The 2026 SCJFL Middle and Elementary

Southern California Championship Tournament

East Los Angeles College

May 3rd, 2026

 SCJFL is proud to announce the 2026 SCJFL Southern California Championship Tournament.  This tournament is meant to encourage healthy competition and provide an opportunity to sharpen their speeches before the national tournament.  

 The tournament will be held on Sunday, May 3rd.

 The tournament will be held at East Los Angeles College.

Address:

1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez

Monterey Park, CA 91754

Eligibility:

All competitors who advanced into an open division final round or received a placement award (novice division and speaker awards for debate are not eligible) at an SCJFL tournament are eligible.  The tournament will accept wishlist requests until all slots in an event are filled.

Available slots:

Each event at this year’s tournament offers 18 slots. Students who qualify for an event are guaranteed a spot in that event, even if the number of qualified students exceeds the number of slots offered. A student qualifies by receiving an award in the event, either by advancing to an elimination round or by placing in the top half of the field in an event that did not have a final round. For example, if a student earned 5th place in Poetry at the March speech tournament, that student qualifies to compete in Poetry at SoCal Champs. The student may compete even if more than 18 qualified students also sign up. All qualified competitors will be admitted. If fewer than 18 qualified students register for an event, the remaining spots may be filled by non-qualified students. These students should sign up on the wishlist. Tournament staff will select wishlist students based on how well they placed in the event at a previous tournament. When adding a student to the wishlist, be sure to indicate the tournament where the student had their best result in that event. Only one tournament will be considered for each wishlist entry, so please double-check that you are selecting the student’s strongest result. If you have any questions about this process, please contact the tournament director through the registration page.

Middle School Event Slots Offered:
Assigned Platform, Congress, Declamation, DI, Duo, Extemporaneous, HI, Impromptu, Informative, LD, Persuasive, Poetry, Prose, Public Forum, SPAR, Storytelling, Worlds.

Elementary School Event Slots Offered:
Declamation, Duo, Impromptu, Informative, Persuasive, Poetry, Prose, SPAR, Storytelling.

Topics:

Lincoln-Douglas Debate – 2026 March/April Topic

Resolved: The United States military ought to abide by the principle of non-intervention.

Public Forum Debate – 2026 April Topic

Resolved: The United States should eliminate the President’s authority to deploy military forces abroad without Congressional approval.

Entries:

 Qualification: Upon registration, coaches should indicate which tournament qualified the competitor.  This is available under the REGISTER -> COMPETITOR REQUESTS tab on the tournament registration page (next to the COMPETITOR WAIVER tab).  Coaches should write the event(s) and the respective qualifying tournament in the space next to the student’s name (e.g. Michelle Smith - Extemp - Q4; Storytelling - Q2).  Students who are entered without qualifications will be dropped and not granted entry from the wishlist.

 Wishlist: Students who did not qualify, but who wish to be waitlisted for an event can sign up on the following Google Form.  The tournament staff will admit the highest ranked waitlisted students until all of the slots are filled for that event.

Link to sign up students for the wishlist (each student will require a new submission to the form): 

https://forms.gle/jBPCqHQmrjZSvJodA

NOTE: Students who are entered as qualified students but have not qualified will be dropped from the tournament and not considered on the waitlist.  Please double-check the results of previous tournaments to ensure that your students are entered correctly.

Schedule:

Sunday

9:00 a.m. IE Round 1 / Debate Round 1

10:30 a.m. IE Round 2 / Debate Round 2

12:00 p.m. IE Round 3 / Debate Round 3

1:30 p.m. Debate Round 4

3:00 p.m. Elimination Round

4:30 p.m. Elimination Round

6:00 p.m. Elimination Round

Awards Ceremony (as soon as tabulation is complete)

Deadlines:

Entry deadline for qualified students is Sunday, April 26, 2026 at 12:00 p.m. noon Pacific.  The tournament staff will then assess the number of qualified entries and determine the number of additional wishlist requests that can be accepted.  

The tournament staff will add wishlist students to the tournament and then notify the coaches to check the updated registration summary to verify that the entries look correct.

Fees:

Fees will be assessed on Tuesday April 28th at 12:00 p.m. PST.  Any changes after this date will be subject to the following penalties. 

Late changes - $25

Competitor no-show - $35 (event fees will not be refunded after deadline).

Please pay all fees to an account below by Wednesday, April 29th, 2026 at noon Pacific. Fees must be paid through the registration page by clicking on the ‘Tournament Fees’ tab on the left side of the page.  All fees will be frozen at the time of registration close.

$50 school fee

$25 per IE/Congress/SPAR event-entry ($40 per Duo team)

$45 per one-person debate entry

$60 per two-person debate entry

$75 per World Schools entry

$40 judging fee per uncovered IE event-entry (One judge covers 5 IE event-entries)

$125 per uncovered debate event-entry (One judge covers 2 debate entries)

$200 dropped judge fee (per day) if dropped within 24 hours of the tournament.

$25 No-show judge ballot fee (first offense); $50 No-show judge fee (second and subsequent offenses)

Judges who do not write sufficient feedback to the competitors will be fined $10 per round.  Unsatisfactory ballots will be determined by the tabulation staff.

The tournament reserves the right to deny schools who do not supply at least half of their required judges.  We will do our best to ensure that no schools are denied because of this reason.

Tournament Staff:

Tournament director: Robert Cannon