AWARDS INFO

Curious about who gets recognized & gets awards during the ceremony? Click here.

Want to see the awards livestream? Click here.


WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE GETTING HARDWARE AND WON'T BE AT THE CEREMONY
Unfortunately, we cannot ship your awards. If you have a student (or students) getting hardware and you will not be at the ceremony, please contact another coach from your league (or your League President) and ask them to pick up the trophies for you at the end of the ceremony. Any unclaimed awards will be assumed not wanted and returned to be re-plated next year.



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Congratulations on qualifying for the California High School Speech Association State Championship! We are so excited to have you join us for our first fully in-person State in three years! While things may look a little different this year than how you remember from before, our goal of empowering the students of California through top tier competition remains the same. We're so happy to have you join us!

If you need help with any part of this process, your League President and Area Chair are awesome folks to help you navigate registration (and everything leading up to and during the State Tournament itself!).

Please note: ONLY students who qualified to State during local State Qualifying Tournaments can attend CHSSA State 2023. If you're unsure if that is your student, please contact your League President and they can assist you.

Additionally, please be aware: only the coach of record on the CHSSA membership form that was submitted to your Area Chair earlier in the year may register students for State. Students may not enter themselves and no independent (non-school site) entries are allowed. If an entry is found to be created by a non-coach (ie: a student) that entry will be removed.

** This page is for the CHSSA HIGH SCHOOL State Championship only.

If you are looking for the MIDDLE SCHOOL State Championship, click here. **

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TOURNAMENT LOCATION

Carlsbad High School

3557 Lancer Way

Carlsbad, CA 92008

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NEW FOR 2023

JUDGE BOND | After a vote by the CHSSA board on August 20, 2023, two key changes now apply to the judge bond:

* The judge bond has been raised to $150 per school

* All judge bonds will automatically rollover to cover your school’s 2023-2024 CHSSA Membership Dues unless you fill out the Refund Request Form from Tabroom and upload it back in through Tabroom.

JUDGE OBLIGATION: To facilitate double entry, schedule and room limitations, and to hopefully allow judges to have semi-humane individual assignments, the judge obligation across the board this year is 1 judge for every 3 entries or fraction thereof. There will be two judge pools: speech and debate (debate will include Congress).

We do allow single day judges, but a judge does need to potentially be available for all rounds on a day they are signed up for. This means we can’t allow any partial-day judges. Here’s an example of what that could like:

Let’s pretend South High has 1 LDer and 2 PF teams coming to State. That means that South High has to provide 1 debate judge each day: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. One option is that South High can have their coach Petey Ronald judge all 3 days. If Coach Petey doesn’t want to judge that much (or can’t), South High can alternatively choose to split their obligation. Maybe Coach Petey covers Friday and Sunday, while Assistant Principal Toby Cummings judges Saturday. Or maybe team parent Roscoe Niemi judges Friday, Assistant Principal Toby judges Saturday, and coach Petey judges Sunday. There’s a ton of flexibility here and all we care about is that we have a thoughtful, safe grown up who is sitting in the back of the room and giving great feedback to our kiddos.

Please note: as always at State, there is no judge buyout option through CHSSA, so please plan accordingly.

Please note: first year out judges are not allowed at the CHSSA State Championship.

DOUBLE ENTRY | Double entry is back, but please remember that there are still some limitations outlined in our long-standing rules: Congress (and PO) contestants may not double enter in any other event, Parliamentary Debate contestants may not double enter in Extemporaneous (but other speech events are fine!), Extemporaneous contestants may not double enter in Parliamentary Debate (but other debate events, except Congress, are fine!), no contestant may double enter in two speech events, and no contestant may double enter in two debate events. That’s a lot to absorb, right? I get it. If you want to read the actual rule for yourself, click here, go to page 7, and take a very exciting look at section H.

PAYMENTS | This year all payments are going directly to our Treasurer and not your Area Chair. Please make sure that all physical payments are sent to the address on the invoice only and please make sure they are sent with tracking. If you need an updated W9 for your finance folks, you can find it on the right side menu under "Financial Info."

DANCE | Unfortunately, there will not be a dance this year. We do hope to bring that back in future years!

HOTELS |This year, CHSSA does not have guaranteed hotel blocks to share. Please book your own rooms directly. Please note that Carlsbad is a beach community, so things in the city itself can be a bit expensive-- we recommend looking north toward Oceanside or inland a bit to more accessible room rates. There are many economical hotels within a 15 minute drive from campus.

IN-PERSON REGISTRATION

You may recall that in the past, CHSSA has always had a physical tournament registration for a few hours Friday morning before the tournament starts. This year, due to scheduling constraints, we will not be doing that. Instead, we are going to trust that you will share with your students their codes from Tabroom, that those competitors will be where they need to be when they need to be there, and that your judges will similarly be briefed and ready.

Instead, we ask that when you arrive at the tournament, that the Coach heads to our Help Desk to check in. There, we can give you tournament programs, a pennant for your classroom, a commemorative plaque (if you order one, see that note below!), and answer any questions you may have. This is also where all vouchers for the Food Insecurity Program will be picked up.

A note on commemorative plaques: Every school team that qualifies to the CHSSA State Championship may request to receive a personalized, commemorative, wooden plaque (that has a place for a team photo!) at no cost. These are a wonderful addition to team classrooms, trophy cases, school front offices, or a gift to a very supportive administrator. This plaque will be available at the tournament Help Desk for the Coach to pick up Friday and Saturday during the tournament.

In order to reduce waste and excess cost, we are ordering these on an on-demand basis. If your team would like to receive one of these plaques, please fill out this Google Form by March 31, 2023 at 5 PM PT.

RULES GOVERNING THE TOURNAMENT | Click here

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HEALTH & SAFETY PROTOCOL

* We ask that our community members prioritize health and safety above all other constraints during this tournament and always. We ask that all competitors and judges follow appropriate school, local, and state health guidelines when it comes to things like social distancing, masking, and handwashing for the duration of the tournament and beyond.

* The tournament does not have a mask mandate, but judges will be instructed to not penalize competitors who choose or need to wear a medical face mask (ie: N95, KN95, etc.) while competing.

* The tournament does not have a vaccine mandate, but the California High School Speech Association strongly encourages all community members to follow appropriate medical and scientific guidance. With a large event like ours, the guidance is clear that vaccination is the most effective way to keep our community as safe as possible.

* We ask that all teams bring and have available rapid, at-home Covid tests for your group (you can usually get these for free from your school site or district). Hopefully, you will not end up needing these items. That said, if anyone affiliated with your team is showing symptoms of Covid, the procedure will be as follows:

– 1: If you have brought Covid tests, the person showing symptoms will be asked to come to the tournament office and take a test in a private space. If negative, they may return to the tournament (though if they are otherwise sick, we will encourage them to mask) . If positive, they will be asked to put on a mask and leave the school site.

– 2: If you did not bring the self-supplied Covid test, the person showing symptoms will be asked to put on a mask and leave the school site. Please note: we will not have time to wait for someone to go buy a test, so please bring some tests with you to avoid folks being asked to leave.