Eligibility Documentation Process

Eligibility

All students who are sanctioned by their principals to complete as a member of their school may compete at the Season Opener. This DOES NOT mean that students who compete in clubs or as independents are excluded from participating.

However, those students, aiming to compete as a Club, Independent, or Hybrid entry must fill out the following forms, scan them, and return to Linda Barker at linda.barker@uky.edu. The deadline to submit the forms is September 1, 2017.

DEFINITION OF AN INDEPENDENT ENTRY:

An independent entry is an entry, which does not meet either of two important criteria: 1. Official sanctioning by their school. 2. Accompaniment by a chaperone who is an employee of the school.

PROCESS and DEADLINE:

Students wishing to attend the National Speech and Debate Season Opener as an independent entry, club entry or from a home school must accurately complete the process below no later than September 1, 2017. Incomplete documentation will result in denial of entry.

SUBMITTING LETTERS:

Please scan completed letters to Linda Barker.

It is the obligation of each Independent "Squad" to clearly label each letter with the "Squad name" and submit all of their documents in a single transmission, whether it be a single PDF email attachment or a single fax transmission. We cannot accept or process piecemeal transmissions of letters, as it is extremely difficult to match up names to entries.

CHAPERONES:

Even though an entry is "independent," the attending students must still be accompanied by a parent or designated ADULT chaperone.

TEAM NAME:

The students must use a variant of the school name if the students attend a "school," but may use the addition "Independent" as a portion of the name. If the entry is of a "home school" nature, the entry should reflect the geography of the entry - example: "Scranton Independent" for a home school independent entry from Scranton, PA.

DECLARING INDEPENDENT/HOME SCHOOL STATUS:

Students must clearly indicate that they are an independent or home school entry upon signing-up. Entries discovered to be independent or home school during the tournament who did not correctly declare their status on Tabroom.com at point of entry and fully complete the required paperwork in advance of the tournament as specified in this list may be dropped from the tournament without refund.

DUAL ENTRY:

Any given school cannot have both "regular school sanctioned entry" status and also have students enter from that school as "independent" entries - if a school is attending as a regular school sanctioned entry then ALL students who attend that school must enter as a part of that regular school sanctioned entry or they may not attend.  Further, all students from a given school must be entered from the same account.  We will not accept multiple independent entries from the same school submitted from multiple "independent" accounts.

LETTERS/PERMISSION:

To be accepted as an independent entry the attending group must include  complete and correctly executed authorization letter from the school and each set of parents or guardians

For an independent entry to be accepted, we must have:

A letter signed by a school administrator (principal or vice-principal) on school letterhead, with the text as in the template below. This letter must list the names of all students competing, and must also list the name of the chaperone. THE TEXT OF THE LETTERS CANNOT BE CHANGED OR ADDED TO IN ANY SUBSTANTIVE WAY; FOR EXAMPLE, WE CANNOT AND DO NOT INDEMNIFY SCHOOLS AGAINST LIABILITY - that is an issue between the family of the attending student, their school, and their respective legal counsels; and the National Speech and Debate Season Opener has no jurisdiction, legal or otherwise, to oversee, rule upon, or pass judgment on such assertions or declarations.

A letter from a parent of each participant, with the text as in the template below, is needed. All entries, including independents, must have an adult chaperone with them at the tournament.

THE TEXT OF THE LETTERS SHOULD READ AS FOLLOWS:

Parent Letter

(template--copy/paste the text and fill in the blanks as appropriate):

Date

Dave Arnett

Tournament Director

National Speech and Debate Season Opener

This letter is to inform you that we would like our child, ___________________, to attend the National Speech and Debate Season Opener from September 9-11, 2017 and that she / he does so with our full consent and permission. We have arranged for our child to be fully-chaperoned and for transportation to our satisfaction, and accept full responsibility and liability for our child during the entire course of the event. We understand and agree that the National Speech and Debate Season Opener, their employees, and their agents provide no chaperones for the event, and further agree that the National Speech and Debate Season Opener, their employees, and their agents are hereby relieved of any responsibility or liability of any sort for the supervision of our child.

The following person will be chaperoning our child:

Name: _________________

Cell phone: _______________

Relationship to our child: _________________

By signing this we are certifying that we are in fact the legal guardians of the listed child, and have full legal authority to act on the listed child's behalf.

Name

Sign

Date

Contact info

Email:

Phone:

School Letter

(template--copy/paste the text and fill in the blanks as appropriate):

Date:

Dave Arnett

Tournament Director

National Speech and Debate Season Opener

This letter is to inform you that we have no objection to students from our school attending the National Speech and Debate Season Opener from September 9-11, 2017, as independent entries. We understand that the parents/guardians of the students have arranged for their children to be transported and fully-chaperoned to their satisfaction, and they have agreed to accept full responsibility and liability for their children during the entire course of the event. We further understand and agree the National Speech and Debate Season Opener, their employees, and their agents provide no chaperones for the event, and we have explained this to the parents of the children listed in this letter. These are the names of the students who attend our school, for whom we are certifying that we do not object to their participation in the above described event:

[list of students, with full names, goes here]

By signing this I am certifying that I am an official of the school and that I have full authority to act on the school's behalf in matters of this kind.

Name,

Sign,

Date

Contact info

Email:

Phone: