PALM CLASSIC BIF

Welcome to the Palm Classic!

The Palm Classic offers competition in nearly all debate and speech events (see below for more detailed information), including:
Debate:

Public Forum
Congressional

Speech:

Pattern A: national extemp, oratory, dramatic, spar, expos/informative, and declamation
Pattern B: international extemp, duo, humorous, impromptu, oral interp, and program oral interp

Read Before Registering!
There are several important details to familiarize yourself with ahead of registering:
All Palm Classic participants are bound by the Palm Classic Code of Conduct.

Judge Entry Requirements

For judges in Varsity PF, a complete paradigm must be listed on their Tabroom accounts.

Competition: Saturday, February 12th, 2022 to Monday, February 14th, 2022
The general schedule will follow the below pattern:

IEs: Saturday and Sunday
Congress: Saturday and Sunday
Debate events: Saturday to Monday

Events Offered

DEBATE EVENTS: no cross entry with other events; all competition takes place synchronously

Public Forum: all rounds planned to be single flighted, but we reserve the right to flight early elimination rounds if required

TOC: 6 prelim rounds, all 4-2s clear with a cap of 64 total elim teams
Open: 6 prelim rounds with a generous elimination round break (see the 'debate events’ section for guidance)
JV: 6 prelim rounds with a generous elimination round break (see the 'debate events’ section for guidance)
MS: 6 prelim rounds with a generous elimination round break (see the 'debate events’ section for guidance)
Novice: 6 prelim rounds with a generous elimination round break (see the 'debate events’ section for guidance)

Congress:

Varsity: 4 prelim rounds with a break to semifinals if 90+ entrants, else finals
MS: 4 prelim rounds with a break to semifinals if 90+ entrants, else finals
Novice: 4 prelim rounds with a break to semifinals if 90+ entrants, else finals

SPEECH EVENTS: no cross entry with other events (but up to triple entry in speech events is possible); all competition takes place synchronously with the exception of Duo which will be asynchronous

Events: all divisions/levels follow the same patterning & competitors may triple enter

Pattern A: National extemp, oratory, dramatic, spar, expos/informative, and declamation
Pattern B: International extemp, duo, humorous, impromptu, oral interp, and program oral interp

Varsity: 4 prelim rounds with a generous elimination round break (see the 'speech' page for guidance), open to all students
JV: 4 prelim rounds with a generous elimination round break (see the 'speech events’ section for guidance), competitors must not have competed in any high school speech events prior to August 2020
Novice: 4 prelim rounds with a generous elimination round break (see the 'speech events’ section for guidance), open to students who did not compete in any high school speech events prior to August 2021

Entry Eligibility
Entries into a given event & level (division) are subject to the following eligibility requirements

Public Forum: no cross-entry with other events; TOC bids are awarded only in the 'TOC' division(s)

TOC: competitors must be in grades 8-12 and should be your most competitive students focused on TOC competition
Open: competitors must be in grades 7-12
MS: competitors must be in grades 6-8
Novice: competitors must be in grades 6-12 and must not have competed in any debate events prior to August 2021

Varsity: competitors must be in grades 8-12
MS: competitors must be in grades 6-8
Novice: competitors must be in grades 6-12

Speech Events (IEs): competitors may triple enter in IEs, but no cross-entry with other events

Varsity: competitors must be in grades 8-12
JV: competitors must be in grades 6-11 and must not have competed in any speech events prior to August 2020
Novice: competitors must be in grades 6-10 and must not have competed in any speech events prior to August 2021; if you believe that you have a student in grades 11-12 who would be best served competing in novice, please contact us and we can consider an exception

*The tournament reserves the right to combine/collapse divisions in any event due to low enrollment or for logistical reasons in order to provide a better competition experience for competitors

Policies & Procedures
Every student attending the Palm Classic must have their parent/guardian sign an "Individual Waiver" in order to attend the tournament.

TOC BIDS: The Palm Classic has been provisionally approved as a TOC qualifier in all events. Bid levels vary by event, see the TOC bid tournament website for more information.

TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE: Please plan on the fact that this is a two day tournament for IE’s and Congress and a three day tournament for debate events.

DOUBLE ENTERING: Double-entry in IE events is permissible, but there is NO cross entry between, LD, Public Forum, Congress and IE. The tentative schedule shows why cross-entry between debate and speech is not possible. No special accommodations are made for those students who wish to double-enter in events, however, so students should expect to be rushed if they choose this option.

UNEXPECTED CIRCUMSTANCES: At any large tournament, logistical difficulties can on rare occasions occur in any number of matters, from tabulation to rules enforcement, to scheduling issues and judge disputes of various forms. Ultimately, the executive tournament director's sole discretion prevails on these rare occasions or when any sort of logistical difficulties arise.

AWARDS:

Congress: all students competing in the final round receive an award
Speech events: all students competing in elimination rounds receive an award
Debate events: all students competing in elimination rounds receive an award, along with the top 10 speakers in each division
Sweepstakes: The top five overall school performances, calculated on the basis of open division competitors only, will be awarded handsome trophies.
Champions receive an excellent award: Your squad will be excited to know that in addition to their trophy the following students will each receive a special award. The past few years this has been a Kindle Fire, Apple AirPods, and other exciting prizes! For the 2022 tournament we will have another great award for the:

Champions in TOC Public Forum debate
Champions in each Varsity IE event
Champion in Varsity Student Congress
Note: Champion is defined as the 1st place winner only & awards are for competitors only

Debate Events Information

ELIGIBILITY: entries into a given event & level are subject to our Eligibility Requirements, and beyond the specific listed requirements, coach's discretion on classification decisions ultimately prevails.
PREFS & STRIKES:

Semis & Finals: Schools in the semi finals will be given a list of judges on it, and competitors/coaching may then opt to strike a very small number of judges from this pool. These judges will make up the panels for the semis and finals. Please understand that even if you struck someone in the prelims, they could end up in the pool for semis and finals. Debaters/coaches may exercise the privilege of striking that person again at this point if they so choose after reevaluating the situation. The tab room will make the final determination of the pools for semis and finals after the sheets are returned in a timely manner, and any teams failing to return their semis/finals strike sheets by the time announced when quarterfinal results are announced forfeit their right to strike any judges for the semis and/or finals.

TOC PF & CA LD: discretionary strikes are offered in addition to conflict strikes; tab staff will rank the judge pools on a rolling basis based on ballots and other feedback so as to allow the most careful judges to be used in 'close call' debates in subsequent round

All other events: conflict strikes are accepted; tab staff will rank the judge pools on a rolling basis based on ballots and other feedback so as to allow the most careful judges to be used in 'close call' debates in subsequent rounds.

TABULATION PROTOCOLS AND PRIORITIES:

Rounds 1 & 2: preset
Round 3: high-low based on the SOP algorithm calculated by Win-Loss, Total Points, Opponent Seed.
Round 4 and after: high-low based on the SOP algorithm calculated by Win-Loss, High/Low Points, Opponent Seed, Double High/Low Points, Coin Flip

The SOP algorithm to pair rounds is determined in the following manner:

Create rank order of teams based on traditional sorting criteria. This creates a “seed” for each team as of that point in the tournament.
Calculate the average seed of each of a team’s prior opponents.
When necessary due to side skews, teams are advanced to the next higher bracket based in order of the weakest average strength of opposition.
Once brackets are equalized, a team’s own seed and the average seed of their prior opponents are added together to create a hybrid statistic WLQ.
Teams are sorted high to low within brackets based on WLQ.

