Welcome to the registration homepage for the 2021 VHSL Region 5B Debate tournament!

Entries
Each team may enter up to 2 Policy (CX) teams, 2 Public Forum (PF) teams, 3 Lincoln–Douglas (LD) debaters, and 6 Student Congress representatives.

Entries are due no later than Friday, February 26, 2021, at 6:00 PM.

Each student entered in Student Congress must submit a piece of legislation through the official VHSL Student Congress website no later than Friday, February 26, 2021, at 11:59 PM. Any student who does not submit legislation by this deadline will be ineligible to compete.

In order to access rounds and ballots, it is IMPERATIVE that each of your competitors and judges has created an account here on Tabroom and has linked it to your school! See the video links below for instructions on linking accounts.

Each team will have a squad room on its dashboard for the day, which is a good place for the team to congregate between rounds.

Judging Requirements
- A team with 1 or 2 total entries between PF and LD must provide 1 judge.
- A team with 3 or 4 total entries between PF and LD must provide 2 judges.
- A team with 5 total entries between PF and LD must provide 3 judges.
- A team with any entries in Policy must provide 1 judge who can judge that event.
- A team with any entries in Congress but no entries in any other events must provide 1 judge who can judge PF/LD.

Judges may be asked to judge PF, LD, or both, depending on the needs of the tournament. Four PF/LD judges from schools without Congress entries will be needed to judge a session of Congress.

Judges will be paid $20 per round of PF/LD and $30 per round of Policy/Congress.

Schedule
School check-in will open at 8:00 AM. Once all of your students and judges have been accounted for, please log into the Zoom meeting to check in. The Zoom meeting will be open throughout the day if you have any questions or issues.

The following schedule is based on last year's tournament. If the number of entries differs significantly from last year, this schedule will be modified accordingly.

All Events:
Round 0: 9:30 AM
Awards: 6:00 PM (or ASAP)

Congress:
Session 1: 10:00 AM
Session 2: 12:30 PM

Lincoln–Douglas:
Round 1: 10:00 AM
Round 2: 11:00 AM
Round 3: 12:30 PM
Quarterfinals: 1:45 PM
Semifinals: 3:15 PM
Final: 4:30 PM

Public Forum:
Round 1: 10:00 AM
Round 2: 11:00 AM
Round 3: 12:30 PM
Round 4: 1:45 PM
Semifinals: 3:15 PM
Final: 4:30 PM

Policy:
TBD

In LD and PF, Rounds 1 and 2 will be randomly paired, while Round 3 (and Round 4 in PF) will be power-paired.

Awards & Sweepstakes
Awards will be presented as soon as possible after the conclusion of the final round. The tabroom staff will email coaches with a Zoom meeting link to forward to their team in advance of the awards presentation.

The top 3 finishers in PF and CX, the top 4 finishers in LD, and the top 12 finishers in Congress will advance to the VHSL 5AB Super-Region tournament, to be held on Saturday, April 10, 2021. The next-place finisher in PF/LD/CX and the three next-place finishers in Congress will be alternates.

Sweepstakes points will be awarded on a 7-5-3-1 basis for all four events. The top three schools will be recognized.

Technology Considerations
Once again, it is absolutely critical that all students and judges create and link Tabroom.com accounts prior to the start of the tournament!

Students will access their competition rooms through Tabroom.com and NSDA Campus. Due to restrictions placed on school-issued devices, some students have had trouble accessing NSDA Campus rooms. We will run a brief "Round 0" at 9:30 AM in order to ensure that all students and judges are able to access their competition rooms without any difficulty.

The tournament staff recommends that, before the day of the competition, all students attempt to access a test competition room on NSDA Campus from the device they plan to use to test out any potential issues and that all students have a backup device (smartphone, laptop, tablet, etc.) available if at all possible.

Students competing in partnered events (PF and CX) are encouraged to be in the same room as one another during the competition so that they may communicate privately and easily during their prep time. If partners are not able to be in physical proximity to one another due to transportation or health concerns, they will be permitted to use FaceTime or another similar app to communicate privately during prep time only.

Helpful Links/Videos
For judges:
Volunteer Judge Training Website: https://sites.google.com/view/judge-training/home
How to set up a Tabroom account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyTqMwhRJpo
How to use NSDA Campus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOFxYV2BZN0

For coaches:
Video - Linking student accounts in Tabroom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YNrHUweRPA
Video - How to create a Tabroom account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXATZZAWJEY
Video - How to register for a Tabroom tournament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc3pdZi5WXM
Video - NSDA campus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHfmzeygIwE

For students:
Video - how to use NSDA campus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocCK7jasgGc