By the end of the third quarter, all three academic teams are in good position to make it to their respective postseasons. For this reason, the debate team holds a second weekly practice starting the week after Stanford to prepare for the district qualifier. The Friday before the district qualifier:
"We'll go over the opening statements one more time before we move to addressing what can be done, and maybe have cross-ex drills later" Flo announces to her PF and LD players.
The players spent weeks editing opening statements, aff or neg, as well as researching arguments on either side of the topics, like the morality of affordable housing for the LD players.
"I have a question about how you can argue that it's fair for the government to increase access to affordable housing, and also whether it's fair to increase the tax burden to do so, as well as on whom. I understand, however, the sheer complexity of the socioeconomic ramifications of modifying the level of access to affordable housing" Flo harangues both LD players.
"You told us all the time to ensure our speeches of any kind have a clear flow and structure!" Henry complains, feeling that cross-ex drills are forthcoming for him.
"You also told us that, if an opponent makes a lot of closely related points, we should attack what ties all these points together, at their core!" the other LD player retorts. "Making a speech that flows clearly would make it easier for an opponent to flow us!"
"How you structure and deliver what you say can make a world of difference to judges! You make it sound like you wanted to persuade your opponent on top of the judge. What difference it makes, however, depends on a judge to another, so now that we agree that there's a clear logic and structure to how you guys wrote your opening statements, we can now undergo cross-ex drills"
Meanwhile, Steven takes the two Congress players he deems would benefit most from PF drills into crossfire drills, believing that crossfire drills would be helpful to Congress players. The other two are instead locked into an outlining drill, where they make outlines of three-minute speeches.
At the end of the training session, after the players have returned to their homes, Steven singles out Flo for some talk that makes her a little uncomfortable:
"Flo, here's your chance to accomplish, as a coach, what you didn't as a player. Back then, you were our only player who could have obtained a Nats berth, and you were the one who made the team decent" Steven tells her.
"Enough of my past as a student! You seem to be obsessed about setting right what once went wrong!" Flo chides him, believing it has reached unhealthy levels.
I get it, guidance counselors often live vicariously through the kids, I'm sure he takes great delight in seeing such-and-such kid get into X college, and not only because of his role in making it happen, Flo ruminates as she returns home. But why through me as well?
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However, mathletics, and correspondingly, the race to the IMO, overshadowed everything else among the greater VA community all quarter long. Especially since, going into the USAMO and hence the homestretch, Trillian sits in fifth place in said race.
This week is a triple program for the VAs' faithful: the USAMO, on Monday and Tuesday, quiz bowl-State on Saturday in Lafayette and the debate district qualifier at Bâton-Rouge Magnet over the weekend. Speaking of which, in the parking lot of VA, she addresses the team before boarding it.
"This is it: the moment of truth. We worked so hard at various tournaments, both local and inter-state, and this weekend, we have a chance to qualify for the national championship!" Florence harangues the debate team assembled in the parking lot. "For years, we were the premier debate team in southwest Louisiana; we shall prove that it's not because we're the only operational debate team in SWLA that we will be doormats on the debate floor!"
"What about the ToC?" Jacob asks her, having won a gold PF bid by winning Holy Cross.
"We're the only operational debate team in SWLA now?" Amica gasps and then asks her coach, not believing that SWLA is an academic competition desert, in which VA is an oasis.
"All I ever heard about debate elsewhere in SWLA was that Kinder axed their team in 2030 but had their only Nats berths just two years prior, and no other school had a team in the region" Steven answers Amica's question about the state of debate in SWLA.
Marianne leaves her office to get to the parking lot and meet with the team, before the team sets off for Bâton-Rouge for what the VA community deems to be a state championship in all but name.
"We are to attend only one between the Tournament of Champions and Nats, and Nats have priority, is that clear?" Marianne instructs the team about its post-season. "Nats berths look better for us than ToC ones since the ToC represents the best of a much more restricted world"
"You heard the principal; we might attend the ToC, but only if we fail to secure a Nats berth this weekend" Flo warns the PF pair.
By getting to the final at Isidore Newman as well, the PF pair is fully qualified for the ToC's gold PF division. However, Henry only won one bid, earned at the semifinal of Isidore Newman. Which makes him ineligible for the ToC.
"Good luck at the state championship!" Marianne then wishes the team.
"It's not the actual state championship, but you might be forgiven if you think the district qualifier is a state championship in all but name, since it's attended by the strongest teams in the state" Flo corrects her.
As the team leaves the campus on the bus, Flo continues grading the end-of-quarter French finals she started grading the day the first of her sections took theirs. I really hope that, by winning a Nats berth, maybe two, I will have secured my future here, teaching French to the VAs, and I tried to diversify assignment topics as well as readings and prompts for test items, Flo seems a little concerned about the impending decision, which is one quarter away.
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Meanwhile, the other players keep studying or doing homework for their other courses. Upon arriving at Bâton-Rouge, they waste no time checking in as well as Tabroom for their game room assignments. And Flo, too.
When Flo is seated in her game room, assigned to a PF game (the bus driver winds up judging LD this time around), she starts the round after tossing a coin:
"This is round one of the public forum Louisiana district tournament. On the aff side, we have Southside TV and on the neg, Isidore Newman CC"
But then it becomes clear that Isidore Newman CC is much more willing to commit a breach of topicality and to even argue that using such-and-such term is problematic for some reason as soon as the first crossfire comes around the corner. Sacrament! This game reminds me of a game I judged at Nats where the losing team argued that the term black market was racist because it implied Blacks broke the law by doing illicit commerce! Flo struggles to keep these thoughts to herself, but also realizes that teams from private schools are more likely to run that sort of arguments.
