The Bellaire High School debate team will travel to New York City on Friday, April 1, to compete in the 2015-2016 International Public Policy Forum (IPPF). The competition gives high school students from around the world the opportunity to engage in written and verbal debates on issues of public policy.
The Bellaire debate team is made up of four seniors and is one of two Texas teams to advance to the ‘Elite 8’ round of the competition. On its way to the “Elite 8”, the Bellaire teams defeated hundreds of other high school debate teams, thus earning an all-expense-paid trip to compete against debaters from across the U.S.
Bellaire is no stranger to the competition having won it in 2008 and 2009. The debate team gets thing started Saturday, April 2, against East Ridge High School of Woodbury, Minn. with the winner moving on to the semifinals.
The competition, which started out with 28 states and 29 countries, will consists of oral debates in front of judges with the losing team being eliminated. The winning team will be named IPPF World Champion and earn $10,000 in scholarship money.
“This is an academic sport. These students spend hours researching and writing their papers,” said Bellaire High School Debate Coach Jay Stubbs. “They are incredibly bright.”
Debaters will affirm and negate the IPPF topic, ‘Resolved: Genetically modified organisms are essential to global food security.’
A review committee read 2,800-word student-submitted essays to determine the top 64 teams. Debaters submitted their first qualifying round of essays in October and throughout the academic school year continued advancing in the competition via written debates about the issue.
“We are incredibly proud of these students to have made it this far. This is a year-long competition with a very difficult topic to debate,” said HISD Interim Superintendent Ken Huewitt. “They’ve earned their spot in the ‘Elite 8,’ and I am extremely confident that they will do well.”
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