JUDGE REQUIREMENTS AND INFO

If you are interested in judging, please email tfastatejudges@gmail.com

Please read all of this, there are SEVERAL important changes from last year

In an effort to not operate TFA State and in particular judge hires at a loss, we are making several changes to our judge requirements. These include a variety of things such as setting an overall cap on number of hired judges the tournament will provide, increasing the judge fee to match the true cost of hired judging, etc. As we return to an in-person world for speech and debate, judging has been a more scarce commodity than in the past. We recognize that some of these changes result in a jump in the cost of hiring out judges, but we strongly encourage schools to provide their own qualified judges for the tournament.

We would much rather have your judges than your money.

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

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

Judging fees will be assessed on Friday, February 25, 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, must hit the "request hired judging" button found under the 'judges' tab on your registration screen. 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.

We strongly recommend that you request hired judging as soon as you know that you will need the tournament to hire judges for you. Due to a variety of factors, TFA will be capping tournament hired judging at 100 judges. This means that once we have reached this limit, we will be declining hired judge requests and your school will be responsible for bringing judges to cover entries or those students will not be allowed to compete. Hired judge requests can be cancelled up until the point that they are 'accepted' by the tournament; once a hired judge request is accepted by the tournament, it cannot be cancelled and the school will be responsible for paying those fees. 

JUDGE OBLIGATION and ENTOURAGE RULE

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 Saturday Morning We owe it to the competitors to provide the most preferential judging possible for their elimination panels.

Now that we are back in-person, we will be again implementing the entourage rule for coaches, assistant coaches, and consultants. If you have a coach present at the tournament (whether school employee, school hire, or private coach) they must be entered in the judge pool for at least a two round obligation. These judges will also be obligated through all relevant elimination debate rounds. The purpose of the entourage rule is to ensure that our judge pools are as deep and high-quality as possible, especially for doubles and triples which traditionally are the most difficult rounds to place judges. Schools that attempt to bypass or subvert this rule are at risk of having prefs removed or being removed from the tournament altogether. 

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) elimination round 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. 



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; subsequent offenses may result in increased fines, loss of prefs, or removal of entries from the tournament. 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 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 prior to being added to the tournament. 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; IF YOU TAKE THE TIME TO ENTER THEM YOURSELF THEY LAST FOREVER AND YOU'LL MAKE EVERY FUTURE TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR VERY HAPPY.