PHILHISTORIAN

PHILHISTORIAN MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL INVITATIONAL

29-30 March 2025 for Debate
30 March 2025 for Speech

DEADLINE

25 March 2025
NO REFUNDS AFTER THIS DATE!

ELIGIBILITY

Open to middle and high school students

PLATFORM

Online through NSDA Campus

Information

Dear Colleagues:

We cordially invite you and your team to attend The Philhistorian Invitational, held on the weekend of March 29th-30th, 2025. This tournament will be held on the NSDA Campus platform.

Started in 1863, the Philhistorian Debating Society is the oldest such group in California. Its past members included numerous judges, educators and politicians and at least one California governor. Originally a mock Congressional activity it morphed in later years into traditional Oxford style debate and helped found the Pacific Forensic League and the Northern California Forensic Association in the 1960's.

EVENTS AND DIVISIONS

HIGH SCHOOL

Debate
For high school debate students, we offer the following divisions: Lincoln-Douglas Debate and Public Forum Debate.
Speech
For high school speech students, we offer synchronous competition in all NSDA Main Speech Events (DI, HI, POI, Info, OO, Duo, Extemp) with the following exceptions: Extemp will be one division that will combine International and Domestic topics. Duo will be Asynchronous. We also offer a division of Declamation (also known as OI), a division of Impromptu Speaking, and a division of Prose and Poetry (to include both Prose & Poetry Interp and Original Prose & Poetry).

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Debate
For middle school debate students, we offer the following divisions: Lincoln-Douglas Debate and Public Forum Debate.
Speech
For middle school students, we offer divisions of Middle School Impromptu.
Middle school students are also welcome to enter any of the high school speech divisions.

LOGISTICS

LOCATION/PLATFORM

This competition will take place online on the NSDA Campus platform.
All competitors must be linked to a Tabroom.com account associated with their school in order to access their competition rooms.
All rounds will be single-flighted in order to reduce screen time for both competitors and judges.

TIME ZONE
Due to our school’s location in California, all times for the tournament will be on Pacific time.

DOUBLE ENTRY LIMITATIONS
STUDENT DOUBLE ENTRY

Students are able to enter in one Debate event and up to 2 Speech events with the following exceptions:
- Students who enter Extemp can only do Extemp during the Speech pattern, but may still register for a Debate event.

JUDGING INFORMATION
JUDGE QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPECTATIONS

All judges are required to have a linked Tabroom account. This is to ensure they have access to both their ballots and the competition rooms on the NSDA Campus platform.
Judges covering high school competitors must be over the age of 18 and have graduated from high school.
Judges for Middle School events may be current high school juniors or seniors with significant forensics experience.
Judges should have significant experience with digital forensics competitions. You are responsible for preparing yourself in the use of Tabroom.com and for what to expect in a digital forensics competition. As a result, there will be no day-of-tournament judge training. Rather we encourage the use of the following resources ahead of the tournament to become prepared:
- We encourage all judges to review the NSDA Cultural Competency resources (www.speechanddebate.org/judge-training/) and take the course. If you have newer judges, we strongly recommend the Adjudicating Speech and Debate course available via the NSDA (www.speechanddebate.org/judge-training/).
Forfeits: Judges are not to report any no-shows to the tournament help desk. Judges are not able to declare forfeits or enter forfeits on their ballot. A forfeit must be processed through the tournament help desk, and judges who enter ballots for missing competitors will be treated as a missed ballot.
Finally, we expect all judges to act in a manner that is inclusive, equitable, and offers constructive criticism to the competitors, regardless of their background or experience.
Missed rounds will incur fees as we have to replace those judges with hired judges or school judges beyond their commitment. Missed round fees will be $30 per ballot.

ELIMINATION ROUND OBLIGATIONS

All Debate judges are committed to judge one round beyond when the last student from GSA is eliminated from competition in that division.
This means that if you have 3 PF judges and one of your PF entries advances to the Quarterfinal round, ALL 3 judges are committed to judge the Semifinal round.
All judges are obligated through the first complete elimination round.
For example, if the tournament runs a partial octofinal debate all judges are obligated through the quarterfinal elimination round.
All Speech judges are committed to the Final round.

