20th Annual KCKCC Policy Debate TOC Qualifier
2025 — Kansas City, KS/US
2. Judging
Judge Obligations:
Schools must:
---provide 3 rounds of qualified judging per entry in either division. Your first novice entry must be covered by Varsity-eligible judging.
---provide qualified judging for every elimination round they are participating in, plus one full elimination round beyond their team's elimination. This means all judges are obligated through the first elimination round on Sunday morning (VCX Octas, NCX Qtrs, SBO Semis). This requirement is cross-division, which means regardless of which division your entries are in, you are required to provide for the next elimination round timeslot, even if the division your entries are in is complete.
---(NEW THIS YEAR)place all qualified adults and/or chaperones that will be in attendance at the tournament into the judging pool, even if their obligation has been covered. These individuals can be in for 0 debates and marked as "substitute only" (per special request), but must be able to be placed on a preference sheet for teams to rank so they can be placed in emergencies OR in elimination rounds.
Judge Conflict Policy:
Judges should conflict themselves against a competitor or institution if:
---they have attended the school as a competitor and/or student within the last four years.
---they have previously coached, online/in-person, paid or unpaid, within the last four years.
---they have a close, friendly, and/or personal relationship with the debater or members of the coaching staff.
---they feel they cannot be objective towards the debater or institution for any reason.
---they have seriously recruited a competitor to compete at a collegiate institution with whom they are employed.
If a judge is placed into a debate with an individual or institution they should be conflicted against, the judge will be replaced with the next best option based on prefs. The judge will be required to immediately discuss with Tabroom any and all conflicts they have. Repeat offenders will be removed from the pool, with schools either being fined for the missing rounds of judging OR having their other judges fill the missing rounds of coverage.
Judge conflicts should be entered separately from a preference sheet on Tabroom.com, either by the institution, competitor, or judge themselves. Conflicts are not numerically limited, and therefore should NOT be used as strikes. Any schools found conflicting judges that do not meet the above criteria will have preference sheets disabled until the judge conflict is removed.
Judge Qualification Policy:
In order to be qualified, judges must:
---have an account on Tabroom, with a paradigm posted and a phone number attached. Paradigms should be serious in tone, and be descriptive of a judge's experience AND thoughts on particular arguments. Judges without paradigms and/or with paradigms lacking critical information will NOT count towards a school's judging obligation, and will be marked as a free strike UNTIL a sufficient paradigm is written.
---have experience in judging, coaching, and/or competing in TOC / national circuit policy debate OR being the coach of record employed by the institution entered.
In order to cover Varsity entries, judges must:
---be 18 years of age or older and graduated from high school.
In order to cover Novice entries, judges must:
---be eligible to judge Varsity debate OR
---meet the NSDA (150 points in policy debate) or KSHSAA (3rd and 4th year debaters) standard AND
---agree to the student judge code of conduct sent out the week of the tournament.
The tournament reserves to remove any judge from the pool deemed unqualified, even if they meet the above qualifications.