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Hello CFISD Speech & Debate coaches,

There will be a Novice Night (only for CFISD students and coaches) on Tuesday, December 9th at Jersey Village High School.

This is a great opportunity for your beginning students to practice their skills in a low-pressure environment and to receive feedback on their efforts. It is also a wonderful chance for your varsity members to gain valuable experience as judges.

For novice nights to remain viable, it is imperative that the workload be reduced on teachers volunteering to host. To that end, we are using Tabroom to register participants and create pairings. You need to enter your students no later than 4:00 PM on Monday, December 8th. It is important that you meet this deadline so that our hosting coach can organize and communicate with campus administration regarding room use. The continuation of these events depends on respecting host schools, and a vital piece of that is providing timely entry information.

You may drop students or make name substitutions until 4:00 PM on Monday, December 8th. The website will be closed to changes after this time and any changes should be communicate via email after this time.

Students may enter one of the following events:

• Lincoln-Douglas Debate

• Public Forum Debate

• World Schools Debate

• Congressional Debate

• Extemporaneous Speaking

• Oratory/Informative (combined)

• Prose/Poetry (combined)

• Humorous/Dramatic/POI (combined)

• Duo/Duet (combined – the goal is to keep this as a separate category, but if numbers are low, these students may be joined with HI/DI/POI, putting all memorized oral interp together)

In addition to entering your novice students, please register your varsity students in tabroom under judges and select if they would prefer to be a debate or speech judge. Please be sure to train your varsity students on constructive criticism and discuss with them what it means to be role models for the younger participants. The spirit of this evening should be to encourage novices in speech & debate while providing supportive feedback on how they can improve.

There will be a concession stand available for students to purchase food or drinks. Hospitality will be made available for all coaches.

If you have questions, please contact Ian Etheridge - ian.etheridge@cfisd.net .