General Rules and Procedures

General Information

By participating in the Trevian Invitational, all coaches, judges, and competitors agree to abide by the rules of the tournament and directives of its personnel. Our goal is to provide an engaging and educational experience for everyone involved. Please uphold our community's best practices for attending a debate tournament on a high school campus.  It makes the entire tournament run more smoothly for all of us.

Programs, coaches, competitors, judges, and other participants found not to be in compliance may be disqualified from the tournament.

Logistics

When: Saturday, October 8th through Monday, October 10th. 

Where: Saturday/Sunday (10/8-10/9) debates will be held at New Trier High School's Winnetka Campus (385 Winnetka Ave. Winnetka, IL 60093). There are two campuses for our school. Don't go to the Northfield location! Monday's (10/10) elimination rounds will take place at the Renaissance Northshore Hotel (933 Skokie Boulevard Northbrook, IL 60062).

Format: In person

Events: Open Varsity Policy Debate, Congressional Debate

Qualifiers: NDCA Baker Tournament and TOC Quarterfinals bid for the Policy Division. 

Covid 19 

As we get back into the school year, we are looking forward to specific guidance from our administration about any Covid 19 recommendations. Once we receive that guidance, we will post it here and send it via email. 

School & Team Entries

Students must compete on behalf of a singular high school. Teams representing a private entity (aka "independent entries") that is not a school (i.e. any for profit entity, league, consortium, etc.) and/or are comprised of students from different school institutions (hybrids) will not be permitted to compete. Middle school competitors are not permitted.

We do not consider schools districts to be singular high schools. Several districts are made up of different schools. Students must attend the same school within the district in order to compete together.

Each student must be enrolled and in good standing with their school.

Tournament registration must reflect the actual names of the students in accordance with their school administration. False names, symbols, etc. that the school would not know the student by will not be permitted. For example, if a student's name is Ashley James Smith, but is enrolled as "AJ Smith" for the purposes of the tournament, then this would be acceptable as long as that student's school administration knew them as such. However, if that same student registered for the tournament as "X," then that would not be acceptable as the school administration would not know the student as such. Our tournament and school administration consider this important for ensuring the safety of all students. It is also necessary for us to supply information (when needed) to the National Speech and Debate Association, the National Debate Coaches Association, and the Tournament of Champions committee.

School Chaperone 

Each program must have a school approved adult chaperone, who is responsible for the program's participants during the tournament.

Form Requirement

Each program must submit a school permission form. This form ensures that the above requirements are met. Thank you for understanding. You should be able to find the form by following these steps:

1. After logging in to tabroom, click on the name of this tournament from the list of "existing registrations."
2. Click the “General” tab.
3. To the right of the screen, you will see “School Verification Form” in the section for "School Entry Forms"
4. Click the down arrow to download the template.
5. Copy and paste that exact language onto your school’s official letterhead and have a school administrator sign it.
6. Upload the signed form to the same location from which you downloaded it.

You can use the instructions below:

***PLEASE COPY THE EXACT LANGUAGE BELOW THE ASTERISKS ONTO YOUR SCHOOL’s OFFICIAL LETTERHEAD, DATE IT, AND UPLOAD IT AS A PDF DOCUMENT SIGNED BY A SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR***

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Our school is the degree granting institution for every student attending the 2022 Trevian Invitational who competes under our school’s name. Each student represents the school. Our school is responsible for every student, coach, and judge attending the 2022 Trevian Invitational under our school’s name and gives the students permission to compete and the judges permission to judge.

There will be at least one school-approved chaperone available and accessible to the tournament staff. Our team will designate and provide accurate contact information for one overall school-approved chaperone available during the tournament for the tournament to contact by phone if the tournament needs to communicate officially with our team.

Our school understands that the tournament and/or teams participating at the tournament may audio and/or visually record any competitor and judge during events. It is the responsibility of coaches to ensure that their students, parents, and judges are aware of and understand such tournament recording is permitted. Our school shall be solely responsible for and complete any and all paperwork necessary to ensure compliance with applicable state laws regarding such recordings. Our school agrees that any recording taken of the tournament will only be used as evidence to demonstrate a rule violation, will not be posted online or shared with anyone other than the judge(s) in the round or a tournament official, and will be destroyed after the tournament has ended.

Our school agrees to all tournament rules, policies, and procedures found on the tournament’s tabroom website. We agree that if at any time the tournament discovers a student, coach, judge, or school does not meet all the aforementioned criteria, the student(s) and/or school will be immediately disqualified from the tournament and forfeit any payments given to the tournament. 

Mutually Preferred Judging and Obligations

Mutually preferred judging only works if all available judges are available. The tournament will do it's best to accommodate round requests, but more and more judges are limiting their availability now that tournaments have moved online. The tournament reserves the right to place judges in the best interest of the competitors and may not be able to accommodate every request for rounds off. 

Programs are required to supply 3 rounds of preliminary judging for each of their teams competing in the tournament. A limited amount of rounds are available for hire. 

Programs who fail to provide judging for required elimination rounds may have their team's preferences deactivated for the remainder of the tournament and face fines. 

Judges may only place themselves in the elimination round judge pool if they are registered for a minimum of 1 preliminary round.

All judges are obligated for the double-octofinal round. All judges are obligated one round past their program’s elimination from the tournament.

Fines: Unfortunately, due to past experiences with missing judges or judge availability the tournament will be instituting a fine for missed obligations. Judges who miss any preliminary or elimination round commitments will cause their program to incur a $75 fine per round missed.

Judges who indicate that they are fulfilling a full commitment (6 debates) may not indicate that they are unavailable for particular rounds in their judge notes. If a judge indicates that they are fulfilling a full commitment, but then indicates that they are unavailable for particular rounds, then the tournament will fine that judge’s program $75 per round that the judge is unavailable.

Every judge must have a judge philosophy posted under the “paradigm” section of their Tabroom account. It is the responsibility of every program to ensure that their judges have a philosophy posted. If a program’s judge does not have a philosophy posted, then that program’s judge preferences will be deactivated for the tournament. We will do our best to inform programs if their judges do not have judge philosophies, but schools should hold themselves accountable for their program's judging and confirm that these individuals have posted philosophies. 

Lastly, programs that have not fulfilled their judging obligation will be unable to take part in the mutual preference system. Tabroom will not allow you to fill out a judge preference sheet unless your commitment has been met.

Professional Conduct

Judges are expected to provide constructive and educational feedback for students. Debates are an extension of the classroom and as such require judges to behave in a professional manner. Our tournament and school administration strongly believe that a safe and friendly learning environment is necessary for students to develop in debate. All judges should work to encourage that environment.

We ask that judges refrain from posting inflammatory, derogatory, and negative comments on the Internet about any of the debates they’ve observed or students they’ve judged. Judges who create uncomfortable environments for students due to their comments or are found to be inciting cyber bullying of any competitor may be asked to leave the tournament.

Schools are responsible for their judges. If your judge is removed from the tournament due to inappropriate behavior, that school will be held financially liable for the remaining obligation. The tournament reserves the right to fine judges who are late to their rounds. 

Congress Format

This is the first time we will be hosting more than a Congressional Debate scrimmage. We are excited to add this opportunity! Our plan right now is to follow standard NSDA rules for Congress. 

Policy Format

The tournament will follow an 8-3-5 format with 8 minutes of preparation time per team. 

The 2022-23 policy debate resolution is, "Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its security cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in one or more of the following areas: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cyber security."

The varsity division has six preliminary debates and will break to double octofinals. 

Decision times will be used in preliminary rounds.