CLEARING: For clearing, the priorities are: Win-Loss, High/Low Points, Opponent Seed, Double High/Low Points, Coin Flip; only winning records can advance to elimination rounds & ironperson(s)/mavericks may not compete in elimination rounds

TOC LD & TOC PF: we will break all 4-2 teams up to a maximum of 64 teams (a full triple)
All other debate event divisions: we will break to the following elimination rounds based on the numbers of entries competing in a majority of prelim rounds

Half-triples: 161 or more entries competing in prelims; 'half-triple' means that 48 teams break (seeds 1-16 receive a bye, seeds 17-48 debate in the half triple)

based on judge and room availability, we reserve the right to:

break to a full triple instead of a half-triple
use 1-judge panels in the first elimination round

Doubles: 81 to 160 teams competing in prelims
Octafinals: 41 to 80 entries competing in prelims
Quarterfinals: 21 to 40 entries competing in prelims
Semifinals: 20 or fewer entries competing in prelims

OBSERVERS: The Palm Classic online tournament restricts access to the entourages of attending squads, and an entourage rule is enforced which requires any coach, observer, or other affiliated person who wishes to observe rounds must be entered as an available judge.

EVIDENCE: Judges are welcome to call for evidence read in the debate - or not - at their discretion. In general judges’ discretion prevails on virtually all matters, except when otherwise indicated by the Executive Tournament Director or their designee.

RECORDING: No one may record video or audio of any speech given during the Palm Classic without the affirmative consent of all competitors participating in the round.

IRONPERSON(S)/MAVERICKS: Entries may complete rounds down a competitor (where one competitor speaks multiple times to fill multiple speaker positions) in the event of unexpected circumstances that come up during the tournament, but entries may not initially be entered into competition field without a full complement of competitors. One such round has no impact on an entry's eligibility to advance to elimination rounds - aside from the impact it has on speaker points - but a second such instance makes an entry ineligible to advance to elimination rounds. Ironperson(s)/mavericks may not compete in elimination rounds.

CLOSEOUTS/WALKOVERS/COACHOVERS: In the event a squad's entries are bracketed against each other in an elimination round, brackets will not be broken. The tournament will default to advancing the highest seed unless the coach of record notifies the tab room immediately. The tournament does not sanction any scrimmage that a coach may want to run between their teams that hit in a bracket and will not provide tournament resources such as judge(s), room(s), etc in support of any such intra-squad practice debate a squad elects to hold.

TABROOM TRANSPARENCY: Starting after Round 2 the results of all debate events will be posted. We will provide disclosure of the full results packet and brackets after the start of the first elimination rounds on Sunday (as logistical feasibility allows) so that everyone can be assured that all coaches and teams have access to this vital information at the same time.

IN THE EVENT OF LOGISTICAL DIFFICULTIES: In the event tab staff experience fundamental computer problems such as a serious computer or software malfunction, we will use the listed priorities as best as can be accommodated by the software or the tab staff. Tournament director's discretion ultimately prevails in the rare event of serious logistical difficulties, and proceeding with the tournament schedule takes priority over other considerations should such problems occur.

COMPUTER RULES: We are allowing use of computers per the NSDA Pilot Internet Rules as best as practicable and subject to review by the tournament director. In particular, use of the internet to communicate with any outside party during a round are serious rules violations risking a forfeit loss, and expulsion from the tournament.

EVENT RULES:
Public Forum:

Teams of two will compete following NSDA pilot rules governing speech times
Coin flip for side selection and speaker order in each round
Coin flip in all elimination rounds
The February NSDA topic will be used (available on the NSDA website’s topics section)

Speech Events Information

EVENTS & PATTERNS:

Pattern A: National extemp, oratory, dramatic, spar, expos/informative, and declamation
Pattern B: International extemp, duo, humorous, impromptu, oral interp, and program oral interp

*Note: National and International extemp are in different patterns, allowing serious extemp students to compete in eight prelim extemp rounds!

ELIGIBILITY: entries into a given event & level are subject to the Eligibility Requirements, and beyond the specific listed requirements, coach's discretion on classification decisions ultimately prevails.

