Debate life: Jaguars host LAMDL Tournament

PARTNERS PRACTICE- Novice debate partners, Christopher Enriquez and Angel Rubio, study cards in preparation for their coming debates.

Spreading, flowing, memorizing cards —debaters meet twice a week to prepare for this. This month, the school also prepares to host the Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League, LAMDL, tournament on the weekend of Feb. 26.

“We stay after school on Friday until around 10 p.m. and then we come Saturday morning and are here until around 9p.m.,” said Christopher Enriquez, a freshman in the Technology & Media Magnet and a novice debater.

The LAMDL tournament is a two-day event where South East, among other high schools will have students, in pairs, debate the topics of immigration, drones, and the NSA in several rounds. These debates are between two sets of partners from different schools with one judge awarding speaker points to each debater and, in the end, determining the round’s winner.

“Usually we get to school and eat, then wait 30 minutes for pairings to go up, they say who we are going to debate against. Then, we go to the room and we just debate and then go back and wait for the next one,” said Angel Rubio, a freshman in Technology & Media Magnet and a novice debater.

A day packed with debates; this tournament will be no different. Our debate team—composed of two freshman, two juniors, and eleven sophomores—will debate in the rookie, novice, and junior varsity levels of the tournament.

“I expect that we will get to at least semifinals and for Max, Almaluz and Jason to win speaker awards,” said Arlene Sanchez, a sophomore in the Visual & Performing Arts small school and a novice debater.

As Sanchez hopes for the best, the school prepares to host participating LAMDL high schools including South Gate, Crenshaw, Bravo Medical Magnet, Downtown Magnet, and many others. For an update on debater’s tournament experiences go to www.jaguartimes.net.