Velasquez Academy

Velásquez Academy kids rocked the 2025 Middle School & Elementary School California State Championship Tournament, winning both MS (1st-3rd) & ES (1st-2nd) Declamation, both MS (1st-3rd) & ES Assigned Platform, both of the Top 2 Overall MS Speakers and 1st Place in both MS Spar & MS Impromptu!!!

2025 State: MS & ES Declamation, MS & ES Assigned Platform, Top 2 MS Speaker, MS SpAr & MS Impromptu Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

What can I say? Our little kids give us hope that the future will be as bright as our past!!

We won 1st & 3rd in Prose, 1st & 6th in SpAr and 2nd & 4th in Declamation to get to '26 SoCal Champs Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Velasquez Academy is the Top Elementary School, Middle School & High School Team at the March 2026 National Online Speech & Debate Async!!

Velasquez Academy is the Top ES, MS & HS Team at March 2026 National Online Speech & Debate Async!! Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

At the inaugural online California State Tournament, we won 1st Place in Top High School Team, 1st, 2nd & 3rd in Impromptu, 1st & 2nd in Informative, 1st & 3rd in Declamation and 1st in SpAr Debate!!!

Velasquez: 1st Place HS Team, Impromptu, SpAr, Informative & Declamation @2026 Calif. Online State! Velasquez Academy at 2026 California Online High School State won 1st Place Team, Impromptu, SpAr Debate, Informative & Declamation, 2nd in Oratory & Drama

It's hard to beat an all-time mark, but I think it's especially hard to do so the year AFTER you do the impossible, and you lose so many of the kids who were the champions the year before--and yet we HERE WE ARE!! One year after winning an absurd THIRTEEN national async titles, we lose over HALF of our champions from last year AND YET STILL ESTABLISH A NEW ALL-TIME MARK OF FOURTEEN NEW NATIONAL ASYNC CHAMPIONS!! That doesn't even make sense. You're supposed to go DOWN and have a "rebuilding year" after losing over half of your stars (and if you don't believe me, see our awards from last year which is posted here as well), and yet...we seemingly reloaded with new other kids who stepped and asked "Why I can't be a National Async Champion too?" Amazing kids and parents make our tiny little academy go, heh. It's why we have such a family vibe and that collaborative aspect is the only way we can do what we do with just a single coach compared to our worthy competitor academies who boast 8, 14 or over 20 coaches. It's surreal to even be competitive against such stalwarts! Thanks for pushing us to be better than we thought was possible and congratulations on your own winners. Joy to everyone!

Velasquez' 14 Nat'l CHAMPS: #1 Elementary, Middle & High School TEAM AND STUDENT@2025 NOF ASYNC NATS

One year ago, a record THIRTEEN champions propelled us to being named the top elementary, middle school & high school team at the 2024 NOF Async Nationals, heh.

Velásquez' 13 NAT'L CHAMPS earn #1 ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE SCHOOL & HIGH SCHOOL @2024 NOF Async National!

I’m off to Nationals soon, but I wanted to post some videos to keep you all in the loop about recent activities. This one celebrates a cool feat from a couple of years ago. More to come soon!

Velasquez Academy wins Top Middle School Team at NOF Sync Nationals 4 YEARS IN A ROW from 2020-2023!

I let my students choose which contests they will attend, so we don't often win "sweepstakes" (or top team award) because we are dispersed at different contests and not aiming for such accolades. However, the kids decided to give me a late birthday present by showing up in sufficient numbers where we could actually have a chance at the sweepstakes award. We're pretty decent when we go into "Avengers Assemble" mode, LOL🤣

Velásquez Academy is Top High, Middle & Elementary School team @2025 National Online January Async!

I had completely forgotten that we won the sweepstakes of all three levels (elementary, middle school & high school) at the 2024 Async Nationals, because things flew by so quickly in early June (with NSDA Nationals around the corner). It's incomprehensible that we would, because our rival academies are so outstanding and formidable. Anytime you sweep something that is difficult, it's humbling and disorienting, feeling a little impossible and dream-like. Thanks to our surpassingly talented kids and parents, and to our friendly rivals who scare us into being better. We are...because you are. Here's hoping we earn more surreal moments in the years to come, but also just gratefuly that we were able to scale this peak even once. Wow. :-) https://www.nationalonlineforensics.org/news/2024-async-championship

Winning NOF's (National Online Forensics) top overall online speech & debate program in the country (schools, colleges and private academies included) for 2023-24 is something I doubted we could do. The odds are incredibly low when you consider that we're a tiny, word-of-mouth program with zero advertising, zero employees and a single coach, competing against colleges and schools and academies with a cast of hundreds, including stables of coaches with glistening resumes of being former national finalists and champions. I sometimes look at their lineup of coaches and brilliant, wealthy kids and wonder how anyone could hope to best them, they're so formidable. So...to top all of them is a tribute to the amazing kids and parents at Velasquez Academy, making the impossible possible, through passion, ingenuity and verve. I can't thank them enough for making me look so good. To boot, we also were named the Top Online Middle School forensics program in the nation, the Top Online Elementary School forensics program in the nation and the #2 Online High School Program in the nation! What!? It's an embarrassment of riches, and it's humbling and terrifying all at once, because it will be incredibly hard to duplicate, even though we'll give it our level best in 2024-25. Thanks to our followers and to the new family we will make along the way. We try to behave like honorable types (free coaching to public schools etc...) and hopefully this is one of the karmic payoffs to being about values and promoting equity and social justice. Even if this never happens again, the view from the top was worth the journey to get here. Thanks once again to one and all.

https://www.nationalonlineforensics.org/news/season-sweepstakes-winners?ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_campaign_id=668d9d37220fb2179e06a1da&ss_email_id=66900c188178371f5c59fc8d&ss_campaign_name=Summer+2024+Newsletter&ss_campaign_sent_date=2024-07-11T16%3A45%3A59Z

Sky-high proud to share that Velasquez Academy has once again, despite being outnumbered as far as students, coaches and budget, trounced highly respectable competitor schools and fellow private academies and emerged, for the FOURTH YEAR IN A ROW, as the top speech & debate middle school squad in the nation. That's such a hard thing to accomplish and wrap your head around that I'm going to link our winning moment from all four years for you, just in case you understandably think I mistyped or went into hyperbole. We've been #1 by a wide margin for nearly a half-decade, and the accomplishment is made all the more impressive by the fact that different kids helped us pull this off, not the same superstar kids over and over. Amazing families in our academy. I thank them for making us look so good. We also would have won in 2019 (when we had, like, four NSDA National Champion kids, LOL) but the National Online Forensics competition hadn't started yet:

2023: https://youtu.be/H8OGoPeoMCc
2022: https://youtu.be/GMOEFcwhT0g
2021: https://youtu.be/j6Eukf5Skmw
2020: https://youtu.be/FN2oC0ErpPg