Tournament Information

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.

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 harrassment, 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 Falls High School again.

B. Our tournament will follow the guidelines established by our governing bodies (TFA, NSDA) in regards 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. Sweeptstakes 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).  7th and 8th only if necessary.

Varsity TFA Debate events: 1st (30), 2nd (25), Semifinalist (20), Quarterfinalist (10), Octofinalist (5). Octofinalist only if necessary.

Novice Extemp: 1st (15), 2nd (12.5), 3rd (10), 4th (7.5), 5th (5), 6th (2.5).  7th and 8th only if necessary (1).

Novice Debate events: 1st (15), 2nd (12.5), Semifinalist (10), Quarterfinalist (5), Octofinalist (2.5). Octofinalist only if necessary.

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.

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. The Champion Team will be recognized on our Castle Traveling Trophy.  This traveling trophy has become a tradition for our Knight Invitational.  If practical (due to Covid-19), the winning team gets to keep the traveling trophy for a year and upon returning it, will receive a permanent trophy for their trophy case, while we add an enscribed name plate to the trophy to recognize that team and their Head Coach(es).  

8.  Clear Falls students may be entered in select events to ensure that events meet TFA participation requirements to award TFA State points, as well as in non-TFA events.  These students will not be eligible to receive team points nor individual sweepstakes points.

9. Students may cross enter in up to 2 events per speech flight, 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 to 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.  Students who may advance to elimination rounds should not spectate rounds when postings are anticipated.  The tournament cannot be held up by students watching other performances or losing track of time.

10. COVID-19 Protocols.  The Clear Falls Knight 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 compliment 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 practicable.  We encourage judges, competitors, and observers to choose seats with spacing around themselves wherever possible.

D. Postings: Because postings can be a location where social distancing is impossible, we will the Tabroom.com round notifications to communicate schedules, notify of changes, and communicate breaks.

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.