On February 12, 2004, Roxbury High School hosted a debating tournament for the Iron Hills Conference Debating League. This league is comprised of the following districts/schools: Roxbury, West Morris Central, Pope John, Mount Olive, Sparta, Jefferson, Kittatinny and Dover.
Students in this league participate in a debating format entitled, Policy Debate. This format is structured with strict national guidelines to be followed. This year’s focus of debate, as prescribed by the national guidelines, focused on whether the government should establish an ocean policy to increase and protect marine resources.
Previous questions have been reflective of Health Care Reform, Global Economics, Latin America, Living Wills and Jail Reform. According to Mrs. Eva Gale, Roxbury Supervisor of Humanities (6-12), “The national topic is always one of a very heavy nature. The topics that these students debate have many layers to them.”
As the school’s set forth to debate the topic of ocean policy, they did so in an organized forum. Each district / school was represented with at least one affirmative and one negative team. These teams were paired up and in turn the affirmative teams began to enact their plans of action for the debate.
While each of the affirmative teams came to the debate with a prepared strategy, the opposing negative teams needed to come prepared with material and casebooks. These materials were necessary since the negatives did not know what facet of the above-mentioned topic their opposing affirmative team would be debating. A tremendous amount of research and preparation on behalf of all students was clearly evident in their handling of the topic.
Ms. Julia Mannese, RHS Debating Team Coach, states, “The students work very hard to prepare for these tournaments. I am always impressed by their dedication.”