Eligibility and Out of State (Non-MO) Schools

2.0 Eligibility

2.1 General

All students who are sanctioned by their principals to complete as a member of their

school may compete at the IWC.

Students who compete as independents are excluded from participating.

Schools from outside the state of Missouri must indicate their desire to attend prior to November 1^st, 2020.

All students currently enrolled in grades 9-12 may participate at the 2020 IWC.

2.2 Maverick Debating Rules

Maverick teams are not permitted to enter prior to the tournament. If a team becomes maverick due to an illness of a partner during the tournament, the ill debater may miss no more than 2 debates to be able to return and continue debating. Mavericks may win the debate. Mavericks will not be permitted to clear to elimination rounds.

2.3 Independent entry and adult chaperones

The tournament recognizes the value, and sometimes necessity of some students to compete as independents. However, due to liability concerns of our administration, no independent entries can compete. All students must be registered by an adult employee of the school district of which they are affiliated.

If your school seems on the edge of if it passes the test consider this test:

1. For Missouri schools to compete in a tournament, all entries in the tournament must be from teams representing their school that is a member of the relevant state activities association. Because of the process described in #2, we don't ask for a letter from the school like many other national circuit tournaments do.

2. The determining body for that is the MSHSAA. Which requires a one-month notice. A school does not have to have entries finalized, just have clicked register on Tabroom.com. When we submit the list of out of state schools, the MSHSAA then contacts the school or state activities association to determine if they are eligible to compete. Most schools meet that threshold, and we never hear anything back.

The easy litmus test here is two parts: 1. Is the school a member of the relevant state activities association? 2. Would the students be entered under the name of the school instead of "_________ Independent." If the answer to both is yes, then the school probably passes the test and is able to compete.