My school is a public charter school that serves 400 phenomenal Black and Latino students, 75% of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch.
Our Speech & Debate Team provides students who are historically underrepresented in Speech & Debate with the opportunities to compete both locally and nationally in public speaking and debating.
Even though it was only our third year having a speech team, over 25 active members were extremely successful at local, regional, and national competitions this past year. We have had students advance to elimination rounds all around the country including at Yale, Princeton, Columbia, UPenn, Harvard, and Emory. We brought a record sixteen students to the State Championship last April and three kids to Nationals last year and look forward to building our program even further this year.
My Project
Yesterday, we brought an unprecedented number of students to our first local tournament of the year. This was the first time in my eleven years of teaching that we filled an entire 56 seat bus on the way to the tournament. Over half of the kids on that bus were brand new to the team and most of them were freshmen and sophomores.
It's clear to me that this team means business this year and we need some support to make the magic happen!
The costs of food and registration adds up at a local tournament with so many kids on the roster, and your support will help us continue to give all of these kids the opportunity to keep competing.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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