Coaches Discuss Big Changes in SD Speech Activities

Coaches of the three major extracurricular speech activities in South Dakota -- one-act play, debate, and oral interpretation -- are embroiled in vigorous discussion of the prospect of big changes in the formats of the state championship contests for those events.

In one-act play, the South Dakota High School Activities Association is proposing radical changes to the schedule and siting of the State Festival, which takes place annually on the first weekend of February. Currently, 45 schools from all three classes (AA, A, and B) converge on one site to stage their shows over a three-day period. Due to a rule change promulgated last year expanding the performance time from 30 to 45 minutes, the festival has run longer. The 2007 festival started with Yankton's performance at 9:50 a.m. Thursday, staged opening shows Friday and Saturday at 8:00 a.m., ran past 10:00 p.m. Thursday and Friday evening, and wrapped up with awards Saturday night after 8 p.m., with schools not getting on the road until after 9 .m.

Concerned that contest runs too long, SDHSAA Assistant Executive Director for fine arts Ken Pickering is proposing splitting the festival by class to three different sites. Such a change would condense the contests to two-day affairs. It would also deprive students from each class the opportunity to see shows put on by schools from other classes.

In debate, the coaching community has expressed continuing frustration with the format of the State Debate and Individual Events Tournament. Held each year the first weekend of March, the contest follows a unique set of rules that require close study and extra time in pairing rounds and tabbing on site. The rules thus often lead to delays and excess downtime for students at the tournament. Some coaches have proposed running the state tournament by computer, but coaches experienced with such tournament-management software, such as Joy of Tournaments, a package frequently used at South Dakota invitational contests, say that the state tournament rules as written now would not fit te oprating parameters of such software. To computerize, either the software would have to be engineered to fit the tournament or the tournament would have to be revamped to fit the software.

Coaches are offering various proposals to reconfigure the State Debate Tournament for easier management. One proposal comes from Madison debate alumnus, assistant coach, and frequent judge Brett Kearin, who has put his DSU education to use creating a tournament-management software package that he could customize for the South Dakota State Debate Tournament. Whatever format the State Tournament may take, this editor hopes the SDHSAA will take advantage of this opportunity to buy local.

The State Oral Interp Festival may face signficant changes as well. Currently students in Class B qualify for State Interp through a sequence of District and Region contests. Class A students qualify through a Region contest. Class AA schools automatically send one entry in each of the seven events to the festival. Entrants speak once at the contest and receive Superior, Excellent, or Good ratings.

The SDHSAA has sent out a survey from this humble editor proposing expanding the number of participants in the state festival, the number of rounds at the festival, and the number and type of awards handed out. The complete proposal is online at the editor's school website.

In the run-up to the meeting of the Speech Advisory Committee, a group of coaches that will issue its formal recommendations for all three activities at its annual meeting in Pierre next week Friday and Saturday, Arpil 27-28, this coach and others have set up blogs for discussion of the various proposals. To read and join the discussion, see the following sites:

• State One-Act Forum
• State Oral Interp Forum
  
• State Debate Forum