Tournament Invitation

Clear Brook High School

4607 FM 2351

Friendswood, Texas  77546

Clear Brook Classic IQT – November 5^th and 6^th

On behalf of Clear Brook High School, I would like to invite you to participate in our annual IQT which we anticipate to be in person as we move through this transitional time of COVID.   Our campus administration is in full support of our efforts to host our tournament on our campus because we recognize that an inherent draw of our activity is the tournament experience.  With that all being said, we will maintain a high degree of caution in regard to COVID-19 and will need to follow any directives regarding the use of Clear Creek ISD facilities for extra-curricular activities.  Should our district dictate that campuses may not be used to host public events or should our campus administration decide that our campus cannot be used to host public events, we are committed to hosting our tournament on schedule and will pivot to a synchronous, virtual contest as a last resort.  However, this will only be the case if we cannot host in-person.

In order to maintain a safe environment for all, we urge all competitors, coaches, judges, and volunteers to follow the latest CDC recommendations regarding the wearing of masks indoors, social distancing whenever possible, and if you can be vaccinated to please consider vaccination against COVID-19.  We are all in this together and we greatly appreciate you joining us in making this a safe and joyous competition for all.

If you have any questions, requests, or concerns, please contact me at your earliest convenience at mrutledg@ccisd.net.

Thank you and we hope you'll join us for our annual Brook Invitational.

Sincerely,

Michael Rutledge

Coach

Important Deadlines

Entries will be due by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, November 1^st to allow us to finalize our judging contracts and ensure a smooth and competitive tournament on Friday, November 5th and Saturday, November 6th.

**TENTATIVE** TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE

**Warranted Breaks Will Be Followed**

FRIDAY – November 5, 2021

3:00 – 3:30 PM           Registration (Auditorium and/or Foyer)

4:00                             Debate/Duo/Duet Rd. 1, Congress Prelims (4:00pm - 7:00pm)

6:00                             Debate/Duo/Duet Rd. 2, Congress Semis/Finals (7:30pm- 9:30pm)

8:00                             Debate Rd. 3 and Duo/Duet Finals; Congress breaks posted online (if Semis warranted)

SATURDAY – November 6, 2021

7:30 AM                      Extemp Draw (Auditorium)

8:00 - 9:30                   Section A Prelims (DX, FX, NX, OO, PO, POI); Novice Debate Challenge

9:30                             Debate Rd Varsity 4, Novice Debate Elims

11:30                           Semis Extemp Draw (Auditorium)

12:00-1:30                   Section B Prelims (HI, DI, PR, IMP, INFO), Section A Semis (DX, FX, NX, OO, PO, POI)

12:00 - 12:30 PM        Varsity Debate Challenge

1:30                             Varsity Debate Elims, Novice Debate Elims continue, Congress Finals (if Semis warranted)

3:00                             Section B Semis

3:30                             Finals Extemp Draw (Auditorium)

4:00                             Section A Finals (DX, FX, NX, OO, PO, POI)

5:30                             Debate Elims (single-flighted) continue

6:30                             Section B Finals (HI, DI, PR, IMP, INFO)

7:30                             Debate Elims continue (as necessary)

Elimination rounds will be accelerated as cross entries and judge availability allows.

Entry Fees

IE's (DX, FX, NX, INF, OO, DI, HI, IMP, POI, POE, PRO): $15 per entry

Duo and Duet: $25 per entry

Congressional Debate: $20 per entry

Varsity LD Debate: $30 per entry

Novice LD Debate: $25 per entry

Varsity PF Debate: $30 per entry

Novice PF Debate: $25 per entry

CX Debate: $30 per entry

School/Hospitality Fee: $150 per school

*Note: After the freeze deadline, fees are set and expected to be paid in full.  Please do not make massive drops after this time.

Judge Requirements

Coaches, expect to be a part of the judge pool.  While we will try to use you as sparingly as possible, we ask you to respect our transition back to a full in-person meet which may require your assistance pursuant to a potential decrease in community involvement due to COVID concerns.

**Schools may NOT fully buy out of judging obligations.**

**Judge fees below are capped at $150.00 but AGAIN, this is not a judge buy-out.**

**Coaches MAY BE needed to judge as necessary to insure on-time rounds.**

Judging obligations will be as follows:

LD/PF – 1 judge per every four entries ; thereafter, $75 per judge

CX – 1 judge per every two entries ; thereafter, $75 per judge

IE – 1 judge per every 6 entries ; thereafter, $75 per judge

Tournament Information and Rules of Conduct

1. All competing students must be supervised by an employee of the school or school district they are representing or a certified adult supervisor traveling with the permission of the head coach.  The supervising coach or adult must also be available throughout the tournament until all of their students are eliminated or have finished competing in their final rounds.  Maverick student entries will not be accepted and all entries must be from an accredited high school.

2. All students, coaches, judges, and guests are asked to abide by a few conduct rules:

A. Students, coaches, and judges should all abide by the Code of Conduct of the Texas Forensic Association found here.  This includes respecting the rights of everyone to have a competition free from harassment, bullying, and other offensive and inappropriate behaviors.  Persons found in violation of the Code of Conduct in letter or in spirit will be expelled from the tournament, notification will be made to TFA and the offending school's administration, and will not be welcomed back to a tournament hosted by Clear Brook High School again.