EVENT SPECIFIC INFORMATION

PUBLIC FORUM

Topics
We offer both the February NSDA and March NSDA topics in Public Forum debate for both Middle School and High School students. Please pay close attention to the name of the division you have selected when registering your entries.
Coinflip Process
Teams will flip for sides and for speaking order in all rounds. Coinflips will be conducted online via Tabroom.com. Flips will become live one minute after pairing release, and the winning team will have five minutes to choose a side or speaking order. If the time elapses, either team may choose.
Evidence Expectations
In Public Forum, evidence must be made available to view upon request from either an opponent or judge.

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS

Topics
- For middle school students, we offer both the Jan/Feb NSDA and Mar/Apr NSDA topics in Lincoln-Douglas debate.
- For high school students, we offer both the Jan/Feb NSDA and Mar/Apr NSDA topic.
Please pay close attention to the name of the division you have selected when registering your entries.
Coinflip Process
Teams will flip for sides in elimination rounds. Coinflips will be conducted online via Tabroom.com. Flips will become live one minute after pairing release, and the winning entry will have five minutes to choose a side. If the time elapses, either entry may choose.
Evidence Expectations
In Lincoln-Douglas, evidence must be made available to view upon request from either an opponent or judge.
Argument Restrictions
The tournament does not take a position on what types of arguments can be advanced by debaters on either side.

EXTEMP

Extemp prep will start 30 minutes before the extemp round begins.

IMPROMPTU

Topic Distribution
Impromptu topics will be emailed to judges 15 minutes before a round is scheduled to begin.

OBSERVER POLICY

COACH VIEWING
We will permit one coach from each school to be added to the backend of the tournament with limited access so they can enter and observe competition rounds.
We feel this will help you locate your students more efficiently and would help teams to troubleshoot potential tech issues.
This is a privilege. Under no circumstances is a coach to watch a round their competitor is not competing in. It can be revoked if we find out this has been violated.

EQUITY AND DISPUTES
If, at any time during the tournament, there is a concern regarding equity or a dispute regarding a tournament procedure, we are requiring the individuals to fill out a google form so they can be contacted by the Ombudsperson and Equity Officer. The equity form will be located on our tournament tabroom page. The decisions of the Equity Officer / Ombudsperson are final.

Entry Price

These fees assume that you (parent) will be judging:
LD only $95
LD + 1 Speech $115
LD + 2 Speech $135

PF only $75
PF + 1 Speech $95
PF + 2 Speech $115

One Speech event $70
Two Speech events $90

If you (parent) are OPTING OUT OF JUDGING and your child is doing speech only, you will pay an additional $70
If you (parent) are OPTING OUT OF JUDGING and your child is doing debate only, you will pay an additional $150
If you (parent) are OPTING OUT OF JUDGING and your child is doing both speech and debate, you will pay an additional $180

Missed Ballot Fee for judges who did not pick up their assignments - $30 per missed ballot

Each person in a PF/Duo team would be responsible of providing their own judge, so one PF/Duo 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 - PST

Click below to see the full tentative schedule
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vuQ9FhbkcgOZ2FeCFUUgNx7eVs111jdKXw869sLusLg/edit?tab=t.0

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 *

DOUBLE ENTRY POLICY

Double Entry Limitations

Students are able to enter in one Debate event and up to 2 Speech events with the following exceptions:
Students who enter Extemp can only do Extemp during the Speech pattern, but may still register for a Debate event.

Have you read the double-entry policy above? *

Yes, I have read the double-entry policy above and made sure that none of my selections go against the limitations.

EVENT SELECTION
Got any questions? Please email [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

NOTE:
HS signifies High School events
MS signifies Middle School events
Make sure you sign up for the correct division for your grade. Middle school students can compete in HS, but not the other way around.

JUDGE PROVISION
Descriptions on each event can be found here.

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? Click here to learn how to do it! Or watch our Youtube playlist here.
There are also these training cards available that include a summary of each event's rules and comments.

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