You and your squad are invited to participate in the Lawrence High Invitational Debate Tournament, to be held on December 7, 2019.

This tournament will have Open and Novice divisions. Teams competing in the Novice division must be 1st year debaters, and are required to adhere to the novice case list: Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel, and Drones. We promise a wide variety of judging styles, so come prepared to adapt to anything.  Sponsors are expected to be on standby to judge. We will only use them if we have no other choices.

Each school may enter up to four teams in the tournament.  Extras will be awarded first to those who allowed us extras, then to NSDA East Kansas schools, and then on a first come, first served basis.  Our school is under construction, so we have fewer available rooms than usual. We appreciate your understanding.

Entry fees will be $5 per team. Cancellations after December 3 will still make you liable for the entry fees.  I will confirm extra entries no later than December 3. 

All divisions will consist of 5 preliminary rounds, and three elimination rounds of competition.  We will be using the standard 8-3-5 time limit format, with 8 minutes of prep time. Rounds 1 will be preset, Rounds 2 through 5 will be power matched.  Any team more than 10 minutes late through no fault of the tournament will forfeit that round on a 3-4. We will instruct our judges to be expecting debate over this year’s topic Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce Direct Commercial Sales and/or Foreign Military Sales of arms from the United States.

The first two rounds will be pre-set, with the following rounds delay power-matched. Final places will be determined by wins, then Opp Wins, then speaker points, then Opp Speaker points. Competitors will be allowed to use the wifi for the purpose of exchanging evidence with opponents via email, assuming our internet is working. All other KSHSAA rules will be in effect. 

Awards will be given to the top six teams in each division. All teams with 4 wins will also be recognized in some fashion.  The sweepstakes award will be awarded to the school with the best cumulative four-team record in the preliminary rounds, composed of the best record in each division, plus two ‘at large’ records.  There will also be a combined sweepstakes award with the Free State H.S. tournament. It will be awarded during the awards assembly of our tournament.

Schedule: 

8:00  Round 1

9:45  Round 2

11:30  Round 3

1:15  Lunch

1:30  Round 4

3:15  Round 5

5:00  Awards