B. Our tournament will follow the guidelines established by our governing bodies (TFA, NSDA) in regard to evidence usage, in-round communication, and other event-specific rules.  Please ensure your students are fully aware of what is within and outside of the rules for each event they are competing in.  These can be found on the TFA and NSDA websites respectively.

3. Sweepstakes points will be awarded to entries based on the following formula:

Varsity IE's, Duo/Duet, and Congress: 1st (30), 2nd (25), 3rd (20), 4th (15), 5th (10), 6th (5), 7th (2), and 8th (1)

Varsity TFA Debate events: 1st (30), 2nd (25), Semis (20), Quarters (10), Octas (5)

Novice Extemp & Other Non-Qual Events: 1st (15), 2nd (12.5), 3rd (10), 4th (7.5), 5th (5), 6th (2.5)

Novice Debate events: 1st (15), 2nd (12.5), Semis (10), Quarters (5), Octas (2.5)

4. Students are expected to arrive 10-15 minutes before Extemp Draw and at the start of each debate round to ensure their technology is up and running.  We will enforce the TFA 15-minute rule for Debate events to ensure a smooth and efficient tournament experience for everyone.  This would only be non-enforceable if there are issues that fall outside of a student’s control.

5. For the purposes of our tournament, a novice is defined as a student in their first year of competition in a secondary school (high school).

6. For finals of individual events and semifinals and finals of debate events, we will make every possible effort to panel judges (as long as we have enough judges).  TFA qualifying events will have paneled final rounds.

7. Students may cross enter in up to 2 events per section, but do so at their own peril.  They should compete in whichever event they are scheduled to go earlier and if possible sign-in to their later scheduled cross entered event.  Debate competitors may not cross enter in another debate event, nor Duo or Duet.  Students who advance to semifinals or finals in multiple events are responsible for attending their rounds as quickly as possible.  If a judge has given a student what is deemed to be sufficient time (by the tournament staff) to arrive and that student has not made a good faith effort to arrive to that round, they will be given last place in the round or forfeit the round in debate. 

8. Students entered in flights of debate should not observe the alternate flight in order to gain a competitive advantage.  Once they are eliminated, they are free to observe these rounds.

9. COVID-19 Protocols.  The Clear Brook IQT Invitational will not follow the recommended TFA COVID-19 protocols.  Instead, we will follow the following protocols and expectations.

A. Masking outside of competition rounds and during preparation times: While Governor Abbott’s executive order on mandatory masking remains in place, masking during our tournament will strongly be recommended for all competitors, coaches, judges, and volunteers.  If Clear Creek ISD institutes a mandatory masking policy anytime before our tournament, we will adhere to district policy and will require all attendees to be masked.

B. Masking during competition rounds:  Because we understand that performers utilize their faces to complement their performance choices, even in the circumstance where masking is mandated by district policy, we will allow competitors to be unmasked while they are competing.  Students not competing (spectating a round or waiting for their speaker position to be called) are expected to abide by the aforementioned masking protocols in point A.  Judges and other adults in the competition room will similarly be expected to follow the protocols in point A.

C. Social Distancing: We encourage all attendees to practice social distancing wherever possible, but understand that not all spaces we may utilize for the tournament will lend themselves to proper social distancing.  However, seating in our classrooms should already be spaced as practicle.  We encourage judges, competitors, and observers to choose seats with spacing around themselves wherever possible.

D. Postings: At this time, we are anticipating using paper postings but will attempt to blast via Tabroom as well.  For this reason, students should be linked in tabroom and have their phone numbers updated for blasting purposes should we be able to utilize tabroom as an additional method of notification.

E. Contact tracing: Coaches must report any COVID positive cases from any attendees from their school if those diagnoses fit within the CDC’s guidelines for exposure risk.  Upon learning of any COVID positive attendees, a notification will be provided to the coaches of students and judges that may have been exposed in the impacted event(s).  We will not identify the student or even the school reporting the positive case in order to protect their HIPAA rights.

F. Ill student protocol: Coaches must check on the health and wellbeing of their entered students before and during the contest.  If a student is symptomatic with any of the CDC’s recognized COVID-19 symptoms, that student’s coach must report this to the tournament director so we can drop them from the competition.  These drops will not be penalized.  If a student is unwell, in the interest of everyone in attendance, we must make sure they are not trying to “gut it out”.

G. Student and Coaches/Judges Lounges: Due to space availability, we will be using our Commons as the Student lounge and the Library as our Coaches/Judges lounge.  We encourage everyone using these spaces to socially distance whenever possible.  We also strongly encourage everyone using these spaces to mask up whenever they are not eating or drinking.  We will have a concession stand in the Student lounge that will serve food and drinks throughout the tournament.  In the Coaches/Judges lounge, we will have buffet-style serving of food and drinks.  We strongly encourage the wearing of masks while purchasing food from the concession stand or choosing items from the buffet line in the Coaches/Judges lounge.

H. Additional protocols as necessary: Should the Clear Creek Independent School District or the administration of Clear Falls High School require us to take additional steps to protect all attendees during our tournament, we reserve the right to add additional protocols or modify the above protocols to comply with their directives.  Changes will be communicated to coaches and judges via Tabroom.com correspondence.

I. All debates will utilize the currently published topics from TFA/NSDA.  Congress will use the published scaffold for Congress.