PHSSL State Competition

TOURNAMENT ASSISTANCE

If you run into any issues during the Tournament (regardless of if you’re a coach, student, judge, or otherwise innocent bystander), please TEXT, DO NOT CALL, one of the help lines below. Include the following information when contacting the Help Lines:

    • Event

    • Room Number

    • Issue (if someone is missing, tell us who)

Speech & Congress Help Line

724-246-4696

Debate Help Line

412-376-3490

TOURNAMENT VIRTUAL ROOMS

All Tournament virtual rooms are available on each person’s Tabroom main page (if they click on their email at the top).

As soon as the Tournament commences with registration (3/19 @ 7am), there will be a virtual Squad Room available to all schools which only their coaches, student competitors, and judges are able to join. You can use this for check-in and a place for members of your team to frolic during downtime.

Virtual judge’s lounges will be posted around 8:45am Saturday and stay open until Finals rounds commence. There will be one room for Speech/Congress and one room for Debate. We recommend that all judges go to these lounges at the posted start time of each round because blasts will be going out, and then judges will be subbed in as necessary. If all judges are present in the lounge, that will significantly expedite and facilitate the start of each round.

Opening meetings will be broadcast via YouTube with links available at the start of the Tournament. There will be a live chat function enabled which will allow judges, coaches, and competitors to ask any questions.

The 2022 PHSSL State Championships will be held on March 19th & 20th (Saturday & Sunday) and will be a virtual tournament.

All events will be conducted synchronously (live). The schedule has been posted here.

Please check back for additional information and updates.

REGISTRATION

Registration is due by Thursday, March 10th at 4:00PM EST. Changes are due by Tuesday, March 15th at 4:00pm.

SCHOOL REGISTRATION

As in the past few years, registration and tabulation will be taking place exclusively through Tabroom.com. All schools who plan to attend the tournament must go to the PHSSL State Championships tournament (pa.tabroom.com) and follow these steps:

  1. Click the “Register” tab at the top of the page (should be the 4th Tab).
  2. Read the Notes/Disclaimer (which only pop up the first time), the click “I understand and agree” to proceed.
  3. After reading information on qualifying, scroll down to the section titled “Region” and select your school’s respective District (aka “Region” in Tabroom). Make sure to click “Save”.
  4. Ensure the correct contact is listed under the “Contact Information” section. If you need to correct any information, do so and click the “Save Contacts” button.

STUDENT REGISTRATION

All competitors that have qualified via bids or via their respective District tournament will automatically be registered to the Tournament after their school has completed the steps above. We need all schools in a District to complete the necessary steps before any competitors can be added from the respective District Qualifier.

If you have followed the above steps and registered your school, but do not see your entries that have qualified from the District qualifying tournament, please reach out to your District chair. 

To register competitors in non-qualifying events, please follow these steps after you have completed the School Registration above:

  1. Click on the PHSSL State Championships tournament on Tabroom.com, then select the “Entries” Tab (should be the 4th tab on the page).
  2. Select a non-qualifying event from the dropdown menu on the top right of the page.
  3. If the entry is already on your roster, select them from your list of competitors using the dropdown menu, then click the blue “Add Entry” button. If you do not have the competitor on your roster yet, click the yellow “Add New Competitors to Roster” button underneath the dropdown.
  4. You may also add a TBA slot in any non-qualifying event if you know that you will be filling the slot, but you do not know with which student yet.

Per the Notes/Disclaimers page, all students who wish to compete at the PHSSL State Championship must have a signed and submitted PHSSL Grant of Permission Form. If an entry is registered and does not have a completed form returned by the deadline, that entry will be dropped without notification. To complete this process, please follow these steps:

  1. Click on the PHSSL State Championships tournament on Tabroom.com, then select the “Entries” Tab (should be the 4th tab on the page). In order to get a blank form, you must have at least one entry registered for the tournament.
  2. From your list of Entries, each Entry should have a blue Edit Entry button which is located in the rightmost column titled “Changes” (the button looks like a pencil and paper). Click this button to proceed.
  3. On the top right of each entry page, click the green “Form” button to obtain a blank copy of the form. The form is exactly the same for each competitor/event, so you can download one and email or print a copy for each student.
  4. Once you receive a signed copy back from a competitor, click on the Edit Entry button again and select the file from your computer using the “Choose File” button. After attaching the file, click the “Upload Forms” button to complete the submission.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT WE HAVE ONE FORM PER STUDENT/ENTRY, SO PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT MULTIPLE SIGNED FORMS UNDER ONE ENTRY. For two-person events, there is a separate file upload for each student. We have no other way to verify that a form has been entered for a student unless there is a corresponding upload for that specific student. Failure to follow this procedure may result in entries being dropped erroneously. If this occurs, a drop will NOT be reversed.

If you are not entering two students in News Broadcasting, you have the option to enter ONE additional student into a single-competitor non-qualifying event (Congress House, Extemp Debate, or Impromptu). To elect for this option, please make sure that you have done the following:

  • Ensure that you have no one entered in News Broadcasting
  • Enter only one student onto the waitlist for Congress House, Extemp Debate, or Impromptu

On March 11th (the day after Registration closes), the tournament administrators will go through and ensure that the aforementioned conditions are met, then admit the waitlisted competitors into the tournament.

