Tournament FAQ

Tournament FAQ

Could you explain the need for fees and what they are used for?

Generally, the Student fees help cover the cost of participation in tournaments for speech and debate students. For local tournaments this includes tournament registration and judging fees. For out-of-town tournaments, it also includes hotel and ground transportation expenses. (Air Travel is always paid for by the student.) In addition, since we have an extraordinarily large team, we also provide and fund assistant coaches so that all our students get access to quality coaching all year long. The district funds Debate, approximately $10,000. a year. The total expenses for our team is approximately $50,000 per year.

Student fees help close the gap between the district’s funds and our actual expenses to some extent. The rest is made up by the booster club's fundraising efforts which include the WHS Debate sponsored UIL Winter Classic Tournament in February, team spirit sales and parent volunteers. A great deal of money is saved by our volunteers judging tournaments and driving to out of town tournaments.

Fees are typically due the beginning of October. Please contact either the debate president or Mr. Wang should you have financial difficulties. While fees are not required to be in Debate Class, it is a requirement to participate in local and out of town Tournaments.

How do students get to tournaments?

Parents provide transportation for their children at local tournaments. Mr. Wang and the Booster logistics team work out the arrangements for out of town tournaments. Usually at out of town tournaments, the students will stay Friday night and return Saturday night. The logistics team will make the hotel reservations for the entire team traveling and also ask/confirm parent drivers. Normally you will get an email from logistics the Monday before the tournament to arrange and then a confirmation email with details later in the week. For in-town tournaments the parents arrange transportation themselves or carpool with other parents.

Parent drivers for out-of-town debates will have the option of booking hotel rooms for the students and themselves, if the debate finishes too late and the driver can't get the students back to Westwood by midnight.

How do I know the schedule when my child is attending a tournament?

The Boosters as a policy will send out an email to all Debate parents early in the week informing them about the upcoming tournament of that weekend. Please talk to your child to see if he/she is attending that tournament or not. This email will contain a link to the Joy of Tournaments website that has details of venue, address, directions and schedule of events. The link to the Joy of Tournaments is also available on this website under Tournaments --> Information. If the Tournament sponsors send us any special instructions, especially with reference to parking or arrival or change in schedule, we will email that information to all parents.