Main

Dear Middle School Speech and Debate Coach:

We would like to invite you to Olle Middle School’s fifteenth annual speech, drama, and debate tournament. Olle Middle School is located in southwest Houston at 9200 Boone Road, Houston, Texas 77099.

Preliminary debate rounds will occur on Friday, January 29, with debate elimination rounds occurring on Saturday, January 30. All other events will occur on Saturday only! If your school is not debating, you do not have to attend the tournament on Friday, January 29.

Eligibility

This tournament is open to all accredited public and private schools (schools that students attend for compulsory attendance purposes).

We have also invited the following club-based entries to participate in our tournament:

Katy Speech and Debate Academy

Vallabh Vidya Mandir

These are the only club-based entries we will accept.

If a student competes for one of these club-based entries, and their accredited school is attending our tournament, that student must compete for their accredited school. Students who violate this rule will be disqualified.

Deadlines

Registration will open at 8:00 am on Tuesday, December 1, 2026. Once we reach capacity, new schools will not be able to register. Traditionally, our tournament fills quickly, so we encourage you to register as soon as possible.

Because our campus is small, we must limit the size of our tournament. To give schools an equal opportunity to enter their students, we will implement the following procedures:

• When registration opens on Tuesday, December 1, each school will be initially limited to...

• 8 entries per event in individual events.

• 6 entries in Congressional Debate.

• 5 entries each in Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum Debate.

• 3 entries in World Schools Debate.

• After Tuesday, December 15, per-school entry limits will be increased if we have space.

New entries will not be accepted after 6:00 pm on Friday, January 15, 2027.

The drop deadline is 6:00 pm on Friday, January 22, 2027. Drops after this deadline will forfeit the original entry fee. You can make name substitutions during registration.

Judging

Since our tournament is limited in size, we focus on providing the best judging possible. We believe that quality, constructive judging is crucial to the development of middle school performers. Consequently, our judging pool consists of trained adults from our faculty, our alumni, and our community, as well as carefully selected high school students who have successfully competed in high school speech and debate.

If you have individual event entries, we are asking that you provide at least one qualified individual event judge. This judge will primarily be used during individual event finals on Saturday.

If you have debate entries, we are asking that you provide at least one qualified debate judge. This judge will primarily be used during preliminary debate rounds on Friday and elimination debate rounds on Saturday.

New for 2027: All Debate Entries with a Winning Record Will Advance to the Elimination Rounds

In Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, and World Schools Debate, all entries with a 3-0 or 2-1 record will advance to the elimination rounds on Saturday. Entries with a 1-2 or 0-3 record will not advance to the elimination rounds.

This means that the first elimination round may be a partial round (ie. partial octofinal, partial quarterfinal). As in years past, we will not break brackets.

Additional Information

A plethora of important tournament information may be found to your right. For example, event rules may be found by clicking the Events & Divisions tab and clicking on each event.

Questions

If you have any questions, you may contact George Tennison at (281) 983-8455 or gttennis@ga.aliefisd.net. We look forward to seeing you in February.

Sincerely,

Mr. George Tennison—Director of Speech and Debate