CFL League Speech State Qualifiers

CFL League Speech State Qualifiers

• Location: Palo Alto High School
• Date: Sunday, March 1, 2026

Need help DURING the tournament? Email the Help Desk at coastforensicleague2@gmail.com.

Docs

• Tournament Live Doc
• Map
• Extemp Live Doc TBA

Locations

• Extemp Prep: Student Center Building
• Tabroom: 526
• Judge's Lounge: Library
• Student Lounge: Media Arts Center (MAC) Building

Entries

• Your school CFL AND CHSSA membership must be completed in order to attend this tournament.
• Entries and judges are due Thursday, February 26 @ 8 pm. Please do not asks for adds after this date.
• Entries will be taken off the waitlist after your school has fulfilled its judging obligation.

• Events offered: Dec, DI, Duo, HI, Imp, Info, IX, NX, OA, OO, OPP, POI

• Every school is allotted 22 guaranteed entry spots to the state qualifying tournament with no more than 5 in each event. These spots do not include your wildcards. Please indicate these entries during registration by checking the "At-Large" box when inputting the competitor information.

• Outside of these 22 spots, only students who have won wildcards during the three previous league tournaments may register for this tournament. Wildcards must be used for the event they were won. In Duo, wildcards are won as a team, partners may not be switched or changed. Please indicate wildcards during registration by adding the tournament and place received while inputting the competitor information.

• All entries must have a linked Tabroom account.

Judging

• Each school must provide 1 judge for every 2 entries, due to increased judging requirements. An unaffiliated judge will cover only 4 entries. Please email eritchie@pausd.org with a list of your unaffiliated judges and their conflicts.
• Each preliminary round will have 3 judges and each final round will have 5 judges.
• All judges must have a linked Tabroom account.

• You are obligated for your FULL judging shift.Unfortunately, we can't excuse judges early as we are tight on judges because of the 3 judges per prelim panel requirement. This ensures your kids get the fairest judging possible!Questions about your shift? Please contact your coach who can help you.

Schedule

AM Judge Shift: 8:00 am – 12:30 pm

PM Judge Shift: 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Double Entries and Double Qualifiers

This year at the state tournament CHSSA will not allow double entry across any events. This includes debate and speech. If a student qualifies for multiple events, they will compete in only the event they rank highest on this form at the State Championship Tournament. (This form will be emailed to all coaches.)

This form is due at 11:59 PM the night prior to the start of a student's second competition.

CFL State Qualifier Dates:

• 02/27-02/28: Debate
• 03/01 Speech
• TBA: Congress and PO

Double Qualifiers Form Due Dates:

• Competing in Debate and Speech: Due February 28th at 11:59 PM
• Competing in two Speech events: Due February 28th at 11:59 PM
• Competing in Speech and Congress/PO: Due March 6th at 11:59 PM
• Competing in Debate and Congress/PO:Due March 6th at 11:59 PM

Extemp Topic Areas

NX

TBA

IX

TBA

Health & Wellness

If you’re feeling sick, CFL strongly prefers that you not attend the tournament to protect other participants, including people who are immunocompromised and/or live with others who are immunocompromised. Although proof of vaccination and masking are not required by CFL, masks will be provided at the tournament for those who wish to wear them. No participant will be penalized for wearing or not wearing a mask. All participants should respect each other’s health & wellness preferences, including (but not limited to) masking and social distancing.

AWARDS

Number of Qualifiers per Event:

• IX: 9
• NX: 9
• IMP: 8
• OA: 9
• Info: 8
• OO: 9
• OPP: 8
• DI: 8
• HI: 8
• POI: 8
• Dec: 9
• Duo: 9

UKTOC Speech Tournament: UKTOC speech bids will be awarded per the UKTOC event criteria.

Judging Resources: Here are some resources to share with newer judges:

• Judging Speech Events: A detailed description of the speech events and how to judge them

• Judge’s Training Slideshow: A quick reference guide

• NSDA Judge Training

Pairing and Tiebreakers

Pairing and tiebreaking rules are determined in the CFL membership bylaws and posted on the CFL website (see Section 3).