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Dear Leader,

Thank you for your incredible work as a district leader. The role you play as a volunteer leader is instrumental in our ability to fulfill our mission. Below we share an award announcement, suggestions for tournament workshops, and the start of a leadership-focused PLC. Jump in!

Fall Board Meeting Minutes

The minutes from the last month's Board of Directors meeting are now available to read online. I hope that you will read them closely and feel free to follow up with me should you have any questions or concerns.

2017-2018 Leading Chapter Awards

Each year the top chapter in accumulated members and degrees, not more than one per district, receives the Leading Chapter Award; then its accumulated total returns to zero and it begins a new record. The Leading Chapter Award is given out by the district chair at the district tournament and will arrive in your district box 5-6 weeks before your tournament. We're excited to share the list of winners for the 2017-2018 school year!

Note: If you are a district chair and your school is the recipient of the Leading Chapter Award, please consider inviting someone else to present the award to you.

Plus One Program

We encourage you to consider a Plus One program at your district tournament this year! If there are schools in your district that you're recruiting for membership, invite the prospective coach or an administrator to the district tournament and help them network with coaches from existing programs. Managing the invitation process and/or greeting the prospective members at the tournament would be a great role for a new coach mentor or a veteran coach in the district.

This idea was inspired by the Time's Up Plus One Initiative and recommendations from the NSDA Coaches' Caucuses.

Leadership Professional Learning Community

We'd like to provide a Professional Learning Community (PLC) for district leaders where you can connect with your peers from all across the country. We believe this PLC would help to share best practices, spark innovation and collaboration, and connect the greater speech and debate community. If you are interested in participating in this PLC, please complete this survey.

District Tournament Registration

We're excited for the start of district tournament season! To ensure that all districts receive their materials on time and that the appropriate steps have been taken at the national office, district tournament registration due dates are as follows:

All NSDA districts beginning any portion of their event between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2018 MUST complete the tournament registration process by Oct. 31, 2018.
All NSDA districts who are beginning their tournament series after Jan. 1, 2019 MUST complete the tournament registration process by Nov. 30, 2018.

Please note that if your tournament is not registered by the appropriate date, you will receive a basic district supply box that may not contain all of the speciality awards or ballots you'd like to order.

Chairs, you can register your tournament series here when you're ready! We ask that all district leaders also consider the pilot programs for this year. Learn more »

Tournament Workshops

In last year's District Leadership Survey, we learned that several districts hold coach workshops at tournaments throughout the year. These programs offer many benefits to coaches, and may also qualify for inservice hours. This is an excellent way to reach out to new coaches and help them navigate their first years. Here’s a look at topics district workshops have offered in the last year:

Extemp Workshop for Beginning Coaches
How to Find Literature and Cut Scripts
Meet and Greet for New Coaches
Program Building and Curriculum Development
Panel Q&As with Veteran Coaches
Classroom Strategies

Do you offer trainings at your tournaments? Email Annie Reisener with more details and we'll add your sessions to the list above. If you are interested in learning more about offering workshops at your tournaments, email district chairs Debbie Waddell (East Texas) and Layne Carter (Utah-Wasatch) with questions about getting started!

Communicators in the Classroom

Communicators in the Classroom is the NSDA's initiative to partner with school districts to establish co-curricular speech and debate high school and middle school teams.

We are reaching out to districts and responding to requests for more information. Should a Communicators in the Classroom proposal move forward in your area, we will inform you as soon as possible. If you know of a school district that would be a good fit for this program, please email Erik Dominguez.

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