Dear Middle School Speech and Debate Coach:

We would like to invite you to Stephen F. Austin (FBISD) High School’s eleventh annual speech, drama, and debate tournament. After two years of virtual competition, we are excited to welcome middle school students back to our campus for face-to-face competition. Stephen F. Austin (FBISD) High School is located in Sugarland at 3434 Pheasant Creek, Richmond, TX  77498.

Preliminary debate rounds will occur on Friday, November 11, with debate elimination rounds occurring on Saturday, November 12. All other events will occur on Saturday only! If your school is not debating, you do not have to attend the tournament on Friday, November 11. 

Deadlines

Registration will open at 8:00 am on Monday, September 26, 2022. Once we reach capacity, new schools will not be able to register. Traditionally, our tournament fills quickly, so we encourage you to register as soon as possible. 

New entries will not be accepted after 4:00 pm on Thursday, November 3.

The drop deadline is 4:00 pm on Tuesday, November 8. Drops after this deadline will forfeit the original entry fee. You can make name substitutions during registration. 

Schedule

Depending on the number of entries and available judges, our Friday debate schedule may change to single-flighted.  We will make every effort to provide updates for the coaches and students.

We will keep a strict late policy of ten minutes. If a debater is not in the room within ten minutes of the start time, they will forfeit that round. If a competitor is not in a room by 10 minutes after the last speaker in the round, the competitor will be marked as a no-show.

Cross Entry

When deciding to make cross-entries, please consider the timing of events. We will make every effort to section the students in their events so that they are able to make all of their events. Please communicate with your students the importance of going to a section at the right time, so that we can keep the tournament on schedule. Judges will know which students are cross-entered on their ballots.

Judging

Since our tournament is limited in size, we focus on providing the best judging possible. We believe that quality, constructive judging is crucial to the development of middle school performers. Consequently, our judging pool consists of trained adults from our faculty, and our community, as well as carefully selected FBISD high school students who are in honor societies.

Additional Information

A plethora of important tournament information may be found to your right. For example, event rules may be found by clicking the Events & Divisions tab and clicking on each event.

Coaches are responsible for the information posted under Tournament Pages & Forms. In particular, please read the information on the Safety Procedures page.  

Questions

If you have any questions, you may contact Ruby Stuart at 281-634-6671 or Hongnhung.stuart@fortbendisd.com. We look forward to seeing you in November.

Sincerely,

Ruby Stuart—Director of Speech and Debate