Tournament Invitation

Dear Texas Middle School Speech and Debate Coaches:

We would like to invite you to the Sixth Annual Texas Middle School Speech and Debate State Tournament. This year’s tournament will be held on April 17-18, 2026. The tournament will be held at Cano Freshman Academy, 1701 Lozano Street, Harlingen, Texas 78550. The awards ceremony will be held at the Performing Arts Center at Harlingen CISD, located just a short five-minute drive from the competition site at 3217 Wilson Road, Harlingen, Texas 78552.

We tentatively plan to begin on-site registration around 2:00 pm on Friday afternoon with rounds beginning at 3:00 pm.

Important Dates/Deadlines

If your school plans to compete in this year’s Middle School State Tournament, please pay close attention to the following dates and deadlines:

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

• Registration Opens

Friday, March 6, 2026

• Deadline to Request Judge Buy-Outs

Friday, March 20, 2026

• Deadline for New Entries

• Deadline to Enter Judges

• Deadline to Upload the TJSDA School Certification Form

• Deadline to Preorder State Tournament T-Shirts

• Fees Frozen

Thursday, April 2, 2026

• Deadline to Submit Entry Fees

• Deadline for Judges to Complete Judge Accreditation Modules

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

• Final Drop Deadline

Eligibility

This tournament is open to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders who reside in the state of Texas.

Club-Based Entries

This tournament is only open to accredited public and private schools. Club-based entries cannot compete at this tournament. Students must compete for the school at which they are enrolled for compulsory attendance purposes. Contestants found to be violating this rule will be disqualified.

Students must be accompanied by an adult who has been approved by the accredited public or private school that they attend.

To help us enforce this policy, schools are required to upload the TJSDA School Certification Form by Friday, March 20, at 11:59 pm. All schools must upload this form by March 20, or their students will not be allowed to compete in the Middle School State Tournament.

Events

Rules for each event can be found by clicking on Events & Divisions to the right of your screen. You can also find information about our tentative schedule and tournament rules.

Section A (Students may enter 2 events in this pattern, but they may not enter debate events.)

Duo Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, Extemporaneous Speaking, Original Oratory, Poetry, Storytelling, Duet Improvisation

Section B (Students may enter 2 events in this pattern, but they may not enter debate events.)

Dramatic Interpretation, Declamation, Prose, Informative Speaking, Program Oral Interpretation, Original Spoken Word Poetry, Impromptu Speaking

Debate (Students may enter 1 event in this pattern, but they may not enter section A or B.)

Congressional Debate, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Policy Debate, Public Forum Debate, World Schools Debate

Please note: We will not break brackets in debate.

We reserve the right to cancel events with fewer than 8 entries.

Entry Limits

Registration will open on Tuesday, January 20, 2026. This year, each school will be limited to 6 entries per event. We will not increase this limit.

To prevent confusion and incorrect invoices, do not enter more than 6 entries in an event.

The deadline for new entries is Friday, March 20, at 11:59 pm. Fees will be frozen at that point, and you will not be able to add new entries.

Entry Fees

This year, we are waitlisting all entries until entry fees are paid. The final deadline for entry fees will be Thursday, April 2, 2026.

Entry fees will be as follows:

• Individual Events: $20 per entry

• Duet Improvisation and Duo Interpretation: $30 per entry

• Congressional Debate and Lincoln-Douglas Debate: $20 per entry

• Public Forum Debate and Policy Debate: $30 per entry

• World Schools Debate: $50 per entry

• School Fee: $50 per school

Payment Information

Checks should be made payable to Harlingen CISD Fine Arts and mailed to:

Harlingen CISD Fine Arts

3217 Wilson Road

Harlingen, Texas 78552

Your Tabroom invoice will be updated as soon as payment is received.

Judging

Speech tournaments depend on judges. To make sure we have enough judges, each school must provide qualified judges for the categories they are competing in:

• Individual Events: 1 judge for every 9 entries

• LD/PF Debate: 1 judge for every 2 entries

• World Schools Debate: 1 judge for every 2 entries

• Policy Debate: 1 judge for every 2 entries

• Congressional Debate: 1 judge if you have Congressional Debate entries (Congressional Debate judges may be pulled into the LD or PF pool if necessary.)

If you are using high school judges, they need to be in the 10th grade or higher. No 9th grade judges, please.

All judges should be entered in Tabroom by Friday, March 20. Schools that have not met their judging obligation by this deadline will be dropped from the tournament.

Judge Buy-Outs

Schools are required to bring at least one judge per judge category in which they have entries competing (Congressional Debate, Individual Events, LD/PF Debate, Policy Debate, World Schools Debate).

If a school owes more than one judge in a category, they may choose to buy-out their obligation for $170 per judge. Judge buy-outs are not guaranteed. Judge buy-outs must be requested by 11:59 pm on Friday, March 6.

Judge Accreditation

By Thursday, April 2, all judges in the Middle School State Tournament must have completed the required judge accreditation modules and claimed their badges in Tabroom.com.

• To complete a module means that the judge has watched the video, scored 100% on the corresponding quiz, and claimed their badge in Tabroom.com. Thank you for helping us ensure that all students at the State Tournament have high quality judging!

• All judge accreditation modules can be found at www.speechanddebate.org/judge-accreditation. Judges must create or log in to a free NSDA account before beginning.

• After judges have completed a module, they must navigate to Tabroom.com and select “Upcoming” under the Judging header on the right side of the page. They will see all required accreditation modules listed under the Middle School State Tournament header. They should select the blue and white edit button next to the relevant module, certify that Yes they have completed it, and “Save Answers.”

• Individual Event Judges: Must complete the following modules – Level 1: Intro to Multicultural Competence, Level 1: Intro to Judging Speech, Level 2: Judging HI, DI, and DUO, Level 2: Judging Extemp, Level 2: Judging OO and INF, and Level 2: Judging POI.

• Congress Judges: Must complete the following modules—Level 1: Intro to Multicultural Competence, Level 1: Intro to Judging Congress, and Level 2: Judging Congressional Debate.

• Policy Judges: Must complete the following modules—Level 1: Intro to Multicultural Competence, Level 1: Intro to Judging Debate, and Level 2: Judging Policy Debate.

• Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum Judges: Must complete the following modules—Level 1: Intro to Multicultural Competence, Level 1: Intro to Judging Debate, Level 2: Judging Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and Level 2: Judging Public Forum Debate.

• World Schools Judges: Must complete the following modules—Level 1: Intro to Multicultural Competence, Level 1: Intro to Judging Debate, and Level 2: Judging World Schools Debate.

All judges from a school must complete these accreditation modules, or their students will not be allowed to compete in the Middle School State Tournament.

Hotels

A list of suggested hotels can be found at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n6fIFNUeK5J0a9sS5vFoGgtOXy0IGKZQyNWOJ1HmMmA/edit?usp=sharing.

Questions

If you have any questions about the tournament, you may contact George Tennison at gttennis@ga.aliefisd.net. We look forward to seeing you in April.

Sincerely,

Your State Tournament Coordinating Committee and the Harlingen Host Committee