ROUNDS: all competition takes place synchronously with the exception of Duo which will be asynchronous

Prelims: all speech event divisions will have 4 preliminary rounds, and patterns are back to back allowing for 8 rounds for a double-entered student!
Elims: all speech event divisions will proceed to elimination rounds based on the following rubric

Octafinals: divisions with at least 120 entries will break to octafinals
Quarterfinals: divisions with 60 to 119 entries will break to quarterfinals
Semifinals: divisions with 30 to 59 entries will break to semifinals
Finals: divisions with 10 to 30 entries will break to finals
No elimination rounds: divisions with less than 10 entries will award final placements based on performance in preliminary rounds

CROSS ENTRY: There is NO cross entry between debate, LD, Public Forum, Congress and IE; the tentative schedule shows why cross-entry between debate events and speech events is not possible.

DOUBLE/TRIPLE ENTRY: Competitors may enter up to 3 IE’s with no more than 2 in any one pattern, but they are responsible for getting to their rounds. The tournament does not recommend double entering in Extemp or Duo and another event in the same pattern. Extemp prep time/speaker position will not be adjusted for competitors double entered in the same pattern. Any double-entered individual events competitor is responsible for hustling to and from rounds and making judges aware of possible lateness. If a judge must wait more than 15 minutes for any competitor, that individual risks being ranked last in that round.

COMPUTERS: We are allowing use of computers per the NSDA Pilot Internet Rules as best as practicable and subject to review by the tournament director. In particular, use of the internet to communicate with any outside party during a round are serious rules violations risking a forfeit loss, and expulsion from the tournament.

RULES: The Palm Classic will use NSDA rules for all "national main event" IEs, CHSSA rules will be used for impromptu and expository, and Palm Classic rules will be used for SPAR

Judges discretion will prevail in all but extreme cases
The executive tournament director or their designee will be the final authority on any challenges or protests.

EVENT GUIDELINES:

Original Oratory: a persuasive speech lasting no more than 10 minutes following NSDA rules.
Dramatic Interpretation: an interpretation of a single dramatic piece lasting no more than 10 minutes following NSDA rules
Extemporaneous Speaking, National and International: The speaker, having drawn 30 minutes prior, will speak for a maximum of 7 minutes on a current topic following NSDA rules.
Duo Interpretation: two individuals performing an interpretation of 10 minutes following NSDA rules.
Expository Speaking / Informative: an informative speech using visual aids lasting no more than 10 minutes following CHSSA rules.
Humorous Interpretation: an interpretation of a single humorous piece lasting no more than 10 minutes following NSDA rules
Impromptu Speaking: the speaker will have 2 minutes to prepare and 5 to speak on a given topic following CHSAA rules.
Oral Interpretation (Prose/Poetry): following NCFL rules - CHSAA OI is equivalent to Declamation
Declamation: following NCFL rules - CHSAA OI is equivalent to Declamation

Congressional Information

LEGISLATION DOCKETS:

2022 Varsity Congressional Docket - to be released in late January
2022 MS Congressional Docket - to be released in late January
Instructions on how chambers set the docket - to be released in late January

ELIGIBILITY: entries are subject to the following eligibility requirements

Varsity: competitors must be in grades 6-12
MS: competitors must be in grades 6-8
Novice: competitors must be in grades 6-12
*The tournament reserves the right to combine/collapse divisions in any event due to low enrollment or for logistical reasons in order to provide a better competition experience for competitors

ROUNDS:

Prelims: all Congressional divisions will have 4 preliminary rounds
Elims: all Congressional divisions will proceed to elimination rounds based on the following rubric

Semifinals: divisions with 60 or more entries will break to semifinals
Finals: divisions with fewer than 60 entries will break to finals

LEGISLATION:

The docket will be released approximately three weeks ahead of the tournament, however we reserve the right to delay release of the packet if necessary to solicit additional submissions or to augment the docket with Palm Classic authored legislation as we deem necessary to create a strong docket.

PROCEDURES:
ALL ROUNDS

NSDA scoring and tie breaking procedures are used in all rounds, preliminary and elimination.
Questioning will be by DIRECT CROSS EXAMINATION.

