West Los Angeles NSDA District

[WEST LOS ANGELES NSDA RESULTS FROM 2020 ONLINE NATIONALS] First, we’re pleased to announce that, for the second year in a row, we earned the DISTRICT PARTICIPATION AWARD. It means that no district in the nation qualified more individual schools than ours; our district was eminently equitable and fair. Online Nationals was truly a one-of-a-kind experience. The level of ingenuity on display, particularly in categories like DUO Interpretation, was awe-inspiring. There was also ...demonstrably more gender diversity on display than in past yearsan all-female final round of Oratory, a three/four female final round of Public Forum Debate, a female Congress champion, an all-female final round of Lincoln-Douglas, and more. Congratulations to all participants. While we all hope this pandemic is tackled and we’re back to normal for the 2021 Nationals in Des Moines, we know that the experience of our competitors in 2020 was one they won’t soon forget. [TEAM SWEEPSTAKES AWARDS] Debate School of EXCELLENCE Peninsula! Debate School of HONOR VIP! SENATE: Ved Kulkarni (El Camino) National SEMIFINALIST! LINCOLN-DOUGLAS: Nadia Chung (La Canada) Top 60! Andrea Chow (La Reina) Top 30! BIG QUESTIONS DEBATE: Dylan Liu (Brentwood) Top eight! PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE: Alec Boulton/Jackson Loze (VIP) Top 30! Gabe Grodan/Daniel Timor (VIP) 11th Place! Liana Schmitter-Emerson/David Eick (Campbell Hall) - NATIONAL RUNNERS-UP! POLICY DEBATE: Dylan Michalak/Andrew Sinsioco (Peninsula) Top 60! Nathan Wang/Jackson Frankwick (Peninsula) Top 30! Lukas Rhoades/Darik Park (Peninsula) 6th Place! STORYTELLING: Avery Grove (Calabasas) Top 60! Rand Meyer (VIP) NATIONAL CHAMPION! PREPARED COMMENTARY: River Simard (VIP) Top 30! Cassidy Dalva (Granada Hills) 13th Place! Carly Dutcher (VIP) NATIONAL RUNNER-UP! EXPOSITORY: Emily Cocea (VIP) Top 60! Audrey Lesser (VIP) Top 30! Diego Borgsdorf (Granada Hills) Top 30! Rand Meyer (VIP) 6th Place! POETRY: Amelie Heying (Fullerton Union) Top 60! Emily Cocea (VIP) Top 30! PREPARED PROMPT: Emma Green (Windward) Top 60! River Simard (VIP) Top 30! EXTEMPORANEOUS DEBATE: Serkan Tan (Fullerton Union) Elimination Round 1! Astor Redhead (Fullerton Union) Elimination Round 2! Storey Wertheimer (New West) 8th Place! PROGRAMMED ORAL INTERPRETATION: Amelie Heying (Fullerton Union) Top 60! HUMOROUS INTERPRETATION: Rand Meyer (VIP) Top 60! Alex Chon (Harvard-Westlake) Top 30! INTERNATIONAL EXTEMP: Emma Green (Windward) Top 60! Megha Jain (Granada Hills) Top 60! UNITED STATES EXTEMP: Cassidy Dalva (Granada Hills) Top 60! Sienna Horvath (VIP) Top 30!

Are you a current debater looking to cap off your season or prepare for NSDA Nationals? How about a former debater who wants to get back out and compete again? Then the SpeakfortheArts Online Debate Tournament has your name on it! On June 6th and 7th, Empower Expression is hosting the #SpeakfortheArts Online Debate tournament for high school debaters and debate alumni. We are offering Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum, and Congressional Debate. The LD and PF topics will align wit...h the NSDA National Tournament, and the Congress docket consists of legislation taken from the NDSA National docket for both the House and Senate. The tournament will include 5 preliminary rounds in LD and PF, and 3 preliminary Congress sessions, as well as elimination rounds in all categories (provided there are sufficient entries). Entry fees will be $3 per LD or Congress individual, and $5 per PF team. All donations and funds will go towards expanding the accessibility of Empower Expression’s services. Registration is due by June 1st. To register for the tournament, go to speakforthearts.tabroom.com. For more information and registration resources, go to empowerexpression.org/about-1. Any questions, comments, or concerns can be sent to [email protected]. We hope to see you come and compete for a great cause!

