Judging Requirements

In order to ensure that we have an adequate judging pool to run as smooth a tournament as possible, every participating school is required to make 1 school-approved adult available to judge all rounds happening while that school has students competing in the tournament, plus to be available for 1 round past their last student's elimination from the competition.

Additionally, while we will try our best to pool judges based on their registration groupings, we may need to cross-assign judges from the Speech Judges and Debate Judges pools (just as happens at regular tournaments). Coaches should make sure to discuss this possibility with their registered judges and explain why having a diverse judging pool is not only beneficial for the tournament, but also for the students since they should always keep a diverse judging pool in mind when they prepare for competition.

Finally, all registered judges (while they remain active in the tournament) are considered "standby" for all rounds happening while students they are affiliated with are still competing - even if those judges are not originally scheduled to judge for that round. Judges should check their Tabroom account 15 minutes before the start of each round they are pooled for and again at the time of the round's start. Should we need to replace judges who are missing, Tabroom.com will send a notification via email to the judge's registered email. There is also a notification bell on their Tabroom homepage that can help judges receive notifications in their browser. We are also asking for all judges to have their phone number associated with their Tabroom account accessible in the event TAB Staff need to reach them on short notice. For each round, once all ballots have been acknowledged/rounds started, we'll notify standby judges that they are free until the next scheduled round.