Elementary School Debate is a program that introduces younger scholars to the fundamentals of debate before they reach middle school and inspires them to join their middle school squads upon matriculation. 

The brainchild of Coach Plaisted at Stuart Hobson Middle School, who has written the curriculum every year, the program is pretty simple: 

• Elementary school students (4th and 5th graders) work with a coach (a teacher, librarian, or even a parent) at their school to read a book thematically related to the debate topic used by older students
• They then work through some basics of argumentation (speaking in public, using evidence, taking notes, etc. 
• The program culminates in a tournament at the end of each semester (see our schedule for details) against other Elementary School students.
• Current middle and high school students serve as judges (with some training, of course!) 

We initially piloted this program with Kip in the Stuart Hobson feeder pattern, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive (in fact, the biggest piece of early feedback was to do so more than once a year). As a result,  we’ve opened the doors to any public elementary school in the service area and added a Fall session to the Spring session we did in the pilot.

While we don’t have a critical mass yet, we understand that there is demand for this program in Spanish, and hope to get there eventually.