BERKELEY FALL

12-14 December 2025 for PF
13-14 December 2025 for LD

DEADLINE

4 Dec 2025
NO REFUNDS AFTER THIS DATE
WITHDRAWALS INCUR AN ADDITIONAL CHARGE

ELIGIBILITY

Open to middle and high school students

PLATFORM

Online through NSDA Campus

Information

Hello coaches,
This is the invite for the Berkeley Fall Invitational 2025 (December 12-13, 14th as needed). This will be an ONLINE event hosted on the NSDA Campus.

Divisions and Resolutions:

The tournament will offer a wide range of PF divisions along with Novice and JV LD
The November-December topics will be used in all divisions.
Debaters may “debate up.” For instance, a 2nd year high school debaters may debate in the varsity division.
Debaters may not “debate down.” If you are in your 3rd year, you may not debate in the JV or Novice division. Teams of two debaters with different years of experience must debate to the level of the debater with the most experience. For example, a team that is made up of a 4-yearhigh school student and a 2-year high school student must debate in varsity.
There have been questions related to eligibility for novice in MS and HS PF. The general rule is, anyone debating in novice should not have had more than two tournaments before July 1, 2025.
MS experience does count against HS “novice.” MS students who debated at more than two tournaments before July 1 should go into JV.

Debate and tournament times:

PF will use the standard 4-4-3-4-4-3-3-3-3-2-2 time format with 4 MINUTES of in-round prep time.
LD will use the standard 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 time format with 5 MINUTES of in-round prep time.
Debaters and judges are expected to be in their online rooms 15 minutes before the round starts. Rounds are expected to start no more than 15 minutes after the blasted start time. Should a team not show up by the 15 minute mark, they will forfeit the round.
The tournament will allow 10 minutes of emergency tech time should a student’s computer or network/internet connection fail.

Awards:

Awards will be given to the top 50% of entries.

Judge Eligibility:

Middle school students, regardless of their experience, may not judge.
For MS PF, any high school student with at least 1 year of high school debate experience may judge.
For Novice High School PF, any high school student with at least 2 years of debate experience may judge.
For JV and Varsity High School PF, only adults that have left high school may judge.

Judge Obligations:

Please do not sign up to judge if you cannot commit to the tournament schedule.
Missed round fine for judges: $200/round
All judges are obligated for Friday and Saturday (full days). Judges of teams that are in the last elim round on Saturday will be obligated for Sunday morning.
So if any GSA student makes it to Elim 3 PF/Elim 2 LD on Saturday, all judges are required to judge on Sunday regardless of how early your own child got eliminated.
The tournament and the tabroom are not responsible for informing judges of their obligations. Questions such as “When am I done?” or “Why do I need to judge on Saturday?” should be handled by the coach in-charge of the program that brought you.
Judges that request rounds off must submit their requests through the coach that brought them. Be aware that these requests may trigger a fee.
It is the obligation of each school to provide a quality and trained PF judge. This includes information on the event, how to use Tabroom’s Online Ballot system, and how to use NSDA Campus.
Please go over the judging resources below the judge information section and make sure you are qualified before signing up as a judge.
The tournament will provide a video on how to use Tabroom and how to judge: Links can be found here (Links coming soon).
During the tournament, the tab staff and tournament admins will be busy running the tournament. They will not be able to answer questions about judging or Tabroom/Campus on the day of the tournament or once the tournament has started.
Judges that do not meet the requirements of Tabroom/Campus use or are unfamiliar and untrained in the event that they are judging may be removed and fined, on top of being charged the hired judge fee.

Entry Price

PF and parent is judging $120
PF and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $290

LD and parent is judging $150
LD and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $350

Missed round fine for judges: $200/round

Each person in a PF team would be responsible of providing their own judge, so one PF team would need to either provide two judges, both pay the judge fee, or one of each option.

Registration will not be complete until payment is received.

NOTE: We will charge set up fees if we have to create tabroom.com accounts for judges. It is recommended you do so on your own.

Schedule - EST

Please note that all times are in EASTERN STANDARD TIME (EST).
Green times have been converted to PST.

DEBATE SCHEDULE

Friday, December 12th
6:30pm -- Pairings released --- 3:30 PM PST
7pm -- Round 1 PF --- 4:00 PM PST
8:30pm -- Round 2 PF --- 5:30 PM PST

Saturday, December 13th
10am -- Round 3 PF/Round 1 LD --- 7:00 AM PST
12pm -- Round 4 PF/Round 2 LD --- 9:00 AM PST
2pm -- Round 5 PF/Round 3 LD --- 11:00 AM PST
4pm -- Round 6 PF/Round 4 LD --- 1:00 PM PST
6pm -- Elim 1 PF/Round 5 LD --- 3:00 PM PST
7:30pm -- Elim 2 PF/Elim 1 LD --- 4:30 PM PST
9pm -- Elim 3 PF/Elim 2 LD --- 6:00 PM PST

Sunday, December 14th
10am -- Elim 4 PF/Elim 3 LD (as needed) --- 7:00 AM PST
12pm -- Elim 5 PF/Elim 4 LD (as needed) --- 9:00 AM PST
Judges are still obligated to attend this day even if their own child did not make it to further elimination rounds.

