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The Golden State Academy
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    GGSA STATE QUALS​
    ​for Alsion students only

    1-2 March 2025

    DEADLINE
    19 Feb 2025
    ELIGIBILITY
    Open to Alsion students only
    LOCATION
    James Logan High School
    1800 H Street, Union City, CA 94587

    Information

    Dear GGSA Coaches and Competitors:

    On Saturday, March 1, and Sunday, March 2, 2025, the Golden Gate Speech Association will be hosting its State Quals tournament in Speech and Debate at James Logan High School, 1800 H Street, Union City, CA 94587. All preliminary debate rounds and, time permitting, some elimination rounds will occur on Saturday, but it is likely that some debate elimination rounds may occur on Sunday, March 2.
    Debater quals will be held on Saturday, March 1

    We will be using the MARCH topics/resolutions.

    Debate
    Public Forum Debate: 9

    • Students who cannot attend the state championships May 2-4 in Culver City may not enter state quals.

    • Entry Prerequisites for Debate:
    1. Entries should be limited to qualified “A” debaters. Qualified “A” debater means a debater who has, during the current school year in the same event, (1) finished a GGSA “A” tournament undefeated or with only one loss; and/or (2) finished an "A" invitational with at least an even record. Two "Qualified A" debaters may compete as a team at the state qualifier even if they achieved the relevant tournament finishes with other partners.
    2. In addition, schools may enter one wild card entry. Wild card entry is defined as a team that has not met the requirements for a “Qualified” “A” debater above but the coach feels has a legitimate chance of qualifying to the State Tournament.


    TOURNAMENT DAY
    • Food will be provided for the students for a fee. Coaches and judges will have food provided at no cost.
    • Students will be expected to dress appropriately, ties and dress shoes for boys and modest skirts or pants-suits for girls. Students must show respect for the facility and each other.


    JUDGING & TOURNAMENT HELP
    • QUALIFICATIONS: 
    In order to make it easier to come up with the required number of judges, you may bring former competitors who are college students, but they will not be allowed to judge any event involving students against whom they previously competed. College freshmen are NOT allowed to judge. IE judges are not permitted to judge events that their children compete in. Coaches must indicate all restrictions in their judge registration notes.
    • JUDGE FLEXIBILITY: In order to avoid having judges assigned to rounds with students from the same school, we will be swapping some judges between debate events and Student Congress. We anticipate keeping a given judge in the same event for the entire tournament and discussing event swaps with coaches prior to the tournament. All IE judges will be expected to judge all speech events. Nonetheless, please advise your judges that they will have to be totally flexible in accepting assignments to any of the events at the tournament and that circumstances could necessitate that they receive ballots for events other than what they are expecting.
    • All judges must be available to judge all elimination rounds in their registered event category.
    • We hope to release some judges after the first elimination round has begun, but no judge will be released without authorization from the tournament director, who will first check to ensure that all events are adequately covered. In general, we anticipate being able to release judges following the conclusion of the first round after all entries from the corresponding school have been eliminated from the competition. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL ANY JUDGES BE RELEASED BEFORE THE FIRST ELIMINATION ROUND BEGINS ON SATURDAY NIGHT OR SUNDAY NIGHT.
    • Repeated judge failure to be present at the start of assigned rounds or submit ballots in a timely fashion may also result in entries from that school being dropped. GGSA by-laws also provide for a $50 fine when a judge is not available the entire day, and fines may be imposed at the discretion of the debate directors.


    DOUBLE ENTRY RULES
    Students may no longer compete at the CHSSA state tournament in both a debate event and an individual event.
    1. DEBATE
    Any students who have qualified to the state tournament in Debate and then choose to compete at State Quals in Speech will be required to drop their debate spot if they qualify in a speech event.
    2. INDIVIDUAL EVENTS
    While students may not compete in two IE events at State, they may double-enter in two IE events at State Quals. This is done at their own risk and students will receive a 5 in rounds that they miss. All double-entered students must submit the signed single-entry letter of intent (see the sidebar) before the tournament. Our bylaws require Duo Interp qualifiers to compete at State unless both competitors qualify in other events and indicate that preference on their letter of intent.
    IE Double Entry Exceptions: Students may not double-enter in both IX and NX. Students may not double-enter in Impromptu unless they have competed in Varsity Impromptu at a GGSA league tournament at least once during the current season.


    *AI POLICY for ALL SPEECH & DEBATE EVENTS: Generative artificial intelligence should not be cited as a source; while something like ChatGPT may be used to guide students to articles, ideas, and sources, the original source of any quoted or paraphrased evidence must be available if requested. Students are prohibited from quoting or paraphrasing text directly from generative AI sources like ChatGPT in events in which speeches must be the original created work of a competitor.

    ​
    COMPUTER USE RULES
    Policy/Public Forum/ Lincoln Douglas Debate
    Computers MAY be used during the round (but without internet access).

    ​Entry Price

    ​One PF event and parent is judging $75
    One PF event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $240

    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

    TBA (check Tabroom)

    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
    Only students who go to this school are eligible for this tournament.
    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 so make sure to list it correctly.

    EVENT SELECTION
    Make sure you have checked the double-entry policies above. We are not responsible for any disqualifications due to not abiding to the rules.
    BOTH partners must fill out form and pay in order to be registered!

    ​JUDGE PROVISION
    Make sure you will be available to judge the entire tournament schedule.​

    ​​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
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​​
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet Our Coaches
    • Why Speech and Debate
    • What is Speech and Debate? >
      • Speech Events
      • Debate Events
    • Why Golden State Academy
    • Tournament Photos
    • Tournament results
    • FAQ
  • Forms
  • Registration
    • Elementary Fall 2025
    • MS/HS Fall 2025
    • Private Coaching >
      • Speech Private Coaching
      • Debate Private Coaching
    • Elementary Summer 2025
    • MS/HS Summer 2025
    • GSA Tournaments
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Career Opportunities
  • Newsletter