January 2024
Coach Contreras' January Newsletter
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you enjoyed my 2023 Debate Wrapped email from earlier this week! I will include student success stories more regularly in my emails this semester.
Over the break, we had students competing at home in a virtual tournament and out of state, in New Jersey, at an invitation-only round robin tournament! We are proud of Kelsey Lind for placing 2nd in informative speaking and Nate Watkins and Luke Schooler for being octofinalists in Lincoln Douglas debate!
Tournaments this month:
UIL State Congress- Wednesday the 10th and Thursday the 11th
Henry Dieringer advanced to finals of UIL State Congress and competed at the Texas State Capitol on Thursday!
UIL Cross-Examination Debate District tournament- Friday the 12th
Vista Ridge High School tournament- Saturday the 13th
I sent an email to the families of all competitors. We could use one more speech judge for this one-day competition!
Please send me an email (elizabeth.s.contreras@austinisd.org) if you’re able to volunteer!
Lake Travis High School tournament- Saturday the 20th
This tournament was originally on our schedule as a two-day but on Thursday the 11th, the directors decided it would be a one-day instead! We will need parent drivers and likely need a few volunteer judges.
Volunteer sign-up here: https://forms.gle/CKYkKptp2MFw759Z8
LBJ High School tournament- Saturday the 27th
I anticipate needing a few volunteer drivers for this local Austin tournament! I will post this sign-up on Blend in the next week.
Travel: Emory University tournament in Atlanta, the 25th-29th
On the radar: Harvard University tournament
The Harvard tournament application is due for students on Friday, January 19th. All students interested in competing must fill out the application to attend. I will email accepted students and their parents/guardians by Wednesday, January 24th with final costs and flight information.
We will travel to Boston on Friday, February 16th, and return on Tuesday, February 20th.
If your student is interested in attending, please consider volunteering to travel with us! We will likely need 2-3 parents to go with us. We will cover your flight and hotel costs for the trip.
Please continue volunteering to help us get through the rest of the school year!
In the fall, we spent $2,615 from our activity fund on judge fees for these tournaments. Having just two parents volunteer to judge at most tournaments would save us between $300-400 per tournament. We spent an additional $1200 paying our consultants to judge.
I would much rather spend this money to subsidize student travel costs, purchase supplies for student bonding activities, and help us get to more tournaments.
I would like to encourage you, the parents, to volunteer with us at these last few local tournaments. We have some travel upcoming- Harvard, the Tournament of Champions, the Texas Forensic Association State Tournament, and the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament. I want to make sure we have funds left for these tournaments. Parents volunteering as judges is the best and easiest way for us to save money.
The sign-up link for the Lake Travis tournament on 1/20 is here: https://forms.gle/CKYkKptp2MFw759Z8
We will need volunteers at the LBJ Tournament on 1/27 and the Westlake tournament on 2/3. Those sign-ups will be posted on Blend soon.