JON SCHAMBER​ HIGH SCHOOL INVITATIONAL

    24-26 October 2025

    DEADLINE
    17 Oct 2025
    (to register and to drop)
    ELIGIBILITY
    PLATFORM
    Open to high school students
    In-person at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA

    Information

    Jon Schamber High School Invitational 2025

    The University of the Pacific Speech and Debate team cordially invites your team to attend the 44th annual Jon Schamber High School Forensics Tournament on Friday, October 24 through Sunday, October 26, 2025. The tournament will feature the following events:
    ​
    ​Debate
    • Lincoln Douglas Debate
    • Public Forum debate (TOC QUALIFIER FOR SEMI-FINAL & FINAL ROUND PARTICIPANTS!)​ 

    ​Individual Events (TOC & NIET TOC QUALIFIERS)
    • Declamation (formerly Oratorical Interpretation)
    • Dramatic Interpretation
    • Duo Interpretation
    • Extemporaneous Speaking (Combined National & International Topics)
    • Humorous Interp
    • Impromptu
    • Informative Speaking
    • Original Oratory
    • Programmed Oral Interpretation​
    We also offer Triathlon, which allows schools to triple enter up to six students in Individual Events.


    Awards: Awards will be presented to all elimination round competitors. Speaker awards will be presented to the top three debaters in all divisions as well as the top three speakers in both divisions of Triathlon. The top two high schools with eleven or more contestants entered and the top two high schools with ten or fewer contestants entered will be honored with sweepstakes awards. In addition, the traveling sweepstakes trophy will be presented to the school that has accumulated the highest number of sweepstakes points over the years that the tournament has been offered on our campus. The members of Pacific Speech and Debate are looking forward to seeing your squad in October. We hope to see you here!


    HARASSMENT AND DISCRIMINATION POLICY (CHSSA)
    As a tournament, we will follow the harassment policy stated below ON TOP OF our own institutions harassment policy:

    The California High School Speech Association is committed to providing its participants, judges, coaches, and members the opportunity to pursue excellence in their endeavors. This opportunity can exist only when each member of our community is assured an atmosphere of mutual respect. CHSSA is committed to maintaining an environment that is free from all forms of harassment and discrimination. Accordingly, all forms of harassment and discrimination are prohibited, whether committed by participants, judges, coaches, or observers. CHSSA is committed to the enforcement of this policy. Individuals who are found to have violated this policy will be subject to the full range of sanctions, up to and including removal from the tournament premises and prosecution by authorities. Any individual or group of individuals who believes they have been a victim of harassment and/or discrimination should report it to the Help Desk or appropriate authority immediately.

    PARTICIPANT BEHAVIOR:
    A waiver and guidelines form will be circulated for competitors, judges, and all other participants. We would ask that everyone you enter in our tournament read and agree to follow these procedures. We encourage your participants to respect these policies and we ask you to engage with respect, empathy, and fairness. Participants who do not respect this or refuse to agree will be disqualified from participation.

    SAFETY GUIDELINES:
    Two-party consent is required for the recording of a live debate round. Students and Judges are allowed to clarify at any point in the round that the recording/live streaming should stop. Any violation of this rule could result in disqualification.
    Recording of IE rounds being judged is prohibited.
    ​

    DIVISIONS
    A competitor in Novice division is a competitor in their first two years of competition combined at either the middle-school or high-school level. However, any student who reached elimination rounds at either the CHSSA middle-school or high-school tournaments must enter senior division.​

    Any competitor may enter Open division. A competitor who is a Junior or Senior with competitive experience prior to the current academic year must enter Open division. A Novice division competitor competing with a Open division partner must be entered in Open division. A Parliamentary debater must enter in Open division if they would normally be required to enter the Open division of CX, Extemp, or Impromptu under these guidelines.

    DOUBLE ENTRY POLICY
    Competitors may enter in both Debate and Speech events but are responsible for arriving to their rounds on time. Failure to do so could result in forfeiting a round. Competitors may only enter in a single debate event and may enter in NO MORE than three speech events.


