Speech and debate is one of the most beneficial extracurricular activities a student can participate in. It allows students to gain important skills, such as strengthening critical thinking and speaking abilities. It allows students to explore and talk about real-world topics and issues. Not only can a student gain important life skills, but colleges and universities are more likely to take students who participate in speech. Those who want to continue speech and debate into college have a 4% above average acceptance rate compared to students who are not active in it. Colleges and universities even offer scholarships for speech and debate. 

This year’s speech and debate season will be different for a number of reasons. Mr. Hall, teacher for language arts 1 and 3, will be in charge. Mr. Hall’s main focus for this season is to focus on rebuilding and adding new recruits. With the older members, he wants their help to teach the newer kids of speech and debate what to do. He is most excited to see returning faces and new members. Another new thing this year is that a tournament will be held at Diamond for the first time in two years. All members will be required to help to make things run smoothly. The tournament will be November 4th and 5th, the first Saturday and Sunday of the month.