UPDATE

We are excited to host the first league tournament for debate.

1) We collapsed Parliamentary into one open division, given the small number of entries. Prep is always 30 minutes before the scheduled-time for the round. So prep starts at 9:30 am for Round 1.

2) There is no Policy Debate at all.

3) For Public Forum and LD, I have arranged the schedule so that Novice debaters alternate with Varsity debaters. This allows your Varsity to help the Novices. It also allows Novices to watch Varsity debaters in between their rounds.

4) The schedule has been updated as follows.

8am Registration
8:30am Judge Orientation Meeting
9:00am ROUND 1 LD Varsity, Public Forum Varsity
10:00am ROUND 1 LD Novice, Public Forum Novice, Parliamentary Debate (Prep at 9:30am)
11:00am ROUND 2 LD Varsity, Public Forum Varsity
12:00pm Lunch Break
12:30pm ROUND 2 LD Novice, Public Forum Novice, Parliamentary Debate (Prep at 12:00pm)
1:30pm ROUND 3 LD Varsity, Public Forum Varsity
2:30pm ROUND 3 LD Novice, Public Forum Novice, Parliamentary Debate (Prep at 2:00pm)
3:30pm ROUND 4 LD Varsity, Public Forum Varsity
4:30pm ROUND 4 LD Novice, Public Forum Novice, Parliamentary Debate (Prep at 4:00pm)
5:30pm Awards

WELCOME TO THE FIRST LEAGUE DEBATE OF THE 2025-2026 SEASON.

The debate will be hosted at Loyola High School.

Loyola High School
1901 Venice Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90006

Remember-only schools who are part of the WBFL are eligible to send students to the league tournaments.

Also note--a student must have competed in at least ONE league debate to be eligible for State Qualifiers. It does not matter, however, which form of debate they compete in, but it does require that they complete one league tournament (i.e, they can compete at State Quals for Policy if they competed in PF or LD or Parli at a league tournament this school year; but they cannot if the only league tournament they went to was WBFL 3, but they left after Round 2).

At this tournament, we try to offer novice and open divisions. Novice is meant for new students who have never competed at a high school tournament or invitational. If there are not enough entries to run a meaningful separate division, though, we will collapse novice into open. We will notify coaches of that collapse on Friday. For scheduling purposes, do not assume that novice and open divisions will be run at the same time. We get creative depending on event and division numbers--with the goal of accelerating the day.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE: We will be running single-flighted rounds. We will be doing 4 rounds for all events, except policy which will have at most 3. Like all league tournaments, we start with the typical tentative schedule, but we will expedite and adjust as necessary to make the tournament go as fast as possible. Please check tabroom for schedule changes Friday night and Saturday morning, and be prepared for changes during the day. We expedite as quickly as we can to make sure we can get to awards around 5:30 PM.

8:00am School and Judge Registration

8:30am Judge Orientation/Instructions (in Judges Room)

9:00am Round 1 ...

5:30pm Awards

TOPICS:

Policy: Resolved: The United States federal government should significantly increase its exploration and/or development of the Arctic.

LD: Resolved: In the United States criminal justice system, plea bargaining is just.

Public Forum: Resolved: The United Kingdom should rejoin the European Union.

Note: this summer the CHSSA board voted to change the rule on sides for PF. There will now be coin flips to determine sides in each round. Be sure to check the rule. We will do the coinflips online via tabroom.

JUDGE INFORMATION

Judges need to create accounts with Tabroom in order to access ballots and links. Here is a help tutorial on how to link their account to the tournament:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyTqMwhRJpo&feature=youtu.be

Here is some information for judges on how to use an online ballot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkvC6qQNbxc&feature=youtu.be

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR JUDGES ALL HAVE TABROOM ACCOUNTS AND WILL HAVE CONNECTIVITY AND ARE FAMILIAR WITH LOGGING IN, ETC.

WE NEED ONE JUDGE FOR EVERY 3 ENTRIES. A team counts as one entry.

NOTE: If you want to get involved in the detailed discussions about how the league tournament is going to be run (since we're all figuring this out for the first time), there is a special channel for #debate in the SLACK that every coach has been invited to. Talk to our league president if you aren't in the SLACK. This is good for questions, etc. too.

FEES/ONLINE PAYMENT OPTION Payments may be brought in person. They also can be made on Paypal to paypal.me/WBFL or @WBFL on the mobile app. Please make sure the school name is in the comment and that the payment matches the amount due listed on tab. The treasurer has asked that tournament payments be made by Thursday or postmarked on Thursday. Contact James Zucker if you have any questions.

Thanks. Check back here and SLACK for updates. And ask any questions in SLACK!