Policy, Lincoln-Douglas, and Public Forum debate all advanced teams to regionals from their conference meets on March 15th, with two teams for Policy, one team for Public Forum, and two teams for Lincoln Douglas. The next step for VHSL’s competitions, which is set to happen at Dominion High School, is regionals this Saturday. The teams expect to be going to States as well, and so a significant amount of work is now in order.

For Public Forum, it means learning a whole new topic and writing new speeches. April’s topic is “Resolved: Prioritizing economic development over environmental protection is in the best interest of the people of India.”

“It’s an interesting topic – and it’s actually nice that it changed from last month’s, which was pretty strange,” senior Public Forum debater Michelle Waligora said.
Lincoln-Douglas and Policy Debate won’t be switching topics, but it doesn’t necessarily that they won’t have to do just as much work preparing.

“Policy debate doesn’t switch topics, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have a persistent amount of work that we always have to do – we need to keep files up to date, prepare for other teams that we know we’ll be facing and even write new arguments to keep things interesting,” junior Policy debater Atticus Bolyard said.

This work consists of reading numerous literature bases, keeping up on the news, and designing speeches and planning strategies for the numerous teams that they are bound to face at both future competitions.

“It’s definitely a commitment,” Bolyard said.

The members of each team are not reluctant to note that their activity involves a lot of work, but for them, it’s worth it.

“Public Forum is a unique activity and it can definitely be a lot of fun – even if it’s a lot of work,” Waligora said.