    JUDGES
    Judges must judge for one full round beyond the elimination of GSA's last contestants from competitions, so please make sure you are available for the entirety of the tournament. A judge covering two debate teams will be expected to be present for both days of team debate. A judge covering individual events will be expected to be present for both Saturday and Sunday elimination rounds.  
    Thus, if your judges are there on Saturday, and your team does not advance, we will STILL expect them to be there on Sunday for the elimination rounds. Concomitantly, if your student does not advance to the semi-final or the final round in individual events, the judge is still committed for Sunday because that is one round past elimination.​​

    NOTE- We will be using digital ballots for ALL EVENTS so please make sure that your judges have a laptop, tablet, or cell phone they can use to access their ballot and record their results. We began using digital ballots at in-person tournaments with lots of success. In order for it to work, your judges need to have a verified Speechwire email account and it would be a good idea if your students have one as well.
    ​

    TOURNAMENT GUIDELINES AND RULES

    EVENT GUIDELINES (OVERALL)
    We encourage all participants to familiarize themselves with the updated rules of the California High School Speech Association and the National Speech and Debate Association. Concerns and, when necessary, protests must be brought to the attention of the Tournament Director as soon as possible after an alleged infraction of a rule has taken place. As much as we can, we will follow CHSSA State Tournament event and tabbing rules for our tournament. However, the tournament invite will dictate the rules for the tournament. If it is NOT in the invite, the Tournament Director is the final arbiter for all alleged violations.

    Computers & Internet
    Debaters shall be allowed access to computers during preparation time and during the round after preparation time has ended. Debaters shall be allowed to use their computer to prepare arguments and ARE ENCOURAGED to only use materials prepared during prep time by either them or their partner. During preparation time, debaters may consult both physical and electronic copies of any written material, including both prepared notes and published sources. Debaters may use computers, as well as flash drives and external hard drives, to store and to retrieve written material. Debaters MAY use their phone and MAY ACCESS the internet during preparation time. All other guidelines as established by CHSSA should be reviewed by all coaches and students (The guidelines are uploaded in the documents folder on SpeechWire along with our tournament website).

    Evidence
    Evidence rules require that all students have evidence immediately ready to go when requested. If evidence is paraphrased, it is required that the competitor has the specific text from the original source which is being paraphrased clearly indicated and immediately available. If it takes teams more than one minute to find and send evidence that is requested, the team looking for the evidence must take preparation time to find it. Any reading of evidence produced at a team’s request must be done within the requesting team’s preparation time. These requirements are to ensure that we stick to the schedule and avoid keeping students and judges in competition longer than their commitment.

    Debaters must send original sources via PDF or Word document; no links directly to online articles may be shared due to paywalls, subscription restrictions, and the inability to highlight the sections read or paraphrased. Evidence must be shared as a PDF or Word document through a link in the virtual room chat box, through an email chain, or through speechdrop.net. Students who plan to use the email option are recommended not to use their personal email address, and instead, to create a tournament-only account to use. The email chain must be created in the 30 minutes prior to the debate in order to be used. Judges should be added to the email chain if they so request.

    Outside Assistance
    Participants in the tournament will be reminded of their commitment to the state and national organization codes of honor. During the course of a round, receiving outside assistance from any non-participant in the round, including coaches, teammates, and family members, is strictly prohibited. Any allegations of a rule violation should be submitted to the Tournament Director and will be handled through protest process. Students found to have violated tournament policy may face loss of round, disqualification from the tournament, and/or notification to school administration.

    Forfeit Rule
    While we will do our best to accommodate and troubleshoot problems with technology, we also need to do our best to keep the tournament running on time. Debaters will be forfeited if they fail to arrive at their competition room within 10 minutes after the round was scheduled to start (accept for Parliamentary debate where a 10 minute forfeit rule is in place). Round start times will be updated throughout the tournament if the tournament starts to run off schedule. Please explain to your students the importance of being on time, OR EVEN EARLY, to rounds. Students are responsible for reading postings correctly, getting to the contest room, asking the judge if their code and/or name appears correctly, and ensuring they are prepared. Debaters who forfeit a round will receive zero speaker points for the round; debaters who receive a forfeit win will have their speaker points averaged for the round.

