Tournament Policies and Procedures

Entry Fees and Payment

The entry fee is $140 per team. This covers light breakfast options on each day (Monday's food is for competitors/elimination round judges only), lunch on Saturday and Sunday, as well as a tournament t-shirt.

We would prefer that teams mail their checks in advance. If you are unable to do so, please bring your registration check to the tabulation room at the tournament. 

Please make all checks payable to New Trier Township High School. Checks can be sent to:

New Trier Township High School

c/o Dave Weston

385 Winnetka Avenue

Winnetka, IL 60093

Tournament Format

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

Teams will debate the 2019-2020 high school policy debate topic, "Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce Direct Commercial Sales and/or Foreign Military Sales of arms from the United States."

Student Participation

Students must compete on behalf of a singular school institution. 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 will not be permitted to compete. In an ideal world, we would allow every student to debate. However, in order to keep the tournament in compliance with the rules of regional states education officials we must exclude independent entries.

Please note that we do not consider schools districts to be singular school institutions. Several districts are made up of different schools. Therefore, even if students receive diplomas from the same district, if team members are not enrolled at the same institution then they will not be eligible for entry.

Each student must be enrolled and in good standing with their respective school institution. Tournament registration must reflect the actual names of the students in accordance with their school enrollment. False names, symbols, etc. that are not congruent with school enrollment records will not be permitted as registered competitors. For example, if a student's name is Andrew Jeffrey Smith, but is enrolled as "AJ Smith" for the purposes of the tournament, then this would be acceptable if 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 considers this data to be 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.

By competing in the tournament, you are agreeing to these terms. Programs found not to be in compliance with this policy will be disqualified from the tournament. 

School Chaperone

The tournament's preference is that a school employee accompanies their institution's students to the competition. However, we also understand that volunteers, parents, and judges are integral to our activity. If a school employee will not be the primary contact person while at the tournament, then we ask all non-school employee chaperones to have the chaperone form completed by a school official indicating that the chaperone is taking on a supervisory role for students for the duration of the tournament's activities. 

Audio Recording

By participating at the tournament, students, their parents, and coaches agree with our policy that recordings may take place during rounds to verify argumentation and evidence.

It should be noted that the recording of debate speeches should be used solely in the cases where "card clipping" is suspected or for educational purposes by the participating teams. In both cases, the students being recorded may request that the recording be deleted once the clipping issue has been resolved and/or when the debate round has ended.

In the event that audio recording is used in a round to verify accurate representation of evidence, the judge in that debate should ensure that the audio recording file is deleted once their decision is rendered.

Any student who posts an audio recording on the Internet in any form will be disqualified from the tournament.