In the end, Isidore Newman CC loses the game because they apparently preferred to force the debate into the semantics of words used in the opposition's arguments over going into the impacts.
After the second game ends, instead of going straight to grading finals, Flo convenes with the rest of the players, along with Steven:
"Bad news, Flo: all our Congressional players are eliminated" Steven informs her.
"Everyone else, please have your judgments ready" Flo asks all four non-Congressional players to prepare their judgments.
The public forum pair, as well as Henry, both finish the day 2-0, while Stacey, the other LD player finished the day 1-1. Yet sometimes judgments still contain comments for the winning side to improve upon in future rounds. However, it's clear that the player who went 1-1 has more to talk about and goes last.
Back at their hotel rooms, all students go back to their schoolwork, and then Flo can quietly resume grading what finals she couldn't grade earlier in the week. Especially since Amica is too busy doing her own things to pay any kind of attention to her, unlike earlier in the season. It's one of the most unpleasant parts of the job, the other being discipline, Flo sighs when she has finally finished grading the section that took their end-of-quarter final first. One down, four more to go.
The following day, after Flo returns from the tournament's tab room, she finds Glen, the parish's superintendent, fighting with his wife about the role of the academic teams in the students' educations. And she catches a glimpse of the fight as the couple starts talking about the costs of operating a debate team, which apparently made it too expensive for some schools in the parish. And students' motives.
"People would still focus on whichever one they do because they don't have much of a choice! One activity per subject area" Flo, having overheard them, comments on this fight between the VA supporters. "Sure the players have gotten better and more comfortable speaking in public, often they come to the team because the material interests them; theater is what others take up if they are comfortable with public speaking but not with the material"
"I think I only saw one student transfer because of concerns over academic teams. VA saw no one attempting to transfer in to play quiz bowl or debate. However, the parish not providing transportation might prevent some would-be debaters or quiz bowlers from transferring" Glen comments on the appeal of debate or quiz bowl among the students of other parish schools.
"If you could please excuse me, the public forum quarterfinals will begin soon" Florence then warns the couple.
With Henry, Jacob and Amica advancing, the VAs' hopes for Nats berths are still alive, and her judging assignment for this round is, like the previous day, a PF round. Yet, since Amica and Jacob didn't get a bye for the semifinals, and there are only two rooms for the quarterfinals, she is judging in the other PF game room for that round.
Three hours later, after the semifinals end, the VAs' debate team then ends up together with what few supporters they could get.
"We did it! We are going to Nats this year!" an exuberant PF pair, made up of Amica and Jacob, announces in front of the other VAs.
"Me too!" Henry, the LD player, jumps for joy.
"Does anyone here feel like they should try their hand at Last Chance in late April?" Flo asks her remaining players.
"No thanks" several Congressional players answer, feeling that they finished too far away from a Nats berth for Last Chance to be worthwhile to them.
Yet, this means the public forum pair won't attend the Tournament of Champions. As with previous runs to Nats, the money to attend Nats would be borne out of mathletics revenue.
And, as soon as the awards ceremony ends, the team is herded back into the bus bringing them home. Before the bus leaves, as she did for past tournaments, she writes up what she wants Marianne to announce about the debate team on Monday morning, and then returns to grading the French finals in chronological order of administration.
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Speaking of Monday morning, the principal lets one player from each team deliver the announcement, only there is no sport announcement that day.
"Good morning, everyone, first of all, the quiz bowl team won silver at the LQBA State Championship's middle school division, as well as gold in the large high school division! Thus the Venomous Agendas will compete in both the MSNCT on Mothers' Day weekend, and the HSNCT on Memorial Day weekend!" Josiane, a quiz bowler, as well as a high school junior, begins announcing over the school's PA system before returning to her regular classroom.
"And the debate team has won, for the first time in six years, not one, but two berths at the NSDA National Speech and Debate Tournament in mid-June. Juniors Henry May in Lincoln-Douglas, as well as Amica Neerwinden and myself, Jacob Gency, in public forum!"
The entire student body is ecstatic to see both teams advance to the postseason. I mustn't count the eggs before they hatch for tenure! Nats berths certainly give hope for me, and the people in town who might not like mathletics, it's just not the end of the story, Flo starts ruminating when that non-AP section's end-of-quarter finals are returned to the students.
"On va discuter un peu de l'examen de fin de trimestre, mais avant, je vais vous rendre vos examens en ordre alphabétique" (We will discuss last quarter's final a little bit, but before that, I will return your exams in alphabetical order) Flo then starts calling on students to pick up their end-of-quarter final exams. Especially since she spend all Sunday to finish grading the non-AP sections, and there only remains the forty or so AP final copies to grade.
As soon as they receive their tests back, so many of the students, especially those most concerned with TOPS money or access to AP French (in Flo's experience, these two groups often overlap significantly, especially since a B+ in French II is a minimum to enroll in AP French), start recalculating their grades in that course and later, what impact, if any, the change in their French grade would have on their GPA, both school and TOPS.
After reviewing common mistakes made by the students on the final, then comes the more unpleasant part of handing back tests and group project reports: dealing with student complaints about unfair grading (or incorrect calculations but that usually didn't happen). Thank God for these comments on the tests: they usually say why I took a certain number of points off, so they won't have as much room to protest. Maybe I ought to do so for the end-of-year exam, too, so to prevent what happened last year, Florence starts thinking about what made the complaints about grading not very common this year.
"Si vous voulez une idée de ce à quoi ressemble le travail dans le cours avancé, vous avez juste besoin de faire le travail du crédit supplémentaire" (If you want an idea of what work in the AP course is like, you only need to do extra credit work), Flo announces at the end of the class to students who feel they need a boost to get to either TOPS or AP French, with no homework assignment because of student fatigue from taking a battery of final exams last week.