Frequently Asked Questions

Almost certainly. Our students are generally ready to compete after the 5th session. It’s important to view your student’s first tournament or two as a way to familiarize them with the competition process instead of wins and losses. We always encourage you to reach out to your student’s coach directly for specific advise.

The exact number of rounds is highly dependent on the individual tournament and the precise schedule can always be found at the bottom of the registration page. Single day tournaments usually involve 5 rounds of Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas debate on Saturday. Larger format tournaments usually entail 5 or 6 guaranteed preliminary rounds across a Friday evening and/or Saturday, and then a up to 6 single-elimination rounds on Sunday which your student may qualify for based on their preliminary record.

Usually. Some tournaments provide breakfast and lunch as part of your registration fee, while others have food options available for purchase. We cannot, however, guarantee that the food provided will conform to any sort of dietary or allergy restrictions.

Yes. Students are required to attend in business formal attire. We strongly recommend bringing a comfortable pair of shoes and jacket for use between rounds. There is no dress code for judges, spectators, and coaches.

Student should bring all of their course notes, cases, and counter-evidence. They should also bring ample paper for notes, their laptop, and charger. Because we can’t guarantee that internet access will be available or reliable, they should back up all of the materials offline before arriving.

Only Public Forum competitors have a debate partner. Congressional Debate and Lincoln-Douglas Debate competitors do not have a partner.

Your student should have received their partner’s name and contact information at practice. If they misplaced it, please reach out to your student’s coach directly.

While we encourage you to work out tournament arrangement’s with your student’s debate partner beforehand, there are two options if they don’t sign up. First, we can reach out to other student’s in our program to see if they would like to go with your student, though they may not practice at the same site or on the same day as your student. Second, if there is no available match, your money will be refunded.

Tabroom.com hosts a suite of software used to manage debate tournaments. Students are required to register and link an account so that the tournament pair their rounds and track their results. Each tournament also allows them to receive alerts for their rounds via text or email.

After your student has registered and confirmed their account on Tabroom.com, they must link their account to their competitor entry. To do this, first click on your email address on the upper right-hand corner. Then, on the right-hand side bar, click “Link your account to a competitor” from the yellow list. After the page has loaded, enter your student’s name in the relevant field and then select your student’s entry for Stratagem Learning. Sometimes, if server activity is high, Tabroom.com may not be able to link your account. If this happens, please reach out to our customer service account at Info@STRTGM.org with the email address your student linked to their Tabroom.com account and we can link it for you.

Results and judge are posted to Tabroom after the tournament has concluded, usually within 24 hours.

Students are expected to be on campus, or logged-in for online tournaments, 30 minutes before the posted start time of their first round. To check-in, students or their parents need to speak with the Stratagem Learning employee who is responsible for the team that day. Their name and contact information is listed in the final confirmation email sent to you before the tournament.

Your student should proceed to their round directly. Generally, there is a short grace period ahead of the first round. You need to contact our coach, either by text or directly, to confirm that your student is on campus. Failure to do so may result in your student being disqualified from the tournament and will leave you ineligible for a refund. Please let us know if you are running behind as soon as possible.

Students can be withdrawn from the tournament the day of competition but their entries are not eligible for refunds. Please let us know in advance of the first round as late withdrawal may result in additional fees.

Unlike check-in, students must be released to a parent or guardian listed on their emergency contact form and that parent or guardian must talk to the Stratagem Learning employee present at the tournament. If you intend to have your student released to another adult as a part of a carpool, you must email Mr. Fagan to explicitly grant permission for your student to be released to this adult in advance of the tournament.

No. Your registration fees cover adult supervision of your child by a Stratagem Learning employee for the entire tournament. You may stay if you wish, but you are not required to.

Yes. While we would prefer that parents wish to spend the day at the tournament would participate as judges, any parent can watch the competition. However, all competitors must agree to allow spectators before the round begins.

Yes. No prior experience is necessary. The only requirements are that you are available for each round you are obligated to judge, that you are over the age of 18, and have graduated from high school.

Yes. Judges receive their ballots on Tabroom.com and are required to have an account.

Generally, you pay a fine. These can range from $25 at small tournaments to more than $100 at large tournaments. You are solely responsible for paying fines your incur.

No. Virtually every tournament has rules prohibiting photography and video recording without prior arrangement for the privacy and security of the students.

Tournament fees are derived a from a combination of fees applied by the tournament itself, insurance costs, pay for our coaches, and hiring supplemental judges. The most substantial of these costs are hiring freelance, supplemental judges. Tournaments will not let our students compete if we don’t have enough judges to cover entries at a ratio of roughly 3:1. If we were not able to hire these judges, our team would be forced to require a volunteer commitment from each parent, as many public school programs in our area do. If you volunteer to judge, we are happy to waive the portion of your registration fee that would cover a hired judge.

Tournament registration fees are fully refundable if the tournament is cancelled, if your student’s registration is not accepted by the tournament, if your student’s debate partner does not register by the deadline if applicable, or if you withdraw your student’s registration before fees have been remitted to the tournament. Tournament fees are usually remitted 7 business days before the first day of competition.

Depending on the tournament, judges have one of two types of obligations. In the most common and straight-forward situation, each judge is obligated for all rounds of their event type (debate, congress, or speech). In larger tournaments judges are obligated until one full round beyond when the last Stratagem competitor was eliminated from competition. Please note that most tournaments run their first elimination round as a partial round so the earliest this obligation could potentially end is the second elimination round. The tournament registration page will let you know which type of obligation to expect.