Recent Changes

informative
Is anyone planning on having rooms with screens and projection systems for students in informative? At this time we don't have plans for this for our team but I have no idea what anyone else is planning.

Two or Three Rounds?
The early release time will be a problem, at least in our district. As Tom mentioned, testing is currently high stakes in education and our tournaments fall right around testing time.
Additionally, our district (and I believe many others) already have monthly schedule late starts/early releases for curriculum purposes. I doubt the community and administration would support another.

Two or Three Rounds?
Tom, that's a great point about the alternates. Thanks for your comments and concerns. Like I said, we need to find problems with this idea. That's definitely a problem.

JWP
MVL
NUC
BL-H-S
Waseca

Two or Three Rounds?
To go with only two rounds could be very unbalanced for competition. We were running two rooms of 7 and 8 already. Three or four room would be a expected in some categories such as humorous. With that many rooms, seeding would be logical but very challenging. A great concern also is that finals would have to have a target of 7 to have any alternates. We have three alternates already competing this. A target of 7 would almost certainly result in some finals of 8. In addition, I can't imagine my district being happy with loss of school time this time of year with the constant chant of test baby test. For that matter finding a school that wants to let out early would be difficult. We can't even find a school that will let out early for state. Just some thoughts. Not exactly like golf where the competition is against the hole or track/swimming where times get you in to the next leve.

Region 2A Speech
Proposed Alignment
Every two years, it seems like the MSHSL shifts enough schools around and we have a domino effect in our Section. With three subsections, it is challenging to keep the size of the subsections equitable. To keep things similar in size, many schools are criss-crossing or traveling greater distances. With Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart and LeCenter-Cleveland being added for 2012, our northern subsection needed significant change. Schools like MVL, NUC would go to 6, St. Clair, Madelia and MCW would go to 5, and Waseca would go to 7. Establishing a N/S subsection would allow things to be fairly consistent from year to year.
Some of the current problems with 3 subsections involve having single-sections of categories where there really is no competition for Section spots. For example, in Sub 5, all 4 Great Speech kids advanced automatically this year. Over the past few years, this has been the case with other categories. Having 13-14 schools in a subsection should get all categories to at least two rooms of competition. Based on our numbers over the past decade, each subsection would have about 200 kids, which is still a small tournament compared to most regular season events. The N/S subsection change would also give more significance to the six subsection medals. Now, only the top four matter. With the N/S subsection, all six medals would mean the student has advanced to Sections. 5th place would no longer be a downer. This would make tie-breakers important to get six into subsection finals, and situations where 7 or 8 make finals would increase the drama for that final spot.
North Subsection
Host: JWP

Judges
Currently, Region 2A pays for 21 judges at 3 subsections. If we go to a North and South subsection, would 30+ judges be enough to make the tournament work?

Would this make it more conducive for North judges to travel to the South subsection and vice versa? Would it be too hard to find 9 more judges?

Two or Three Rounds?
With an increase in the number of competitors, the importance of the preliminary rounds is magnified. Do we want to keep it just two rounds even if we have 4 sections of an event? Is it feasible to have three rounds and finals during the week?

Please give your thoughts on schools shifting subsections for 2012. We've added LeCenter-Cleveland to our section.Region 2A Speech
Proposed Alignment
North Subsection
Host: JWP
North Subsection (13)
St. Peter
Loyola
River Valley
JWP
MVL
BL-H-S
Waseca
WEM
Kenyon-Wanamingo
Cedar-Mountain
LeCenter-Cleveland
Cannon Valley
South Subsection
Host: Fairmont
South Subsection (14)
Fairmont
Windom
Maple River
MCW
BEA
Blooming Prairie
Jackson County
USC
NRHEG
MLBO
Mountain Lake Christian
Madelia
St. Clair
Alden-Conger

Please give your thoughts on schools shifting subsections for 2012. We've added LeCenter-Cleveland to our section.