PRELIMINARY ROUNDS

All students will be guaranteed four preliminary rounds with no more than 20 students per house, but targeting no more than 16.
Chamber assignments will be posted on Saturday morning. Sessions will be three hours each.
A presiding officer will be elected at the beginning of each session. This presiding officer will serve for the entirety of the session and may not give speeches during the session over which they are presiding. Presiding officers will be ranked alongside all other speakers.
Following the presiding officer election in the first session, the chamber will set an agenda for debate.
Recency, precedence, and questions reset between sessions.
Legislation may not be debated between sessions. If debate begins on a bill in one session, it must end in the same session and may not be continued to other sessions.
At the end of the preliminary sessions, the Parliamentarian will rank the all competitors in the chamber. The parliamentarians will be treated as one judge, and his/her ranks will be used to break ties.

ELIMINATION ROUNDS

16 students will advance to the final session.
Any student, regardless of whether or not s/he presided in preliminary rounds, may run for presiding officer.

Semifinals: A presiding officer will be elected at the beginning of each session. This presiding officer will serve for the entirety of the session and may not give speeches during the session over which they are presiding. Presiding officers will be ranked alongside all other speakers.
Finals: Two presiding officers will be elected at the beginning of the finals session; one will serve for the first 90 minutes, and the other will serve for the second 90 minutes. Both presiding officers will be ranked alongside all other speakers.

Presiding officer awards will be determined by a judges vote.
The parliamentarian will rank all competitors. His/her ranks will be used to break ties.

JUDGING:

Each round will be judged by a minimum of 3 panelists (judges + parliamentarians).
The final round will be judged by a minimum of 6 panelists (judges + parliamentarians).
Each judge will rank the top 8 competitors in the chamber. All other competitors will be given a 9 as a ranking. All judge ranks count equally across sessions.
At the end of the preliminary sessions and at the end of the final round, the parliamentarian will rank all competitors in the chamber. The parliamentarian’s top 8 ranks will be treated as one judge’s ranks, and all other competitors will receive 9’s. The parliamentarian’s ranks will be used to break ties.

SPEECH TIMES:

The authorship/sponsorship speech and the first negative speech are each three minutes long, followed by two minutes of questioning
All other speeches are three minutes long, followed by one minute of questioning

PRESIDING OFFICER ELECTIONS:

An election is conducted at the beginning of each session. Candidates must be nominated to run for presiding officer (self-nomination is allowed)
Presiding officer speeches will be given in reverse order of nomination. Each speech may not exceed one minute.
A single-ballot election will commence. If one candidate receives the majority of the votes cast, s/he is selected to be presiding officer. Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped. If the combined votes of the two lowest candidates do not equal votes of the next lowest candidate, both are eliminated. This process is repeated until one candidate receives a majority of the votes.

SUSPENSIONS OF THE RULES:

Suspensions of the rules are not allowed.

ONE-SIDED DEBATE:

In the unlikely absence of a first affirmative speech, debate may also begin on a new piece of legislation with a negative speech. There will be a limit of three (3) consecutive affirmative or negative speeches that can be given.

AUTHORIAL PRECEDENCE:

The author of a bill is awarded the privilege of giving the authorship speech on his/her legislation regardless of his/her current recency/precedence
Speakers from the author’s school are also awarded authorial precedence
If multiple speakers from the school of the author stand to give the authorship speech, the author has first precedence, but if the author is not present, the speech will be awarded by standard rules of recency/precedence between speakers from the authorial school

REQUIRED PRESIDING PROCEDURES:

Presiding officers are required to follow standard recency/precedence procedures. First priority is given to speakers who have given the fewest speeches. Between speakers who have given the same number of speeches, the speaker who has spoken the least recently is given priority. Before recency is established, ties must be broken randomly.
Measures of “activity” in the chamber, such as “standing time,” questions, or motions, may not be used in tiebreakers between speakers with the same precedence at the beginning of a round.

AMENDMENT SPEECHES:

Amendment speeches are 3 minutes with 1 minute of cross-ex.
Amendments must be presented in writing to the Parliamentarian. If the Parliamentarian deems the amendment to be germane, a 1/3 vote is required to proceed with debate on the amendment. Debate is not required on the amendment. 2/3 majority is required to move the previous question on the amendment. A further 2/3 majority is required for the amendment to be incorporated into the bill.
Proposing an amendment does not grant a competitor the right to speak on the amendment. Speeches on amendments will be chosen through standard recency/precedence procedures.

COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONIC DEVICES:

We are allowing use of computers per the NSDA Pilot Internet Rules as best as practicable and subject to review by the tournament director. In particular, use of the internet to communicate with any outside party during a round are serious rules violations risking a forfeit loss, and expulsion from the tournament.
Internet access may be used in-round in order to verify the veracity of facts, quotes, etc. Communication with coaches, competitors, or any other person - either inside or outside of the competition room - via electronic device using wifi, bluetooth or any other means is prohibited.
Contestants electing to use computers have the responsibility to promptly provide a copy of any evidence read in a speech for inspection by the judge or opponent.
If a debater violates this electronic device policy, s/he will be disqualified from the tournament.

NATIONAL RULES: all matters not explicitly addressed here defer to NSDA national rules and guidelines.

CONGRESS JUDGING GUIDELINES:

Judges will be instructed that on-point clash and in-depth debate should be prioritized in ranking speakers. Thus, 'canned' speeches are probably not the best route to success.
Judges will be instructed that overall participation, including insightful questions and strong answers, as well as effective use of motions and parliamentary procedure, can be factored into their overall rankings for speakers as they see fit.
Real world implications were the actual US congress to pass the bill or resolution are considered in-order and appropriate, including implications for other pending legislation, possibilities of public backlash or approval, and other such considerations.
Many of the topics are extremely current and timely, and participants are expected to demonstrate a command of the current issues related to the topic being debated through the content of their speeches, and judges are encouraged to factor such demonstrations of subject matter command into their decisions and rankings.

Judge Information

SQUAD JUDGING OBLIGATIONS:

Any judge which is missing any required information (name, contact info, posted philosophy, no tabroom account, etc) we will assess a fee equal to 25% of the cost of an uncovered entry in that event
We trust that you will make an effort to provide experienced judges. A limited number of hired judges are available. It is difficult and expensive for us to hire judges for you. The best way to avoid being assessed a fee is to bring your own judges. We must also insist that schools provide the same judge consistently throughout the tournament. This avoids delays and helps us place experienced judges in close rounds once power matching has begun. We do try to place experienced judges in “close call” debates.
For a judge to “count” towards your discounted fee, they must be available for a full period of availability.

BASELINE JUDGE REQUIREMENTS:

All judges must have graduated from high school or the equivalent, be 18+, and be proficient in English.
Judges are expected to disclose their decisions.
For online debate, a baseline requirement for any judge is that their video and audio must be on during all speech time and during the post-round decision rendering, but judges may elect to switch off audio and/or video during prep time and while deliberating about their decision.

We understand that there may be one-off situations which make video and/or audio challenging or impossible for an individual judge, but in such cases it is an affirmative obligation of that judge (or their squad coordinator on their behalf) to request an exception to this requirement with as much advance notice as is possible given the basis of the request for exemption.

The named judge must pick up and judge the rounds assigned to them as we must know which adult is judging which round. Squads may not unilaterally replace one judge with another and simply "swap" them out. Every judge swap must be handled directly by tournament officials, and the named judge MUST be the judge overseeing their assigned round.
If because of strike/preference sheet results a judge is unable to fulfill the commitment, the tournament reserves the right to refuse the judge. If the tournament refuses your judge, you will have the choice of substituting a judge who is acceptable to the tournament or paying the judge fee.

SPECIFIC JUDGE REQUIREMENTS:

In TOC & Open-level debate divisions, judges must have (substantial) experience judging the event they are judging at the TOC/Open level at invitational-style tournaments and working familiarity of Tabroom.com. This means that the judge should either be an active coach of varsity level competitors in the debate event they will be judging, or should have competed somewhat recently at a high varsity level at major invitationals. Generally speaking, parents of participants are not considered qualified judges for these events, but there are of course always exceptions.

