Speech & Debate

Coolidge Idaho Open 2024

The Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation is proud to announce the third annual Coolidge Idaho Open, a one-day debate tournament that will be held on Saturday, October 12, 2024, at Wood River High School in Hailey, Idaho.

Tournament registration is free and includes lunch. The tournament is open to high school students from all schools and leagues. We will have a Novice division and a Varsity division. Trophies will be awarded to top finishers in each division. The top five varsity finishers will each receive an invitation to the 2025 Coolidge Cup and a travel stipend prize of up to $1,000 in reimbursement for costs of travel to that tournament next July.

Overview of the Tournament
Date: Saturday, October 12, 2024
Times: A detailed schedule for the day is available here. Students should arrive and gather in the high school cafeteria by 8:30 AM. The championship round and awards conclude by 5:30 PM.
Format: 1v1 Coolidge Debate Format
Location: Wood River High School & Community Center 1250 Fox Acres Dr, Hailey, ID 83333
Eligibility: All high school students grades 9-12
Cost: Free
Registration: Registration closes Tuesday, September 8, at 11:59 PM MDT.
Judges: Volunteer citizen judges are provided; attendees have no requirement to provide judges but are encouraged to do so.
Attire: Business professional

Resolution and Research Brief
The resolution for this tournament is Resolved: Lockdown policy served Americans well during the Covid pandemic. A research brief is available here for you to read and use. This is intended to help you in your preparation. You are not limited to the arguments or evidence in the brief. In fact, you are welcome and encouraged to use the brief as a starting point and build upon it by doing your own additional research and case writing.

Compliance and Explanation of IHSAA Rules
This tournament operates independently of regular, IHSAA sanctioned high school debate tournaments and, as such, students should organize groups to travel together to the tournament with parental support. That is to say that schools and coaches must not provide travel to or from the tournament and coaches must not provide educational/instructional support during the event either in-person or remotely. Students participate as individuals, not as school teams and our tournament does not offer awards for the combined achievement of students from any school. Interested students need not have a peer group at their school to organize with; in fact such students are encouraged to attend.

Tournament Overview and Structure
This is a one-day tournament with both Varsity and Novice divisions. You will begin the day with opening remarks from tournament officials and hosts. We will have four preliminary rounds, and then the top two students will compete in a championship round (which will take place in the auditorium, and to which all students, parents, and judges are invited to attend). For preliminary rounds, competitors will be paired randomly for round one, and paired high-low within brackets thereafter. To clarify, this means students debate an opponent with the same win-loss record as their own from round two onwards.

Trophies will be awarded to the top 8 Novice debaters and the top 8 Varsity debaters. The top five varsity finishers will each receive an invitation to the 2025 Coolidge Cup, which is a national invitational speech and debate tournament sponsored by the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation and held in President Coolidge’s historic hometown of Plymouth, Vermont, traditionally the week of Independence Day (July 4). Learn more about the Coolidge Cup here. All students grades 9 to 12 from any school are eligible to compete, including homeschool students.

Format and Style
Students will compete in the Coolidge 1v1 Debate format. This is the same format that is used at the Coolidge Cup. If you are new to debating in this format, we highly recommend you review our Debate Guide, which provides information about this particular format, style, and rules. Consistent with Coolidge Debate, this tournament will recruit and use volunteer citizen judges. Schools are not required to provide judges for this tournament.

Questions
If you have any questions about the tournament, the Coolidge Cup, or about judging, please contact Coolidge Foundation Debate Director Jonathan Peele (jpeele@coolidgefoundation.org).

Registration for Competitors

Continue scrolling to find the form for registering as a volunteer judge.

  • Help us get your name right. Put accented syllables in all-caps. (E.g., CAL-vin COO-lidge)
  • What high school do you attend? (Or if homeschool, write Homeschool.)
  • What grade are you in for the 2024-2025 school year?
  • We're curious to know what your "home" league is, if you have one.
  • (If you do not have a debate coach, leave blank)
  • (If you do not have a debate coach, leave blank)

  • Parent / Guardian Information

    Please enter the following information about your parent or guardian.

  • Permissions

  • I consent to my child or ward’s participation in the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation Coolidge Debate Program. I realize that there are risks of bodily harm inherent within the program activities. I hereby agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, its employees, volunteers or agents for any loss or damage through personal injury or otherwise whether or not the loss or damage is caused by negligence of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, its employees, volunteers or agents, and claims arising from any accident or sickness to my said child or ward while participating in the said program.
  • I hereby grant permission to the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation to use my child or ward's photograph, video, or image on its World Wide Web site or in other official printed publications without further consideration, and I acknowledge the Foundation's right to edit or treat the photograph or video at its discretion. I also acknowledge that the Foundation may choose not to use my photo or video at this time, but may do so at its own discretion at a later date.

Registration for Judges

  • If you are affiliated with a school attending this tournament, please provide the name of that school. For example, the parent of a student competitor would list the name of the school their child attends. A recent alumni of an attending school would list their alma mater. If you do not have an affiliation with an attending school, write none.
  • Have you ever used Tabroom.com as part of judging at a speech and debate tournament before? If so, do you have a log in on that site?
  • Generally volunteer judges will be available for the entire tournament day (see the schedule posted on this tournament's information page on the Coolidge Foundation website). If you anticipate any limitations on your availability during the tournament, please describe those.
  • If there are any debaters at this tournament who you should not be assigned to judge, please list them here. For instance, if you have any children competing, or if there are students whom you coach.
  • Are there other important pieces of information that tournament officials should know that will help us run an educational, efficient, and fair competition? If so, please share those with us!