On Nov. 22 and Dec. 3, Amador’s Competition Civics team competed in their annual districts and regionals competition. Though the team won both competitions last year, they came up just short to Foothill this year.
“Last year we won districts and regionals, but it’s difficult for students to gauge their performance before we start competing because you never see anybody else,” said Competition Civics teacher and advisor Stacey Sklar.
In the weeks leading up to the competitions, the team met multiple times a week and held several practice sessions to prepare.
“Our team first worked on drafting our testimonies, and in later practices worked on the question and answer portion of the competition by asking each other past questions and drafting answers to potential new questions,” said Anika Parkhi (‘24).
Over the years, the districts competition evolved into a formal scrimmage between Amador and Foothill as a precursor to regionals. Regionals is the final qualifying round for state, which will take place in spring of 2024.
“In the past, when there were many more teams, there were federal cuts. But now, there are more practice rounds, and [Amador and Foothill] generally both go [to regionals and states],” said Sklar.
Each of the six units delivered their testimonies, answering one main question and two sub questions. They then responded to further questions from their judges. The judges score each unit on their ability to bring in outside evidence and expand on the ideas presented in their testimonies.
“I was pretty nervous, mainly because this form of debate was entirely new to me and I wasn’t sure exactly what types of questions to expect from the judges. However, during Q&A, I just felt so focused on answering all the questions and [connecting] pieces of evidence to each question,” said Parkhi.
Amador still has a chance to qualify for states and nationals, however. They intend to compete against several high schools across California for redemption.
“Although our season was off to a bit of a rocky start, we are working hard now to get back on track for states as a team,” said Parkhi.
