GROVES FALCON

GROVES FALCON INVITATIONAL

15-16 November 2025

DEADLINE

8 Nov 2025
NO REFUNDS AFTER THIS DATE

ELIGIBILITY

Open to MS/HS students

PLATFORM

Online through NSDA Campus

Information

Dear Colleagues:
The Groves Debate Team cordially invites you and your team to the 36th Annual Wylie E. Groves Falcon Debate Invitational to be held virtually on November 15-16, 2025. PF will run Saturday-Sunday.

TOPICS:
The November-December 2025 NSDA Public Forum Resolution.

FORMAT:
We will be offering Middle School, Novice, and Varsity Public Forum Debate Divisions.

LOGISTICS:
All debates will take place on Online via NSDA Campus and/or Zoom.
WE WILL BE USING TENTH POINTS IN ALL DEBATE FORMATS.

JUDGES:

Public Forum Debate: Any adult high school graduate, regardless of debate experience, may judge this division. Any junior or senior in high school may judge the novice and/or middle school public forum divisions. Lay judges are encouraged.
Ballots and elimination rounds: Judges are expected to be available to judge one round past their own team's elimination in ALL DIVISIONS. Even if the judge’s own child has gotten eliminated way before then.

RULES:

MIFA: The Tab Room/Tournament Administration will not enforce MIFA, NDCA, NSDA or NCFL rules or guidelines regarding disclosure of decisions, reading of evidence, prompting or "tag teaming," paperless debate, or evidence citation. Judges may enforce their own preferences in individual debate rounds so long as they make the debaters aware of them at the beginning of the rounds.
Prep time will be three (3) minutes per team in Public Forum.
Behavior: The Tournament Administration, upon investigation, reserves the right to remove from the judging pool adjudicators whose personal behavior is inappropriate or offensive. The school which has provided the removed judge will be financially responsible FOR ANY UNCOVERED DEBATES. Examples of inappropriate behavior include, but are not limited to, leaving the virtual room during speeches including cross-examination; rude or intemperate written or oral comments to debaters; undue familiarity/favoritism shown to a team in a round; evidence of bias or hostility exhibited towards competitors or harassment of any nature.

AWARDS:
Speaker awards will be given out based on the number of entries in each division. All teams reaching elimination rounds in each division will receive awards.

We look forward to hosting you virtually on November 15-16, 2025. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Entry Price

MS PF and parent is judging $65
MS PF and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $165

HS Novice/Varsity PF and parent is judging $70
HS Novice/Varsity PF and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $200

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.

Tentative Schedule

PLEASE NOTE ALL TIMES ARE IN EASTERN STANDARD TIME. The green times have been converted into PST.

Middle School Public Forum Schedule

Saturday:
Opening Judging Meeting on Zoom - 9:00 A.M. --- 6:00 AM PST
Round 1 – 10:00 A.M. --- 7:00 AM PST
Round 2 – 11:15 A.M. --- 8:15 AM PST
Lunch - 12:30 P.M. --- 9:30 AM PST
Round 3 – 1:30 P.M. --- 10:30 AM PST
Round 4 – 2:45 P.M. --- 11:45 AM PST
First Elim – 4:15 P.M. --- 1:15 PM PST
Second Elim – 5:45 P.M. --- 2:45 PM PST
Dinner - 7:00 P.M. --- 4:00 PM PST
Third Elim: 8:00 P.M. --- 5:00 PM PST

Novice & Varsity Public Forum Schedule

Saturday:
Opening Judging Meeting on Zoom - 9:00 A.M. --- 6:00 AM PST
Round 1 – 10:00 A.M. --- 7:00 AM PST
Round 2 – 11:15 A.M. --- 8:15 AM PST
Lunch - 12:30 P.M. --- 9:30 AM PST
Round 3 – 1:30 P.M. --- 10:30 AM PST
Round 4 – 2:45 P.M. --- 11:45 AM PST
Round 5 – 4:00 P.M. --- 1:00 PM PST
Round 6 – 5:15 P.M. --- 2:15 PM PST
Dinner - 6:30 P.M. --- 3:30 PM PST
First Elim: 7:45 P.M. --- 4:45 PM PST

Sunday:
Pairings Available: 9:30 A.M. --- 6:30 AM PST
Second Elim: 10:00 A.M. --- 7:00 AM PST
Third Elim: 11:45 A.M. --- 8:45 AM PST
Lunch Break – 1:00 P.M. --- 10:00 AM PST
Fourth Elim: 2:00 P.M. --- 11:00 AM PST

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 (make sure you have a Tabroom account) *

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
Divisions may get combined if entries are too small.

PF Partner Name *

First

Last

Choose your division, but keep in mind that if enrollments are low some divisions may be collapsed into one *

MS PF (Nov/Dec) HS Novice PF (Nov/Dec) HS Varsity PF (Nov/Dec)

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 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

GROVES FALCON INVITATIONAL

15-16 November 2025

Information

​Entry Price

Tentative Schedule

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

Entry Price

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