STUDENT DROPS

If you are dropping a student from a non-qualifying event or one that has qualified through bids, you may enter your drops without notifying anyone. If you are dropping a student that has qualified via a District Qualifier please send that information to District chairs. This will allow us to more efficiently add runners up from District tournaments.

JUDGE REQUIREMENTS

All judges are expected to be available FOR THE ENTIRE TOURNAMENT.  If you have judges splitting an assignment either for Saturday and Sunday or even partial times during the day, Tabroom should automatically take this into account and accurately reflect your coverage. If you believe the calculated burden is incorrect, please email adhere@phssl.org to verify. Fees will be levied against schools that fail to cover their burden on all days.

Per Pennsylvania law, all judges must have a their Clearances. You can find instructions and requirements on the DHS website.

DEBATE EVENTS

Instructions for entering judges into Debate events:

  1. For each debate event, there will be one judge required per two entries (in a team event, two competitors constitute one entry).
  2. For an odd number of entries, an additional judge is still required to cover the extra entry (e.g. 3 entries in an event require 2 judges).
  3. Requirements DO NOT crossover between events, including Extemp Debate (a change from past years). For example, if you have 3 entries in Lincoln Douglas and 1 entry in Extemp Debate, you will need 2 judges to cover the 3 entries in Lincoln Douglas and 1 separate judge to cover the entry in Extemp Debate.
  4. Please rate all judges using the system on Tabroom. This will help us use judges with adequate experience in break rounds.
  5. In order to have adequate coverage, judges are typically used in multiple events (e.g. a Lincoln Douglas judge may be used in a Public Forum round). If there is a debate event that a particular judge does not feel comfortable judging, please indicate that in the judge notes section.

SPEECH & CONGRESS EVENTS

Instructions for entering judges into Speech and/or Congress events:

  1. There will be one judge required per three entries (in a team event, two competitors constitute one entry).
  2. To calculate the required number of judges, divide the total number of Speech and Congress entries by 3 and round up (e.g. 11 competitors in Speech would require 4 judges).
  3. Judge requirements crossover between all Speech and Congress events.
  4. Please rate all judges using the system on Tabroom. This will help us use judges with adequate experience in break rounds.
  5. In order to have adequate coverage, judges are typically used in multiple events (e.g. a Congress judge may be used in Speech rounds during their downtime). If there is an event-type (Speech or Congress, nothing more granular) that a judge does not feel comfortable judging, please indicate that in the judge notes section. A judge is unable to opt out of specific Speech events.

HIRED JUDGES

PHSSL will have a limited number of hired judges available for the State Championship. Please let us know ASAP because as we approach the start of the tournament, finding available judges becomes increasingly difficult.
 
The cost per judge is $200 and judges are available on a first come, first serve basis. If you need partial coverage (i.e. one day or a half-day because one of your existing judges is unable to cover the full tournament), a judge MAY be available at a pro-rated cost, but this is not guaranteed.
If judge coverage and/or hired judge costs are an issue, please reach out to jodif@phssl.org with details on your specific situation. PHSSL may grant exceptions and/or provide financial assistance to schools in need on a case-by-case basis.
 

JUDGE FINES

There will be a $50 fine per missed round. Tabroom sends both an email and a text message to all judges notifying them of their rounds. It is especially important that judges pay attention to round start times and check Tabroom for a round. Tournament officials are not responsible for judges not receiving blasts via texts or emails, so make sure judges are checking their emails (Tabroom text alerts seem to be a little problematic for some people, but emails have never been an issue).

Please ensure that your judge has the correct email and phone number on their account. Additionally, please make sure that your judges do not have the settings that block texts and emails from Tabroom. The setting is found on each person’s Tabroom profile (when logged into Tabroom, click on Profile at the very top next to your email address).

Schools are not responsible for fines on any hired judges. These fines may be levied by Tournament officials in order to keep track of missed rounds but the fines will not be imposed upon schools.

TECH & CONNECTIVITY POLICY

DEBATE EVENTS

Competitors will be afforded up to 10 minutes of technology time during the round. Please be patient as any issues are addressed. Competitors are permitted to rejoin and continue where they were in a speech at the time of any technology issues. If issues cannot be addressed within 10 minutes, the competitor risks disqualification. Consult with the tab staff before disqualifying a student due to technology issues.

 

SPEECH EVENTS

If a student’s technology drops out, they will be afforded an opportunity to rejoin the room and continue WHERE THEY DROPPED OUT.  If students are in the room; however, cannot rejoin by the end of the round (minimum sixty minutes, but no more than ninety minutes from the start of the round), they should be ranked last. If you are waiting on a student to return, and time has elapsed, please dismiss the other students and keep your window open until the ninety minute mark has been reached.     

 

CONGRESS EVENTS

If a competitor loses connection/has a tech issue while speaking, they will be afforded up to 10 minutes of technology time. Competitors may rejoin and continue where they were in the speech at the time of any technology issues. If issues cannot be addressed within 10 minutes, the speaker will be permitted back into the session, but may not complete the interrupted speech. The session should continue to move forward if 10 minutes have passed and the speaker has not rejoined the room.
 
If a competitor loses connection during a session, but was not actively speaking at the time, the chamber will pause debate at a natural pause point (i.e. between pro/con speeches, before opening debate on next piece of legislation) for 5-10 minutes (depending on when issue occurred and when the natural break could happen) to allow time to resolve the tech issue. After that time, the session will continue. The student may still rejoin the session after the 10 minutes have elapsed.