

Round Rules and Tournament Procedures: see sidebar

Date and Location

The tournament will be held on April 4 and 5, 2020, at the Bentley Upper School, 1000 Upper Happy Valley Road, Lafayette, CA 94549. (Bentley also has a lower school in Oakland.) The nearest airport is Oakland, but SFO is also feasible.

Required Forms

Autoqual
Beginning on February 1, 2020, please register on the NPDL website as an auto-qualified team for the 2020 NPDL-TOC. The deadline to accept such bids is 11:59 PM (Pacific Time) on March 3, 2020.

At-large
If you do not autoqualify, you may apply for an at-large bid for the 2020 NPDL-TOC. The At-Large Application will open on February 1, 2020. The deadline to submit at-large applications is 11:59 PM (Pacific Time) on March 3, 2020.

School Release Form & Parent Release Form
A coach or adult representative must upload school and parent release forms for each team member (4 forms total) here. These forms are found in the sidebar. Digitally signed forms are NOT accepted; forms must be signed by hand before being scanned. The forms must be uploaded by March 12, 2020.

NPDL Membership Form
All students competing must attend NPDL member schools, unless they are entered as independents.
To check whether your school is an NPDL member, and to register it for NPDL if it's not, click here. NPDL membership registration is due March 15.

Tabroom Registration

Once you have confirmed that you have a bid to NPDL-TOC, please register for the tournament on Tabroom. 

Entry Fees

The entry fee for one team will be $150, which must be *received* no later than March 31, 2020.

There is an additional $50 processing fee per independent entry.

Schools making drops after March 27, 2020 at 5:00 PM (Pacific Time) will be responsible for all entry and judge fees.

Fees may be paid online or by check payable to the National Parliamentary Debate League, and mailed to

1522 Parkmont Drive
San Jose CA 95131
c/o NPDL

If the check is not from the school, the memo should specify the school name.

If any of the above fees would be a hardship for you, please email the tournament director at npdlboard+TOCDIRECTOR@gmail.com by March 20, 2020 to request a partial waiver.

Fines

All fines must be cleared before elimination rounds are announced. Nuisance fines will be assessed for the following:

$50
- Team does not submit entry fees or hired judge fees prior to the posted deadline (if applicable)
- Team has a judge add or change after the posted judge deadline
- Team’s judge is more than ten minutes late to a round
- Team’s judge requires tab staff intervention to set up or link a Tabroom.com account

$100
- Team’s judge misses a single round

$250 (judge bond)
- Team’s judge is missing for more than one round (does not stack on previous fine; $250 total fine)

Judging

Each team must register a judge by March 12, 2020.

After that date, you may be responsible for a hired judge fee if you have not registered a judge.

All judges are required to have Tabroom paradigms by 5:00 PM (Pacific Time) on March 21, 2020.
A judge without a paradigm by the deadline will not count toward a school’s obligation.

Each school must provide a $250 judge bond, unless unless it is covering its entries entirely with hired judges . The judge bond must be a check, and must be separate from the check covering entry fees.

The judge bond checks can be either
- mailed along with the entry fees, with the memo specifying that it's a judge bond, or
- hand-delivered to the NPDL Treasurer, Artem Raskin, during on-site registration on April 4.

The judge bond check will be returned to the school at the end of the tournament if a school owes no money. If a school representative does not pick up the check at the end of the tournament, it will be shredded.

If a school has three or more rounds of total judge delinquencies, all of the school’s entries will lose their prefs for the remainder of the tournament.

The judges you bring are obligated until one round after all teams from your school are eliminated.

Hired judges will cost $250 per judge. A one-day-only hired judge costs $125 per judge.
You may request hired judges through Tabroom. Once a hired judge is assigned to you, you will be financially obligated for that hire even if you bring a judge. Hired judge requests are due March 11, 2020.

If you wish to be considered for the hired judge pool, please complete this form.

Mutual Judging Preferences

We plan to use mutual judging preferences to assign judges. Prefs will open at 9:00 AM on March 22, 2020 and close at 5:00 PM (Pacific Time) on April 1, 2020. Please contact npdlboard+TOCDIRECTOR@gmail.com if you need assistance entering prefs.

Food

Water will be freely available at the tournament site. We ask that participants bring reusable bottles to help minimize waste.

Schools may add food vouchers to their invoice under the “Concessions” tab for each person who wishes to eat site-provided food. Food vouchers purchased on the tournament website before March 31 will cost $10 per person. After March 31, vouchers go up to $15 per person. Vegetarian options will be available. All judges hired by the tournament will be fed at the tournament’s expense. Individual schools may request food voucher waivers based on financial need from the Tournament Director.

Tournament Hotel

The tournament official tournament hotel is the Embassy Suites Walnut Creek, which is offering a discounted rate. More information here.

Attire

The dress code for TOC is that there is no dress code. Casual attire encouraged.

2021 Bids

If your school interested in bidding to host TOC 2021, please complete this form.

Observers and Recordings

Non-participants may observe rounds, subject to the right of the tournament to exclude individuals from rounds or the campus based on potential disruption or security concerns. Rounds may be recorded; participation constitutes consent to such recording.

We look forward to hosting you in the Bay Area this Spring!