Judging Requirements--PLEASE READ

Please read all of this, we really don't want to take your judge bond

JUDGE RATIO and DEADLINE

CX: 1 entry = 3 rounds of judging

LD: 1 entry = 3 rounds of judging

PF: 1 entry = 3 rounds of judging

WS: 1 entry = 3 rounds of judging

Speech: 1 entry = 2 rounds of judging

Congress: 1 judge for every 6 entries or portion thereof

Judging fees will be assessed on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 11:55pm. All schools will either need to provide a judge or request for the tournament to hire judges for them. If you know for sure that you will not be able to cover all of your judging, it would be greatly appreciated if you hit the "request hired judging" button sooner rather than waiting until the Feb 24 deadline. Requesting hired judging lets us, the tournament, know that we for sure need to hire a judge for you and prevents us from having to scramble to add judges at the last minute. 

If you are missing a judge you may notice a $600 missing judge fee on your account do not freak out about this. Once your request for tournament hired judging is approved, this $600 fine will go away and will be replaced by the hired judge fee of $60/round (debate events) or $30/round (speech events) or $200 full judge (congress). If you do not request hired judging by Feb. 24, you will be charged the $600 missing judge fee, so please, please, please do not forget to request hired judging if you need it.

JUDGE OBLIGATION 

We also believe that an important part of giving students a great state tournament experience rests on us providing the best possible judge pool for students. In order to accomplish this and have the best judge pool possible, we ask that all school provided judges are required to be available for the first full elimination round past the elimination of their most successful competitor in the event that they are covering. This means that all judges are obligated through Friday evening. We owe it to the competitors to provide the most preferential judging possible for their elimination panels.

To be clear, when it says you owe "X many rounds of judging" that refers to how many prelim rounds are owed; all judges are obligated for the first full elimination round. For example if a judge is entered in the pool for 3 rounds, that means they will get up to 3 prelim debates and still be responsible for all elimination rounds the school obligation extends to. Even if they judge all 3 prelim debates they were put in the pool for, they are still obligated to judge one (full) elim past the school's most successful competitor. 

To ensure top-notch judging for all participants, we ask that schools provide qualified judging to cover their judging obligations. All debate judges provided must have a paradigm entered on tabroom.com. The tournament reserves the right to deny an entry due to insufficient qualified judging. 

All schools with an entry in Congress, or WSD must provide at least one judge. 

JUDGE BOND

Judge bonds have been increased to $500. We will be fining schools $100 for the first no-show offense and the full judge bond for the second no-show offense. Any judge who either doesn’t pick up a ballot, or who is so late in picking up a ballot that we need to reassign it to another judge. We will attempt to call and locate missing judges before a substitution is made; however, it is ultimately up to a each coach to ensure their judges are awake, aware, and ready to judge. 

If a school's judges no-show for a third time, all of that school's entries may be removed from the tournament at the discretion of the tournament director. 

In a world of virtual debate and online ballots, it is important that your judges’ tabroom information (email and phone number) are up to date and that they are frequently checking their phone/email to ensure they do not miss a ballot. It is the obligation of coaches to ensure this info is accurate, working, and turned on as well as to check pairings and ensure that their judges are prepared to judge. Any tech issues that arise should be communicated with the proper tabroom immediately; "phone wasn't charged" "internet not working" etc. are not legitimate excuses to skip a debate round. Schools who have judges who have such sever technology problems (neighborhood power out, etc.) will be addressed on a case-by-case basis; the tournament reserves the right to request that a coach fill in and cover their obligation if a school-hired judge backs out at the last minute because of tech issues.

JUDGE CONFLICTS

If you or any of your judges have prior conflicts (schools they attended, used to coach at, etc.) they MUST enter those conflicts AHEAD OF TIME in their tabroom account. To do so, they need to login, click on their email address, and look in the right hand column under the header labeled "Judging"; there is a button that says "Standing Conflicts", click that button and enter any conflicts necessary. 

DO NOT JUST PUT CONFLICTS IN THE NOTES LIKE A HEATHEN; IF YOU ENTER THEM YOURSELF THEY LAST FOREVER AND YOU'LL MAKE EVERY FUTURE TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR VERY HAPPY