School Board Support for Speech and Debate Programs

Editor’s Note: Following are some of the ways that Kim Anderson has led the Amarillo (Texas) ISD Board of Directors to support performing arts programs throughout the school district.

The administration and school board of Amarillo Independent School District (ISD) know that afterschool activity programs are crucial to the success of students. When kids find “their thing” and “their people,” outcomes across the board improve, so finding ways to provide opportunities for students to explore new interests in hopes of connecting them with that thing and those people is a priority for the district.

Amarillo ISD has an enrollment of 30,000-plus students, with four traditional high schools and one alternative high school serving approximately 8,500 students. Among the many offerings in which Amarillo ISD students have the opportunity to participate, the district is fortunate to have a robust speech and debate program led by dedicated staff who constantly go the extra mile.

Speech and debate programs are highly valued in Amarillo ISD. There are few other programs that provide the opportunities and experiences to practice the skills of communication, research, reasoning and civil discourse that these programs provide, and there are few other programs for which Amarillo ISD has been as creative in supporting.

Amarillo ISD fully funds expenses for all state University Interscholastic League (UIL) speech and debate events and provides a yearly budget for participation in Texas Forensic League, National Speech and Debate Association, and other events and tournaments throughout the year. When students qualify and compete in state and national tournaments, those events are reimbursed from the district’s playoff fund, but support of speech and debate programs requires more than just funding.

These students participate in more than 30 events each year and making arrangements for those events can be a heavy load to carry. The district provides support and assistance to our speech and debate coaches in scheduling buses or other transportation, making hotel arrangements, reducing paperwork, and providing purchase cards and meal money for overnight stays.

Amarillo speech and debate students and coaches also host tournaments at their own campuses. Anyone who has ever organized a speech tournament knows that it can be a challenge to recruit judges to provide a meaningful experience for the student participants.

To ease that burden for Amarillo ISD-sponsored tournaments, the administration has approved an exchange day for professional staff who volunteer to judge at Amarillo ISD campus speech tournaments for a minimum of 7.5 hours during the year. This assists speech coaches in ensuring that they had enough quality judges to hold their tournaments and provides an opportunity to raise awareness of the intense and high-quality work speech and debate students produce. Staff who have taken advantage of this opportunity have been blown away by the knowledge, professionalism and skill demonstrated by the competitors.

Our speech and debate coaches are an asset not only to Amarillo ISD but to the state. The district’s speech coaches serve in state-level capacities in speech and debate organizations and serve as mentors and trainers for other speech and debate educators. Because speech and debate is so important, Amarillo ISD gladly assists in arranging staff development opportunities, provides leave for our coaches to travel for participation in state level events, allows these coaches to determine the training they need, and provides opportunities for these educators to participate in relevant professional development as a group.

Another important part of supporting speech and debate programs is recognizing and celebrating the program’s successes. When Amarillo students qualify for state or national level events, they are recognized at school board meetings and through district communication channels. This is a small but impactful way to support the programs by raising awareness and publicly recognizing their importance.

Amarillo ISD continues to seek ways to support our afterschool activity programs, which add value to the educational experience of our students as we seek to achieve our mission of graduating every student prepared for life and success after high school. The success and accomplishments of our speech and debate students prove that these programs are instrumental to meeting that mission.