Rules

Public Forum: There will no no flip for sides in PF rounds. Sides will be assigned in tab, and Pro will always go first. This is seen as potentially more educational, and more fair, than flipping and, conceivably, never debating one side of a resolution.

Eligibility: The Metro Hudson League is limited to students officially representing diploma-granting institutions. In other words, the organization is open only to schools and students from those schools, approved by and representing those schools. Camps, after-school programs, independent entries, etc., can not be considered for membership. Hybrid teams are acceptable provided that their schools are MHL members. Middle school entries are acceptable (although keep in mind that debating as a middle-schooler removes novice status later on).

Divisons:

• A Novice is defined as a first-year debater; a student who debated novice in LD one year cannot debate novice in Policy in a subsequent year, etc.
• Students who debated in middle school using a high school format -- Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Policy Debate, and Public Forum Debate -- cannot be considered novices when they arrive in high school, and should debate in the JV division. This is the case even if said students debated in divisions restricted to middle schoolers.
• Junior Varsity is defined as a second-year debater. Students in their third year do not belong in the JV division.

Awards: Each tournament will award an appropriate number of placement medals in each of the divisions. Additionally, speaker awards recognizing individual achievement will be awarded in the policy and PF divisions.

Judging:

• Each school must cover its own judging at a ratio of 1 judge per 2 teams in Policy, and 1 judge per 4 teams in LD and PF. There are no judges for hire at MHLs.
• No partial judges allowed. If a judge cannot make all 4 rounds in the day, please find another judge. The only way all debaters can debate all the rounds is if all the judges judge them. This is a mathematical fact of life. (Note: Schools that provide an amazing overage of trained/experienced judges, that may wish to allow some of them to relieve one another, are not the issue here, and such generosity of judge pool on their part remains encouraged and will continue to be supported.)
• Experienced debaters in their junior or senior years only may judge the novice and JV divisions.
• Strict judging rules will be enforced. Student judges must fulfill their responsibilities in a mature manner. Flouting the conventions of good judging will not be tolerated; any student judges who are found in violation of these conventions will be removed from the judging pool, along with 2 of their school's teams (if its a policy judge) or 4 of their school's teams (if it's an LD or PF judge); we do not have the luxury of randomly eliminating judges if teams are not also forfeit. For clarity's sake, these good judging conventions include (among other items construable as proper and mature academic behavior): no cell phone activity during rounds; no headphones; arriving at rounds in a timely manner; writing clear, respectful and useful ballots. (It is unfortunate to have to itemize such nonsense, but harmful violations have happened in the past and cannot continue to happen in the future.)
• There is no "trading" of judge assignments. If for some reason a judge is unable to adjudicate an assigned round, this matter must be brought to the attention of the tab room. No one else is allowed to reassign judges, and penalties may accrue for doing so, up to and including the above-mentioned team expulsions.
• Adult judges accompanying teams should be trained in advance by those teams. To enable this training, how-to-judge materials are posted on this website.
• In situations where a school predominates a division pool, teams may debate other teams from their own school. We will insure that these rounds are adjudicated by a neutral party, and that no team debates intramurally more than once a tournament.

Prep time: Prep time in LD is 5 minutes. Prep time in Policy is 10 minutes. There are no Low Point Wins allowed in any division. PF follows NFL rules.

Registration/Procedure:

• Pre-registration will be at Tabroom Online, due by 9:00 pm on the Thursday prior to the tournament; select Mid-Hudson League as the league to register at the top of the landing page. No additions are allowed after this point, period. (The chief reasons for this are that we need to assign and sort out rooms and organize the amount of food necessary).
• Note that no students will be allowed to enter the tournament without adult supervision. College students are NOT considered adults for this purpose unless they are employees of the school they are representing, i.e., official assistant coaches. The MHL will not take responsibility for unaccompanied minors.
• Because kids get sick, and things come up, tabroom.com will remain open for changes and drops (but not additions) until 9:00 a.m. on the morning of the tournament. No changes of any sort will be taken at the registration table. All changes must be entered directly into tabroom. (If there is no wireless available in a school, this can be done via smartphone or 3GS tablet.)
• If you are coming from some distance on a bus, you can make your changes en route. If you are meeting at the school at a city event, plan on doing so well in advance of the 9:00 deadline. Students "on their way (maybe)" do not count as entries, and a team's inability to arrive in plenty of time for coaches to take attendance will not be considered an excuse. The idea that round one is the taking of attendance penalizes the students who are there on time and wish to debate and learn.
• At some point before 9:00, a coach or adult will check into tabroom and report that their registration is final. At 9:00, any schools that are not marked in will be assumed absent, and their entry will be erased from the tournament. If in fact some of these missing folk are around, they can be added for round two with forfeits for round one. This will penalize the students of the school not registered rather than the students at the schools that did register. Schools en route by bus can text by 9:00 that their entry is set; it is not unreasonable to assume that they could miss the check-in deadline by a few minutes because of traffic, but since they've had all that time on the bus they've had ample opportunity to set things aright on tabroom.com. If you are coming by bus, be sure to find out who is running registration so that you have their cell number for texting!
• All reported changes after 9 are $25 each, payable at the making of the change. All unreported changes (e.g. teams that are registered that don't show up, missing judges) are $50. No teams will be allowed to participate in future events unless the fines are paid; they will be contributed to the Grameen Foundation.
• Opening assembly should start at 9:30, with rounds immediately following. There will be four rounds at each tournament, with LD and PF most likely being double-flighted.
• No students are permitted in the tab room. If a kid has a problem, they tell the coach (or responsible adult), and the coach comes to tab. The reason for this is not that we hate students and want to banish them from the warm glow of our presence, but because they often come to tab with problems not of a tabbish nature, or else are unable to articulate the nature of the problem, or else they do not recognize that other things might be going on in tab that makes them less than the top priority and therefore their experience in the tab room is frustrating both to them and to tab. Adult coaches are able to better communicate issues to tab, and then communicate solutions back to their students. Nevertheless, tab staff will make every effort at the beginning of the tournament to get all the rounds started and to sort out any loose ends in a transparent, open fashion (presumably at the ballot table). This is not a rule to isolate tab from the tournament, but simply an attempt at keeping the communication of problems at the appropriate level.

Cell phones: Just as cell phones will not be tolerated in the hands of the judges, they will not be tolerated in the hands of the debaters. If a student's cell phone rings during a round, it will mean an automatic forfeit for the offending person or team. The opposing person/team will receive a bye for the round.