Dear Middle School Speech and Debate Coach:

We would like to invite you to Olle Middle School’s fourteenth annual speech, drama, and debate tournament. Olle Middle School is located in southwest Houston at 9200 Boone Road, Houston, Texas 77099.

Preliminary debate rounds will occur on Friday, February 6, with debate elimination rounds occurring on Saturday, February 7. All other events will occur on Saturday only! If your school is not debating, you do not have to attend the tournament on Friday, February 6.

Eligibility

This tournament is open to all accredited public and private schools (schools that students attend for compulsory attendance purposes).

We have also invited the following club-based entries to participate in our tournament:

Katy Speech and Debate Academy

Vallabh Vidya Mandir

These are the only club-based entries we will accept.

If a student competes for one of these club-based entries, and their accredited school is attending our tournament, that student must compete for their accredited school. Students who violate this rule will be disqualified.

Deadlines

Registration will open at 8:00 am on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. 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.

Because our campus is small, we must limit the size of our tournament. To give schools an equal opportunity to enter their students, we will implement the following procedures:

• When registration opens on Wednesday, December 3, each school will be initially limited to...

• 8 entries per event in individual events.

• 6 entries in Congressional Debate.

• 5 entries each in Lincoln-Douglas and public forum debate.

• 4 entries in world schools debate.

• After Wednesday, December 17, per-school entry limits will be increased if we have space.

New entries will not be accepted after 6:00 pm on Friday, January 23, 2026.

The drop deadline is 6:00 pm on Friday, January 30. Drops after this deadline will forfeit the original entry fee. You can make name substitutions during registration.

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, our alumni, and our community, as well as carefully selected high school students who have successfully competed in high school speech and debate.

If you have individual event entries, we are asking that you provide at least one qualified individual event judge. This judge will primarily be used during individual event finals on Saturday.

If you have debate entries, we are asking that you provide at least one qualified debate judge. This judge will primarily be used during preliminary debate rounds on Friday and elimination debate rounds on Saturday.

New This Year: No Electronic Device Usage Among Observers

This is a communication activity. Every speaker deserves a respectful audience, not an audience looking down at their electronic devices. For this reason, we are asking that observers refrain from using their electronic devices (cell phones and laptops) during rounds.

This policy alleviates issues with illegal communication during debate rounds and eliminates the recording of student performances (which is not allowed).

If an observer needs to use an electronic device, they should leave the competition room.

Of course, judges will be allowed to use their devices to submit electronic ballots.

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.

Questions

If you have any questions, you may contact George Tennison at (281) 983-8455 or gttennis@ga.aliefisd.net. We look forward to seeing you in February.

Sincerely,

Mr. George Tennison—Director of Speech and Debate