JUDGE COMMITMENTS:

ALL judges from a squad are committed through EITHER the first "full" round after the elimination of GSA team's final competitor in the events/divisions serviced by the judge pool that the judge is entered into OR the double octafinal round - whichever comes later! The only exception to this commitment is if a specific named judge is individually released by their specific judge pool's director.

To clarify, this means that in debate the following examples would apply:

Events breaking to "partial" elimination rounds: judges are obligated for the first two elimination rounds at a minimum (for example, both the partial double and the octafinal in an event that breaks to partial doubles)
Events breaking to triple octafinals: judges are obligated for the first two elimination rounds at a minimum (both the triple and double octafinal rounds)

If (for example) the Novice, MS & JV divisions of PF share a judge pool, a judge covering a squad's judging obligation in one of those divisions is obligated until one full round after the elimination of the squad's last competitor in any of the pooled divisions.
Since all Speech events/divisions share a judge pool, a judge covering a team's judging obligation in Speech is obligated until one full round after the elimination of the GSA's last competitor in any speech event.

In order to protect schools who are meeting their commitments and provide a quality end of tournament experience for all competitors we enforce judge commitments strongly!
Schools who have competitors in elimination rounds and do not have their judges available to judge will either be charged the full judge fee for each entry for each uncovered round - and if necessary be dropped from competition - at the discretion of the tournament director.

ENTOURAGE RULE: The Palm Classic online tournament restricts access to the entourages of attending squads, and an entourage rule is enforced which requires any coach, observer, or other affiliated person who wishes to observe rounds must be entered as an available judge.

JUDGE PENALTIES:

If judges are found to not meet any applicable baseline or specific requirement, the judge may be removed from the pool and a penalty fine will be levied equal to or greater than the fee to have fully hired out for that judging obligation. This includes any judges which do not meet our criteria due to false information being provided.
Any ballot assigned to a judge which is missed will result in the assessment of a missed ballot fee, and this fee may escalate for repeat offenders.
Schools who have competitors in elimination rounds and do not have their judges available to judge will either be charged the full judge fee for each entry for each uncovered round - and if necessary be dropped from competition - at the discretion of the tournament director.
Schools deemed by the tournament director to be engaging in a consistent pattern of promising judges and then breaking that commitment without prior notice and arrangement will be suspended from or have their entry restricted at the tournament for up to 3 years. We would rather run a smaller, quality tournament attended by schools willing to keep their commitment to the community than oversee a tournament made unmanageable by a lack of judges. Any round missed will require that the judging fee for that judge spot be paid unless the round is 'made up' to the tournament director's satisfaction (usually requiring 2 rounds to make up 1 missed round). For example, if one policy round is missed, that round can either be made up as per mutual agreement with the tournament director (in a way that is beneficial to the tournament, which is not always possible), or the fee for one uncovered policy team can be paid, per round missed. In the event of unusual circumstances the tournament will try to allow for a single missed round to be made up.

Individual Waivers

1) Every competitor must have their parent/guardian sign an "Individual Waiver" in order to attend the Palm Classic! A fully legible, properly executed, and unmodified copy of this document must be uploaded in advance of the tournament.
Note: Students and parents are hereby notified that any unilateral modification, line out, or other change to the agreement presumptively means that student(s) are unable to participate in the Palm Classic speech & debate tournament. In any such cases, no refunds will be due, nor will any other further accommodation be offered by the Palm Classic.

2) Parent/Guardian Permission Letter:

Note: The Parent/Guardian Permission Letter is a standardized document created by the Palm Classic in order to ensure parents understand the nature of the event, the relationship and roles fulfilled by various parties at the tournament, and to capture the various details required in order to allow unaffiliated entries to enter the tournament. We will not accept any modifications to this standardized letter template and all coaches, students and parents are hereby notified that any unilateral modification, line out, or other change to the template presumptively means that student(s) are unable to participate in thePalm Classic speech & debate tournament.

PALM CLASSIC

12-14 February 2022

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