DEBATE-KANSAS CITY
5100 Rock Hill Rd 2002 Haag Hall, Kansas City, MO 641102499 debatekansascity.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: To improve academic performance and increase opportunities for urban students through participation in debate.

DEBATE-Kansas City (DKC) is an educational partnership that brings co-curricular debate and public policy discourse to middle and high school students. Debate uses competition to develop performance and public speaking skills. More significantly, debate increases reading scores and improves critical thinking. A peer-reviewed study of the Chicago Debate League suggests that participating African American male students raised their GPAs by 50% of a letter grade, were 70% more likely to graduate from high school than non-debating peers, 70% more likely to reach the ACT College Ready benchmark in reading, and twice as likely to reach the college ready benchmark in English. Critical thinking and knowledge of public policy issues are key ingredients in the democratic process and life success. DKC supports students, coaches, and members of the community in expanding their horizons through critical thinking and argument. DEBATE-Kansas City served 852 active participants this season. DKC held 12 tournaments, with 1,938 total entries. DKC also held two student workshops, four coach professional development trainings, a summer camp for students and coaches, as well as hosted a public debate. Additionally, DKC provided students substantial research support, on-site visits and mentoring from DKC graduates and college debaters. DKC also engages and activates hundreds of volunteers in the community to judge at our tournaments and mentor in our schools. DKC membership continued to be strong with 40 active schools from every corner of the city. Through renewed support from KCPS, DKC has sustained a strong push to add an additional schools and hundreds of participants in the coming year. DKC is one of the nation's oldest and largest urban debate leagues. DKC routinely excels at the Urban Debate National Tournament each year, with students winning multiple awards against the very best in the country. No other organization in the region offers more opportunities for young people to engage academic and civically important issues. One unique aspect of the DKC program is how it serves students from sixth grade to college graduation. A student can literally grow up with DKC. In addition to its regular middle and high school services, DKC provides opportunities for local college students to act as mentors to DKC students via our coaching connections program. DKC is also instrumental in connecting our students to scholarships and college opportunities across the country. Due to COVID-19, we could not hold in-person tournaments or events and had to pivot to virtual program delivery. Technology access and costs increased and the online environment created a need for a smaller student to teacher/mentor/coach ratio. DKC hired additional part-time staff and increase investments in recruiting volunteers for the organization. The biggest help DKC can provide our member schools is access to debate expertise and mentorship. The virtual debate tournament is an excellent substitute for in-person competition in that the debate experience can be had with the same level of academic rigor and opportunity to develop professional and life skills. On the other hand, the opportunity for tournament travel and the intangibles of in-person participation offer incentives for students to debate are hard to capture in the online environment. This is an important lesson as we plan for what debate programing should look like in the coming years. It is clear moving forward that a combination of in-person and virtual tournaments would ideal in terms of recruiting and retaining student participants. DKC and our partner school districts struggled with connectivity and technology issues. Schools generally did a good job providing their students with computers; however, access to the internet was limited for some and other households struggled with slow internet connections that made using Zoom or Yateley next to impossible in a tournament setting. DKC worked with member districts to get students access to hot spots, but DKC estimates technology issues suppressed debate participation by more than 20% in the spring. The impact of this digital divide was felt most acutely at the middle school level. Learning additional tech skills and the added stressors of online debate in an already rigorous activity proved a substantial obstacle to participation. Participating in debate from home was impossible for some students in Kansas City who would otherwise participate. The pandemic meant that some students had to care for younger siblings or work to help support their families. Home environments can be difficult logistically as small houses or apartments may not have quiet spaces free of distractions for students to work and compete. Factors that helped promote success this year were increased support from the administrations of our two largest district partners. Both KCKS PS and KCMO PS answered DKC's call and recommitted to participation in debate during COVID-19. DKC can report that in some instances virtual debate can have a positive impact on some students ability to participate. It also was one of the few activities available for students offering athletes and other groups of students the opportunity to participate. Additionally, it increased the size and quality of our volunteer\mentor pool, allowing us to recruit debate expertise nationally. We know from previous study that quality mentorship increases retention rates. In this context, every round of debate, every afternoon practice and every lesson learned from a mentor was an outcome that would not have happened without DKC.

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