Welcome back to school!

Please find the invitation to the 2021 Sparkman Invitational below and at the invitation page. While COVID has been devastating for many of our programs and no one knows for sure what this season is going to look like, our goal is to provide an opportunity for students to compete in person, even if it’s to a lesser extent than many of us were dreaming would be possible. Please know that this is our aspiration for the tournament at this point, but things could change due to realities of COVID (e.g. we could go to being entirely virtual with no entry limits, etc.). Here are a few major components to note:

1 – To ensure the safety of our students and community, and in following with CDC and local health official guidelines, we have been asked by our administration to limit tournaments to only students in our immediate proximity and to require masking at all times by all competitors, judges, coaches, and other members. This means, unfortunately, we will only be allowed to accept entries from schools that are in our NSDA and MSHSAA district. We know this means that many of our friends won’t be able to join us in person this year, and for that we are devastated. 

2 – To keep the number of people in a room limited while still getting the educational benefits of performing live (and seeing excellence performed) we are going to be having all preliminary rounds of individuals events performed asynchronously and turned in on Wednesday. All rounds of debate AND FINALS OF I.E.S, will be live and in-person.

3 – All entries are due on October 1, 2021 at 3:00 p.m. on Sparkman.tabroom.com.

4 – The novice policy supplement is significantly different from years past.

See you in October,

Chris and Allen

Here are google doc versions of the invite and novice evidence pack:

1 – Invite: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ErnKMQK6vogA38xVw9jBe55jGIE2I2ulpfJY3Qn_q4Q/edit?usp=sharing

2 – Novice: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NxcS-AIgEkIsJPWwwpE_9fVXDOfp3mvvBtugq4LVWmM/edit?usp=sharing

If you have questions in the meantime, feel free to email ccroberds@spsmail.org.

*** UPDATE 9/17/21***

There are two exciting updates:

1 - Based on newer CDC information and permission from our district, we are now able to allow students to be unmasked WHILE THEY ARE PERFORMING in the room. Students will walk to the front of the room masked, provide whatever information they need to start their speech, remove their mask, and begin. When they are finished with their performance, they should place their mask back on their face and continue to the hall, their seat, etc. Students still will need to be masked at all other times (when they are flowing a round, when they are walking between rooms, when they are hanging out in your squad room, etc.) and all adults will need to be masked at all times. This should enable students to perform at the same level in finals of i.e.s that they did in their preliminary sections.

2 - Based on feedback from other coaches and the reality that KHS has homecoming on the 8th, the decision has been made to have the entire tournament at Glendale High School. Since many of our novices and JV students have never been to an in person tournament before, this should allow them to get help from all coaches, other varsity students, etc. and should facilitate a smoother run tournament. This also provides the opportunity for novices to watch varsity out-rounds for speech and quarters of debate so they can learn from the excellent performers.