STARTING AND RUNNING A
SPEECH AND DEBATE TEAM
There are three documents on this page:
·
Starting and Running a Speech and Debate Team
·
Starting a Program
·
Managing a Forensics Program
STARTING AND RUNNING A SPEECH AND DEBATE TEAM
1. Create a Contact List
Get students’ phone numbers, addresses, and e-mail addresses.
Then, create a sheet with this information so that people can contact each
other. Be sure to respect people’s desire for privacy by not publishing
information they don’t want published.
2. Talk with your school about Logistics
--Find out how to reserve, the cost of, and get school vans and
buses
--Find out about school rules and procedures for having students
drive to tournaments
--Find out what your budget is
--Find out how to get money from budget
--Find out about your school’s rules and procedures for
having students miss classes for academic events like speech and debate
3. Recruit Students
--contact advanced placement and other teachers to hook up to kids
that show talent or that would benefit from being in a public speaking
class/debate
--give extra credit to students who get involved with the team
--encourage students in your own classes
--contact junior high/middle school kids coming into your high
school; see if you can get a mailing list from your school district and mail
information about your team to them
--have a mini institute at the beginning of the year where kids
meet each other and get involved.
--have a showcase where your students present speeches and debate;
others see what your students are doing thus impressing parents, other
teachers, administration, etc.
4. Plan your travel schedule
--Contact your state or local forensics organization for a schedule
of tournaments in your area; if you don’t know what this organization is,
contact a coach at another school; call up the nearest high schools and ask to
speak to their speech and debate coach
--Schedule at least three tournaments each semester so your
students have enough opportunities; avoid scheduling more than two tournaments
on successive weekends or you will cause burnout for yourself and your
students.
BE SURE TO RESERVE VANS AND HOTEL ROOMS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
5. Setup your Budget
--Consider what your budget is
--Consider this as a good way to budget:
·
Think through how many debate teams and individual event entries
you will have at each tournament
·
Figure on paying about $10 to $35 per debate team ($50 to $150 for
national circuit tournaments)
·
Figure on paying about $5 to $20 per individual event entrant
·
Figure on paying about $30 for a school entry fee
·
You will need one judge for each two debate teams and six
individual entries at most tournaments. If you don’t have that many
judges, you will need to hire them at about $150 per judge.
·
Figure on paying about $70-100 per night for hotel rooms
·
Include the cost of using your school’s van, rental car.
·
Figure on about $10 to $15 per day food money
·
What costs will you require students to pay? For example, will students
pay for hotel rooms and food? If your budget is very small, will students pay
for registration fees?
Also, consider computer costs, purchasing of books, etc. as you
develop your budget.
6. Prepare and handout a Team Tournament Guidelines document
Inform students what they need to bring to tournaments including
their debate materials, clothing and toiletries, etc.
Establish guidelines for expected behavior including curfews, inclusive
environment, courtesy, etc.
7. Prepare and handout Trip Information Sheets
State when you meet to leave for tournament
State when you return (be sure to account for the typical one to
two hours late that most tournaments are)
8. Establish Good Relations with others at your School
--Work with the librarian
--Work with your School’s Accountant
--Work with the person in charge of your extra-curricular activity
9. Promote your squad
--Send information to the person who sends out announcements
--Make sure your principal and other important decision-makers at
your school know when your students win trophies and other awards
--Have someone write articles for the school newspaper
--Encourage students on your squad to become part of your
school’s student government
--Consider publishing and mailing a newsletter to graduated
students; they might be willing to donate money or time to your team and they
are interested in how the team did
10. Going to host a tournament?
Use the Star System at http://www.wcdebate.com/7tournaments/runtourn.htm
11. Team Get Togethers
Its a good
idea to have a beginning of the year; winter holiday; and end of the year team get
together. This brings students together socially and helps bond your team
closer. Have students help out.
12. Returning from Tournaments
--make sure students have safe rides home
--handle expense report forms as soon as you can
--be sure to pay judges and other expenses as soon as possible
13. Fund Raising and building an endowment
for
information on this see the next link on the Forensics Resources Web Page.