Hi, everyone! It's been a little while, but I wanted to bring your attention to three things. First, I want to acknowledge the outstanding individuals of the year.... The West Los Angeles STUDENT OF THE YEAR is Andrea Chow from La Reina. To borrow a small quotation from her recommending coach: "Andrea Chow has a natural talent for advocacy, but that’s not the first thing that you will notice when you meet her. The first thing you’ll notice is her kind demeanor, her ability to talk to anyone about anything, and her dedication to doing the right thing. She is outspoken and she is one of the most fearless students I have had the privilege of working with." Our ASSISTANT COACH OF THE YEAR is Chris Ryan from Arroyo Grande, nominated by AG Coach Laura Wade. I've attached a screenshot of a particularly kind and impactful segment part of the nomination: Lastly, Emily Markussen Sorsher of Fullerton nominated me for Coach of the Year. It feels very odd to give myself an award, so--with the blessing of our district committee and because nobody else wrote in a nomination--I accept and I really appreciate her kind words. Okay. Let's talk about some resources for you to navigate online competitions. As you may know, a LOT of tournaments are going digital in the coming semester. The GOOD NEWS is that this may provide our local students with high-quality early-season competition without the stress of travel/hotels. By the time physical tournaments return to form, our district could develop an amazing knowledge base. Here are places to find competitions: Tabroom.com Joy of Tournaments Speechwire Forensicstournament.net But I would HIGHLY recommend that coaches VOLUNTEER TO JUDGE ONLINE COMPETITIONS so they can prepare their students for what's coming, what to look for, what common mistakes they encounter, etc. So many of these online tournaments, especially the ones on Tabroom.com, want volunteer judges from across the country. Do that! You'll learn, you'll help students learn, you'll strengthen the district.

GOOD NEWS for all West Los Angeles district competitors who didn't qualify in their primary events! We're now offering a BIG QUESTIONS competition over Zoom on 5/9. The winner will qualify to nationals. Details here: https://www.tabroom.com/index/tourn/index.mhtml

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for participating in the 2020 West Los Angeles virtual national qualifying competition. SPEECH AWARDS: https://youtu.be/vqyOEdGNQm4 DEBATE/CONGRESS AWARDS: https://youtu.be/yqo70hVoThg...Continue reading

Hi, everyone! A few reminders about the tournament on the 25th and 26th. REMINDERS FOR JUDGES: 1) Tomorrow, I'm going to send out pre-paneled rounds that you will be called to judge. I will also send out the rounds that, in case of debate, you MAY be called to judge (some of you may be on standby). We expect every single Speech judge to be used during our 2:30 PM round (40 judges), 31 judges for our 5 PM round, and 10 for our Extemp final.... I will also email out Zoom links for our meetings. To summarize, you will show up 15 minutes in advance of every round on those Zoom links. Then, you will be put in breakout rooms and either paired with students (for the live events) or given links to watch the prepared events. You will submit your ballots over Tabroom.com. That means you need to have paired every judge with a Tabroom.com email/account. THE FOLLOWING JUDGES WERE NOT LINKED AND NEED TO BE PAIRED BY THEIR COACHES ASAP: Erez Golomb (NoHo) / Bryan Kim (Valencia) / Myra Uytiepo (NoHo) / Aidan Young (La Canada) Everyone else is good. 2) Here's a list of our policies and procedures: https://docs.google.com//1CiRu7cGiM8SnInTPayFu5yMsYh/edit . Please familiarize yourself with them. 3) Here's a reminder about our Saturday and Sunday schedule: [April 25th, 2020] 9 AM - Debate Round 1 (over Zoom) 11 AM - Debate Round 2 1 PM - Debate Round 3 2 PM - Extemp Prep (Round 1) 2:30 PM - Speech Semifinals (Prepared events over 7 entries) / Speech Finals (Prepared events with 7 or fewer entries) / Extemp Round 1 (over Zoom) To clarify, prepared Speech events will have one or two rounds only (Semis and Finals) with a panel of judges. 3:30 PM - Debate Round 4 4:30 PM - Extemp Draw (Round 2) 5:00 PM - Speech Finals (Prepared events over 7 entries) / Extemp Round 2 6 PM - Extemp Draw (Finals) 6:30 PM - Extemp Finals [April 26th, 2020] 9 AM - Debate Round 5 (if necessary) 11 PM - Debate Round 6 (if necessary) 2 PM - Congress Session 1 5 PM - Congress Session 2 REMINDERS FOR COACHES: 1) Remember, today is the LAST DAY to email your students' prepared speeches (Loom videos) to [email protected]! If I don't get them by the end of the day, I will not be able to put them in paneled playlists for our judges tomorrow. 2) Remember, tomorrow is the LAST DAY to send in your PayPal entry fees to Leilani McHugh (https://www.paypal.me/WestLANSDA). 3) I'm still missing SCHOOL REGISTRATION/PERMISSION SHEETS from most schools. It's right there on the registration portal where you put in your entries. Thank you! We have some really amazing judges--former state and national finalists and champions, even a member of the NSDA Board of Directors--who are dedicating time on their Saturday and Sunday for your sake. I think we're going to qualify some exceptional students to the national competition!

https://www.tabroom.com/index/tourn/index.mhtml We're open for registration! Please remember that prepared event entries should be recorded on Loom and emailed to [email protected] (instructions are on the Tabroom.com page).