Drop Fee

Drop fees will be the same amounts as the entry fee PLUS any fees the tournament charges us for late drops. Drop requests should be made to Victor and Nadia.

Please do not drop out last minute to avoid being charged these fees.

Contact Info

Victor Rivas Umana
Contact email: [email protected]
Nadia Budiman
Contact email: [email protected]
Or [email protected]

Registration Form

STUDENT INFORMATION

* Indicates required field

Student Name *

First

Last

Student Email (DO NOT USE PARENT'S EMAIL) *

Student Phone Number *

Does the student have a Tabroom account? *

Yes and it is linked with GSA's account(s) Yes but it is not linked and we need you to add to your roster No but I will create one before submitting registration

If this is your first time competing, make sure to first create a Tabroom account here: https://www.tabroom.com/user/login/new_user.mhtml
It's super simple and quick (<1 minute), but follow the guidelines here in case anything is confusing: https://docs.tabroom.com/Sign_Up

PARENT CONTACT INFORMATION
Your email address will be the one included when we send the logistics email.

Parent Name *

First

Last

Parent Email *

Parent Phone Number *

EVENT SELECTION
Got any questions? Please email [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Make sure you understand that this online tournament is live and takes place in Eastern Time.

Partner Name (write N/A if none) *

First

Last

JUDGE PROVISION

Will you (parent) be judging at this tournament? *

Judge Name *

Judge email (Must be linked to a tabroom account. Register first at tabroom.com before completing this sign up) *

Judge phone *

Does your judge have a Tabroom account? *

Yes No but I will create one before submitting registration Not judging

Does your judge understand that he/she is responsible for the entire tournament schedule, judging every round, and that missing a round incurs fines from the tournament? *

Yes, understood Not judging but understood as well

Click here to complete the highly recommended Cultural Competency judge training course

Signing up a judge without having a Tabroom account will result in us charging you for the set up fee.
You can do this easily on your own by going to tabroom.com. It literally takes less than a minute.

First time judging?
This is a great collection of short videos that one of the leagues have put together to learn each event: click here.
There are also these training cards available that include a summary of each event's rules and comments.
Click here to find other training and official certification resources. Or watch our Youtube playlist here.

Tournaments encourage judges to have a paradigm on their Tabroom account, which can be a few sentences on your preferences of debating styles, etc. See here for example. It doesn't need to be this long, but make sure to add something before you sign up. For example: "I am a parent, please speak clearly and slowly and avoid technical jargon".

More tournament resources can be found here.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

I will keep a copy of this form for reference. *

YES

We are signing up with the understanding that my child will work to be ready by the tournament date. If we choose to drop out because my child is not ready that will be considered when making assessments for future classes. *

YES

I understand that if I fail to drop the tournament before the deadline that I will still be responsible for the fees of both my son or daughter, along with that of his or her partner and the fines. *

YES

I understand that if payment is not received we won't be registered and our spot will be given up to someone else. *

YES

I confirm that I have completed all necessary paperwork for this tournament. *

YES

I understand that The Golden State Academy has no control over tournament entries other than the initial sign up. I understand that my child's priority will be based on either the last time I signed up OR the date paid, whichever is latest. *

YES

I understand that my child must check in and check out periodically at the tournament with the coach and that if I do not my child will be barred from participating in following tournaments. This is to ensure coaches can see where students are at competitively and to give any initial feedback for improvement. *

YES

I understand that I can check my entry status through tabroom.com. *

YES

I am a consenting adult. I understand that by submitting this form I agree to all that has been covered. *

YES

Submit/take to payment

We would love to have you visit soon at one of our open houses.
Check our home page for the schedule!

School year Hours

M-F: 3:45 pm - 8:30 pm
Sun: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Telephone

510-270-8480
510-470-0531

Email (preferred)

For more info email us at: [email protected]

Locations

Fremont: 200 Brown Rd #201, Fremont, CA 94539

Cupertino: 20432 Silverado Avenue Suite 211, Cupertino, CA 95014

Aborn Institute: 2804 Riedel Road, San Jose, CA 95135

Dublin: Loving Tree Academy, 6693 Owens Dr, Pleasanton, CA 94588

BERKELEY FALL

12-14 December 2025 for PF13-14 December 2025 for LD

Information

​Entry Price

Schedule - EST

Drop Fee

Contact Info

Registration Form

We would love to have you visit soon at one of our open houses.Check our home page for the schedule!

School year Hours

Telephone

Email (preferred)

Locations

12-14 December 2025 for PF
13-14 December 2025 for LD

Entry Price

We would love to have you visit soon at one of our open houses.
Check our home page for the schedule!