Topic announcements & Zoom link:

https://www.parliamentarydebate.org/topics

The National Parliamentary Debate League is pleased to invite you to the NPDL National Tournament - an online high school parliamentary debate championship open to teams from across the US.

Staff
Click here to apply.

Finances

Entry fee: $80 per team

Independent entry / Non-member school fee: $50 per team (in addition to the entry fee)

Hired judging: $125 per uncovered team

All fines must be cleared before elimination rounds are announced. Nuisance fines will be assessed for the following:
$50 fine - Team does not submit entry fees or hired judge fees prior to the posted deadline (if applicable)
$50 fine - Team has a judge add or change after the posted judge deadline
$50 fine - Team’s judge is more than ten minutes late to a round
$50 fine - Team’s judge requires tab staff intervention to set up or link a Tabroom.com account
$100 fine - Team’s judge misses a single round
$100 fine - Team’s judge is missing a paradigm at the start of the tournament
$250 fine - Team’s judge is missing for more than one round (does not stack on previous fine)

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

Rodda John
257 Gold St. Apt 8B
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Checks should indicate the school name.

Schools for which payment is a barrier to entry should request a full or partial fee waiver by emailing npdl.board+nationals@gmail.com

Deadlines
NPDL membership registration deadline: March 15, 11:59PM (Pacific)
Registration closes: Friday, April 7, 11:59PM (Pacific)
Hired judge requests due: Saturday, April 8, 11:59PM (Pacific)
Judges entry due: Tuesday, April 11, 11:59PM (Pacific)
Forms due for all participants: Tuesday, April 11, 11:59PM (Pacific) - see sidebar
Entry/judge fee payment must arrive by: Wednesday, April 12, 11:59PM (Pacific) - see above
Judge strikes due: Thursday, April 13, 5:00PM (Pacific)

Eligibility
- Every school may enter up to 10 teams in open and 10 teams in novice. Any additional teams will be waitlisted.
- Only high school teams are eligible.
- All students must be registered under their school or designated as “[SCHOOL NAME] Independent.” Hybrid teams of students from different schools should be registered using both school names.
- Each school is allowed one hybrid entry.
- A homeschooled debater who affiliates with a member school does not count toward the one-hybrid-per-school cap. Such debaters are also exempted from the $50 non-member fee.

Mavericks
- Ordinarily, both partners should debate in every round.
- In unusual circumstances where one partner is ill, has technological problems, or otherwise unavailable, the other partner may compete as a maverick in prelims.
- If a team mavericks for more than one prelim, they cannot break.
- The missing partner will be assigned 24 speaker points for the round.
- Mavericks may not compete in elimination rounds.

Divisions
- There will be two divisions - Open and Novice.
- A novice debater is a freshman or a sophomore who is in their first academic year of debate competition.
- A freshman or sophomore in their second academic year of debate competition may also enter as a novice if they have competed in no more than three debate tournaments total.
- A novice team is composed of two novice debaters.

Judges

The judge requirement is 1 judge per 2 entries.
The judge ratio is rounded up.
The judge requirement is calculated separately for Open and Novice.
For example, 3 Open entries and 5 Novice entires would be covered by a total of 5 judges (2 for Open, 3 for Novice).

All judges from a given school are obligated for one round past the elimination of the last team from their school.

Each team may strike up to 2 judges.

A judge must:
- be fluent in English,
- be familiar with the basic rules of parliamentary debate,
- have a device with a working camera and audio,
- have experience using video conferencing,
- be at least 18 years old and not be a current high school student,
- be reachable at all times by phone while they are in the judge pool.

After submitting their ballots, judges may - but are not required to - give a brief RFD (reason for decision) and/or disclose the winner of the round. Judges on a panel should decide independently, and not confer with other judges about the result before all judges have submitted their ballots.

Round Rules
We will use the NPDL Round Rules.
Internet prep allowed, partner prep only.

Tabulation
See sidebar

Schedule
See sidebar

Staff
See sidebar

Awards
Awards will be given to all teams that break to elimination rounds.

Topic Area
One prelim will be about the following topic area:
Artificial Intelligence

Meeting of Members
The NPDL Meeting of Members will be held on Sunday, April 16, 1-2:30PM (Pacific Time), i.e. 4-5:30PM (Eastern Time).
The Zoom link and other details will be sent to all member school representatives.

Short URL
npdlnationals.tabroom.com