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The goal of the ASDCA during the 2021-22 season is to have in-person competition as often as possible. This will not happen unless we keep the health and safety of all members of our community as our top priority. To that end, we will follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and the Arizona Department of Health Services. Masks are expected for all members of our community (coaches, competitors, and judges), except while actively performing. Each tournament host has the autonomy to identify mitigation strategies which best fit their site.

District-Wide Justification: When we think about who has the capability to hold students accountable for their behavior at tournaments, the bottom line is, it’s the responsibility of their coach. We do our best to ensure our judges, which include a combination of coaches, teachers, parents, and alumni, are effective adjudicators of the round. However, we cannot ensure they will act as supervisors. For this reason, it is the responsibility of coach-student partnerships to craft clear norms around COVID-19 protocols, including masking and distancing this season. Set clear expectations, remind students frequently, and turn issues into conversations. You are also highly encouraged to make it part of your competition dress code in your student handbook.

Team Handbook Justification: One of the greatest values gained from one’s participation in Speech & Debate is an informed understanding of professional dress and etiquette. These expectations are often normative across the activity, and adhered to by competitors as an opportunity to prepare themselves for life beyond forensics. This year, our team is choosing to treat masks as a part of that norm around competition attire, for the purpose of expressing common care, consideration, and maintenance of in-person competition for all participants. The expectation is for students to wear masks in-between and within rounds, unless they are actively speaking as part of the round. We wear professional dress to look good while competing, we’ll wear masks for our ability to continue competing.

The following statement was posted by the National Speech and Debate Association, but we in the ASDCA wholeheartedly agree with the ideas it contains and decry racism in our society. Black Lives Matter.

Hello everyone!

The AIASDAC met this week for our annual September gathering.  There was one big item which will affect Arizona tournaments.  As the NSDA is using the “pilot” PF rules for the 2020 Nationals, we felt confident that the new times are permanent.  We will use the 3 minute Summary and 3 minute Prep times as outlined in the pilot at Winter Trophy and State, and it is also recommended for invitationals.  Make sure you read the invitations carefully.

Additionally, we affirmed that the NDCA page linked in an earlier post provides all of the evidence allowable in Novice Policy Debate, however with the addition of negative Counterplans and a Kritik to the packet, affirmative teams will be allowed to debate CP and K theory in order to refute those arguments.  The guidelines are as follows:

• • Only use evidence from scripted materials
  • Cant mix materials from multiple sources and splice them together- no chance for opposing team to argue
  • Theory if there is any should be tightly controlled- will be open in the spring
  • Counter plans can be a good idea as they are debating which policy is better

More information can be found in the minutes, which are located here: AIA meeting notes 9_18_19

Hi Coaches!

We are a week away from our 2019 ASDCA Coaches’ Conference.  If you haven’t checked out the website yet, go to www.joyoftournaments.com/az/convention for more information.  Click on the link for the Google Form to register.  We are not offering student workshops this year, but have a variety of workshops for coaches of all experience levels and interests.

We also have a Novice Policy Debate packet, as created by the National Debate Coaches Association.  It features three aff cases, three neg cases, a number of disads, and a T-shell.  it can be found at http://www.debatecoaches.org/2018-2019-novice-packet.  All Policy tournaments with a novice division first semester should use this packet.

Hello everyone!

The year is already upon us.  Hopefully everyone had an exciting summer and is ready for the Speech and Debate season.  The calendar page is updated for 2019-2020 and we are already planning our first event – the ASDCA Conference on September 7th.  Please watch out for emails from Meg Howell regarding the conference and let her know if you want to be a presenter.

Go Team AZ!

Congratulations to Richard Glover of McClintock High School, who was named the National Federation of High Schools Speech, Debate, and Theater Educator for Section 7!  That includes Utah, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and Arizona.  Way to go Richie!

A huge thank you to the schools that came out and competed at the Winter Trophy tournament at ASU last weekend.  Congratulations to Arizona College Prep and Hamilton High School who were our Division sweepstakes champions.  Because of the need to combine speech divisions, we are working on getting the tournament results posted on Joyoftournaments. Debate ballots will be available in the next day or so through this site.

The debate ballots for the McClintock Jim Fountain Classic are available here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13NXDvmTFv8QH_xRfuw2tIRu1Q2t8P0I8?usp=sharing

Thank you and congratulations to everyone who competed at this tournament!

The Executive Board of the ASDCA extends its sympathy and best wishes to the family and friends of Leslie Jones, theater teacher and speech and debate coach at Perry High, who passed away last weekend.  Our hearts go out to her loved ones and her students.

Update!  This conference has been moved to coincide with the Student Workshops on September 8th.  The Conference and Workshops will both take place at Thunderbird High School.  Check http://www.joyoftournaments.com/az shortly to get the most updated information for both events!

Thanks!

Dear Coaches!