    If we receive multiple reports that judges are arriving to rounds late (after the 10-minute mark), the tournament will begin randomly selecting student teams from that school to forfeit. This means that judges will have not one BUT TWO opportunities to make sure they arrive in their round on time. If a judge from a school is having consistent problems, they should be contacting the tournament, or their coach should be contacting the tournament. 


    DEBATE EVENT GUIDELINES

    LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE
    ​We will use the Sept./Oct. topic for LD in ALL DIVISIONS.     Resolved: In the United States criminal justice system, plea bargaining is just.​
    You may NOT double enter LD and any team debate event.
    Lincoln Douglas Debate Time 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 with 5 minutes preparation time per debater.
    ​
    PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE
    Topic: The United Kingdom should rejoin the European Union.​
    ​Students MAY NOT double enter ANY team debate event.
    ​Public Forum Debate Times 4-4-3-4-4-3-3-3-3-2-2 with 3 minutes of preparation time for each team during the debate to be used as a team sees fit. The Pro will speak first in every debate.
    ​

    SPEECH/INDIVIDUAL EVENTS

    DIVISION RULES
    Eligibility Rules - Open Division is available to all eligible students, regardless of experience. Students are novices in individual events when they:
    1. are in their first year (defined as two semesters) of high school individual event competition and
    2. have not placed third or higher in the same or a similar event two or more times in any division.
    Collapsing Divisions – Every effort will be made to protect novice competitors. However, if there are fewer than seven (7) entries in an event, it may be collapsed into the next highest division. If this occurs, top novices will be recognized at the Awards Ceremony.

    ELIMINATION ROUNDS
    Criteria for Elimination Round - Any event with less than 7 contestants will not have a final round. For events with 7 to 29 competitors competing in all preliminary rounds, a final round will be held. In events where more than 30 students compete in all preliminary rounds, semifinals will be offered.

    Advancement to Elimination Rounds – No more than half of the field will be advanced to finals. Students will be rank ordered first by lowest cumulative rankings, then by the highest reciprocal score (a.k.a. decimal conversion) and finally by the highest cumulative ratings.

    Placement/Advancement in Elimination Rounds - Students will be rank ordered first by lowest cumulative rankings in the elimination round, then by judge’s preference, followed by the highest reciprocal score (a.k.a. decimal conversion) and finally by the highest cumulative ratings.

    ​Entry Price

    The fees below assume that you will be traveling on your own (parents will take their child to Stockton and book their own accommodations).
    If you are leaving your child to travel with the GSA team, we will collect a $100 nonrefundable deposit. The final expenses per student minus the deposit will be invoiced once we know the final cost.
    If you would like to travel on your own but have GSA book your hotel so that you'll stay in the same place as the team, please also pay the $100 nonrefundable deposit.

    LD only and parent will be judging at the tournament $125
    LD + 1 Speech and parent will be judging at the tournament $140
    LD + 2 Speech and parent will be judging at the tournament $155
    LD + 3 Speech and parent will be judging at the tournament $170

    PF only and parent will be judging at the tournament $110
    PF + 1 Speech and parent will be judging at the tournament $125
    PF + 2 Speech and parent will be judging at the tournament $140
    PF + 3 Speech and parent will be judging at the tournament $155

    One Speech Event and parent will be judging at the tournament $80
    Two Speech Events and parent will be judging at the tournament $95
    Three Speech Events  and parent will be judging at the tournament $110

    LD only and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $265
    LD + 1 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $280
    LD + 2 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $295
    LD + 3 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $310

    PF only and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $230
    PF + 1 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $245
    PF + 2 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $260
    PF + 2 Speech and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $275

    One Speech Event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $170
    Two Speech Events and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $185
    Three Speech Events and parent is     OPTING OUT of judging $200
    ​

    REMINDERS:
    • ​Judges need to be available on all the days that their event occurs on.
    • 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.
    • Drops for illness (i.e. COVID) and requisite fees will be handled on a case-by-case basis.​