UPDATES: Our CONGRESS TOPICS are ready! Here they are, ready for 4/26: https://docs.google.com//1OQZ_1UQmzQziechzCPyaOiu9jT/edit Converting our district qualifying tournament from Joy of Tournaments to Tabroom.com (for registration) has been pushed back two days. We need back-end assistance from the NSDA; we're told that it can be settled on Monday, 4/13. In light of that, we've pushed back this week's deadlines by two days, and updated the Google Doc of rules accordingly.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for your patience. Your district committee has prepared a comprehensive document of our procedures for the 2020 West LA virtual national qualifiers. https://docs.google.com//1CiRu7cGiM8SnInTPayFu5yMsYhduvz4/ - Please review these thoroughly. If there are any rule changes/clarifications to it, I will mark those (with a timeline of when the rule was changed) at the top of the doc. The NSDA is currently vetting it to make sure everything is approved. We've... arrived at these procedures after consulting with a lot of other districts, so I don't forsee a problem. We've left the comment function on so you're able to ask clarifying questions directly on the doc. We are also hosting a ZOOM FAQ next week - Thursday evening - from 5 to 6 PM, PST. We'll record it and send it out in case you can't make it. If you'd like to attend that Zoom meeting, let me know and I'll send the link ([email protected]). There won't be any additional information there, and hopefully most misconceptions can be cleared up on the document, so read the doc in depth first. Once you understand its meaning, please share it with your nationals-oriented students!

I'm passing on a message from a rising senior from the Cupertino Speech and Debate team. "Hope you're doing well! My name is Ankita Acharya and I'm a rising senior at Cupertino High School. Following the cancellation of many Bay Area speech and debate tournaments, I've been working to set up an online speech tournament - the Spring Online Classic on 4/18. It's on the Nat Circuit and hosted on Tabroom at onlineclassic.tabroom.com (still being set up). The tournament serves the... purpose of providing students an opportunity to invest in their yearlong effort while staying safe at home. " I would be grateful if you could introduce this opportunity...through your normal means - I'm sure many would be happy to participate. I highly encourage students to sign up, if not to do their own efforts justice, to gain NSDA points. To sign up independent entries, I'm adding students to a temporary team. If you'd like to sign students up through the Valley International school tabroom, that would be amazing as well. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to get back to me at this email address!""

This is slightly mislabeled. High school Speech and Debate Nationals is not canceled; it's virtual. It's true -- virtual nats is not the same. It tests different skills. Judges will look for different things. But it still represents an opportunity for students to share their hard work and their voices on a national platform. So long as online content-sharing services now make up the bulk of how many people spend their time, there's a lot of educational and professional merit ...to content-sharing on digital platforms. It's also true that many students will choose not to attend (or have limited access to online services). However, we may see an increase in the number of attendees who were previously held back by the travel costs. There's a new opportunity to reach people. Are there symbolic and ceremonial aspects that simply can't be replaced? Yeah, probably. And the members of this community need to think long and hard about how we can make it up to the seniors (in particular) once social distancing dies down. The West Los Angeles district will set our qualifying virtual tournament dates for the end of April. More details to come.

The Crescenta Valley Speech and Debate team invites you to the Seniors vs. COVID-19 Invitational. It will be hosted on Discord on April 25 and 26. We will have one Open division of Parliamentary debate, following CHSSA rules. Entries can be entered on the Discord server: https://discord.gg/wKSevsz Deadline to enter is April 18, 2020. Judging requirement is 1 judge for every 4 entries. Schedule:... Saturday: Round 1: 11am Round 2: 1:30pm Round 3: 4pm Round 4: 6:30pm Breaks Posted: 9pm Sunday: Quarters: 11am Semis: 1:30pm Finals: 4pm

Another COVID-19 West Los Angeles Speech UPDATE from District Chair Iain Lampert: Earlier yesterday, we received an update from the NSDA. Regardless of where we're at a few months from now, whether or not the coronavirus curve is effectively flattened, the NSDA would like us to take precautionary measures and switch to either an auto-qual system or an online qualifier. Both of these systems are imperfect, to be sure. An auto-qual system is only as fair and unbiased as its dev...Continue reading