Coach,

The school year is quickly coming to a close, which means Nationals is just around the corner! This will be our final District Digest until September. We look forward to seeing many of you at Nationals and hope you are able to enjoy some well-deserved rest as the school year wraps up.

Before you close up for the summer, please make sure your district has completed the district finance form. 

Strategic Plan Update!

As you know, we have set an ambitious goal to double the number of schools doing speech and debate by 2030. Thank you for being at the heart of that effort by supporting local programs in your district! Learn about our strategy and the progress we made toward that goal this season »

Meet the Team: Elisha Roberts, Director of School Recruitment

Please Introduce yourself. 

Over the course of my career, I have been a civics and AP Government teacher, an assistant principal, a founding principal, a Chief Academic Officer, and most recently worked with districts across the state of Colorado on strategic plans, school improvement, and intentional AI literacy best practices. I am married to a speech and debate coach who is also a district leader, and so I see firsthand the time, energy, and effort you all put into this activity day in and day out. In my free time, I love to travel and volunteer with the 5280 Opportunity Project nonprofit I founded to support schools in Colorado to offer high-quality extracurricular activities and fund students to be able to participate. Over the last two and a half years, our organization has provided funding to eight speech and debate programs.

What does being the Director of School Recruitment include?

In this role, with your voices and input, I am building out a multi-prong strategy to recruit new schools to be a part of the NSDA competition community. This includes (but is not limited to) approaches for encouraging middle school feeders to create programs, additional high school memberships, and there is much to do on the recruitment (and retention) of coaches to support existing and future programs that come online. I know recruitment is a focus for many of you, and I am here and would love to partner with you on your recruiting efforts. I look forward to meeting many of you at Nationals. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at elisha.roberts@speechanddebate.org before or after Nationals to connect; I plan to do the same!

What are you excited about for your first year on staff?

I am most excited to learn more about what’s happening on the ground in local contexts across the country in order to support you, the dedicated educators, committed to the promise of speech and debate for our students nationwide. Critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills seem of vital importance in this particular time in our nation as AI disrupts school system’s business as usual. It is that much more important that students have the skills to unpack and be able to discuss accelerated technological changes in our society.

Spotlight: Join us for Warm-Ups at Nationals!

Start your National Tournament day with movement, energy, and community at our first-ever Large Group Warm-Up, sponsored by the NSDA Wellness Committee. Join Coach Reggie Chapman of Plano West High School for a free 25-minute warm-up session outside between Manchester High School and Bailey Bridge Middle School at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, June 15, and 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 16. The sessions are open to all students. For more information, contact Dr. Paul Porter at paul.porter@speechanddebate.org.

Changing Schools? Retiring? Keep Us Updated!

Are you retiring? Leaving coaching? Changing schools? Do you know someone who is? If you or another coach in your district is making a change for the 2026-2027 school year, please share the details with us so we can continue to support your speech and debate program by advocating for or onboarding a replacement.

Questions? We're here to help! Email info@speechanddebate.org or call (920) 748-6206.