    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

    GLOBAL SCHEDULE

    ​FRIDAY, OCT. 24
    11:30-12:45 PM: Registration and Lunch for competitors
    1:00-1:30 PM: Welcome Ceremony
    1:45 PM LD ROUND 1
    3:00 PM LD ROUND 2
    4:15 PM LD ROUND 3
    5:15 PM LD ROUND 4
    6:15 PM LD ROUND 5

    SATURDAY, OCT. 25
    6:45-7:30 AM REGISTRATION
    7:40-8:00 AM: Welcome Ceremony (Judges Training)
    8:05-9:30 TEAM DEBATE RD 1
    9:30-10:45 AM SPEECH ROUND 1
    10:45-12:10 PM TEAM DEBATE RD 2
    12:00-1:10 PM LUNCH BREAK
    1:15-2:30 PM SPEECH ROUND 2
    2:30-3:55 PM TEAM DEBATE RD 3
    4:00-5:15 PM SPEECH ROUND 3
    5:15-6:40 PM TEAM DEBATE RD 4
    6:40-8:05 PM TEAM DEBATE RD 5
    ​
    SUNDAY, OCT. 26
    8:30-10:00 AM OCTOS ALL DEBATE (AS NECESSARY, PIGGYBACK JUDGE DEPENDENT)
    10:00-11:30 AM QUARTERS ALL DEBATE (PIGGYBACK JUDGE DEPENDENT)
    11:30-1:15 PM ALL SPEECH FINALS & SEMI-FINALS (AS NECESSARY)
    1:15-3:00 PM SEMIFINALS ALL DEBATE & ALL REMAINING IE FINALS
    3:15-5:00 FINALS ALL DEBATE
    AWARDS ASAP
    ​

    ​    ​Although the tentative schedule lists the start and end times, please keep in mind that there are various factors that may arise during a tournament that can cause rounds to be delayed. Therefore, if you are signing up for this tournament, please make sure you do not double book yourselves on these dates. Keep your schedule open and DO NOT leave the tournament without notifying the GSA chaperones first.
    EVENT SPECIFIC SCHEDULES

    ​☻ SPEECH ☻

    SATURDAY, OCT. 25
    9:45-11:00 AM R1: ALL SPEECH EVENTS
    1:30-2:45 PM R2: ALL SPEECH EVENTS
    4:15-5:30 PM R3: ALL SPEECH EVENTS

    SUNDAY, OCT. 26
    11:30 AM-1:15 PM FINALS & SEMI-FINALS ALL SPEECH EVENTS
    1:15-3:00 PM REMAINING FINALS

    ☻ LD DEBATE ☻

    FRIDAY, OCT 24
    1:45 PM LD ROUND 1
    3:00 PM LD ROUND 2
    4:15 PM LD ROUND 3
    5:15 PM LD ROUND 4
    6:15 PM LD ROUND 5

    SUNDAY, OCT 26
    8:30 LD OCTOFINALS
    11:30 LD QUARTERFINALS
    1:15 LD SEMIFINALS
    3:15 LD FINALS

    ☻ PF DEBATE ☻

    SATURDAY, OCT. 25
    8:15-9:45 TEAM DEBATE RD 1
    11:00-12:30 PM TEAM DEBATE RD 2
    12:30-1:30 PM LUNCH BREAK (Students provided lunch at DUC)
    2:45-4:15 PM TEAM DEBATE RD 3
    5:30-7:00 PM TEAM DEBATE RD 4
    7:00-8:40 PM TEAM DEBATE RD 5

    SUNDAY, OCT. 26
    8:30 AM PUBLIC FORUM OCTOS
    11:30 AM PUBLIC FORUM QUART.
    1:15 PM PUBLIC FORUM SEMIS
    3:15 PM PUBLIC FORUM FINALS

    TIMES FOR ELIMINATION ROUNDS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE DEPENDENT ON ENTRY SIZE IN THE EVENT.

    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
    PARENT CONTACT INFORMATION
    Your email address will be the one included when we send the logistics email.
    EVENT SELECTION
    Competitors may enter in both Debate and Speech events but are responsible for arriving to their rounds on time. Failure to do so could result in forfeiting a round. Competitors may only enter in a single debate event and may enter in NO MORE than three speech events.
    ​JUDGE PROVISION

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

    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

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​​