Here are some issues to consider in establishing a program:
1. Staffing
You would need a person to coach the program. This entails
instructing students, handling budget and travel arrangements, taking students
to tournaments and judging at tournaments.
2. Funding
A program's funding depends on the level of involvement and size of
the program. A small program with about 8 students that did just debate and
went to two or three tournaments each semester would cost about $2,500. A
moderate program with about 15 students that did debate and speech and went to
three or four tournaments each semester would cost about $5,000 to $10,000. A
larger program with about 25 students that did debate and speech and went to
four to six tournaments each semester would cost about $10,000 to $18,000. The
money goes to pay for transportation, hotel, and registration costs. Programs
that pay for food money and that travel on planes obviously cost more.
3. Time Commitment
Speech and Debate is a demanding activity. Tournaments usually
begin Friday morning or afternoon and end late Saturday night. For preparation,
low-key programs engage in about 5 hours of work each week and the time spent
on tournaments. Highly involved programs engage in about 20 to 30 hours of work
each week in addition to the time spent on tournaments. Coaches and students
can establish the level of commitment they wish.
4. Events students can do
Students can do three kinds of events, Debate, Individual Events
and Student Congress.
In debate, students can compete in Policy Team Debate, Lincoln-Douglas,
or Public Forum Debate. Policy Team Debate involves debate on a topic chosen by
the National Forensic League (so everyone in the country debates the same
issue). This topic focuses on changing United States government policy such as
a change in immigration regulations. Teams of two students debate the topic. At
each tournament, a team would debate in six preliminary rounds, and, if
deserving based on their win-loss record, would advance to elimination rounds.
Lincoln-Douglas Debate involves debate on a value topic. Most states use the
National Forensic League LD topic--though not all. LD topics focus on value judgments.
For example, an LD topic might be: Resolved: That the political correctness
movement unfairly stifles free expression. Debates in LD are one student
against another. Public Forum involves debate on a different topic each month
of the academic year. The debates focus on the core, public audience issues of
the topic. In all three kinds of debate, the students express their arguments
and attempt to convince the critic that their side is stronger.
In individual events, students can do a variety of events including
impromptu, extemporaneous, oratory, informative, editorial commentary,
interpretive reading, dramatic interpretation, humorous interpretation and dual
interpretation.
Putting together a program is not easy and it does require financial
and time commitment. However, the benefits to students are great. I encourage you
to pursue the creation of a speech and debate team at your school.
Jim
Coaching Meetings Judging/Critiquing Practice Debates Leading/Facilitating Discussions Delegating Research Assignments where appropriate Writing coaching handouts Organizing coaching handouts Researching relevant topic issues Communicating to students upcoming tournaments Tournaments Choosing which tournaments to attend Judging Advising Debaters on strategy Driving Supervising students Miscellaneous Formulating student evaluation forms Administration Meetings Publicizing meetings Setting up meetings for beginners and experienced debaters Organizing meeting times and topic discussions Speech or Debate competitive or non-competitive Tournaments Estimating yearly costs Arranging for travel accommodations Arranging housing/hotel accommodations Requesting tournament invitations Maintaining accurate records of past tournaments, student ballots, receipts from fundraisers Balancing Budget on a regular basis Miscellaneous Writing open memos requesting use of funds Obtaining adequate supplies Public Relations Recruiting Designing advertisements Posting advertisements (lecture halls, newspaper, email) Attending high school tournaments Fundraising Grant Writing (internal and external) Drafting letters to firms and former UW debaters Editing and Reviewing letters Petitioning UW Administrators Serving the Community Brainstorming new ways to serve the university and community Arranging projects aimed at serving the community public debates forum topic discussion Speech Workshop High School debate workshop Moderator for public debates/forum discussion Publicizing projects Miscellaneous Participating in faculty meetings Hosting tournaments for high school and/or colleges Creating debate squad newsletter Publicizing student successes Maintaining Speech and Debate Web Page
Thanks to
Brian at the University of Washington for this outline.