Roosevelt High School Debate

After 18 years of being active in Speech and Debate, I am announcing my intention to step down as SF Roosevelt's Head Debate Coach at the conclusion of our season. (I still plan on teaching)

I feel incredibly grateful to have worked with such wonderful students over the years. I think memories of every single debate alum has made me crack a smile these last few weeks as I recalled memory after memory. Hair getting caught in a zipper, sprinting in the Denver airport, all while another student was experiencing air sickness - just to name ONE DAY of our adventures together!

It was the students who made these 18 years of debate worth it and it is the students who make it difficult to step down today. However, debate alum should know they can always reach out, offer to get coffee, or even request *yet another* recommendation letter!

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to the coaches who coached with me and "against" me weekend after weekend, thank you to the supportive administration at Roosevelt, thank you to the parents who have done so much to support the team all these years, but most of all, thank you to every student who took a big risk to compete in an intellectual competition against the best and brightest. I genuinely can not wait to see all the success ahead of each of you!

THANK YOU!

-Mr. Cumbee

The debate season wrapped up and I'm once again proud of the team!

Representing us at Nationals this year will be Vaughn and Zoey in Policy Debate! Representing us in Congressional debate is speech team member Afomiya! Finally, shout out to Isaac for qualifying in Oratory with the Roosevelt High School Speech Team!

Lastly, I realized I never posted the Keloland story! Vaughn was thoughtful enough to nominate me for a $500 grant for my classroom! https://www.keloland.com/news/local-news/rhs-teacher-wins-500-from-student-nomination/

2 events entered, 2 events won!

🏆 CHAMPIONS in Varsity Public Forum - Vaughn and Isaac!

🏆 CHAMPION in Novice Lincoln-Douglas - Aiaru! Special shout out because it was her first tournament in LD and 2nd weekend tournament ever!

🏆 Top ten in Varsity Public Forum - Zoey/Kennedy and Nate/Andrew!

Proud of this team’s effort on the new topics and excited to see what they come up with moving forward!

Another successful Millard West tournament is in the books!

🏆 SILVER BID - Congrats to Vaughn and Isaac on making semifinals! Vaughn was also 6th place speaker!

🏆 OCTAFINALS - Congrats to Zoey and Chloe for overcoming an 0-2 start and finding themselves breaking at their 2nd Varsity tournament already as Sophomores!

🏆 QUARTERFINALS - Congrats to Amara and Kennedy for advancing to quarterfinals. “Goal set, goal met” 😃

🏆 Final shoutouts go to Ari and Tanner for pulling a winning record and Demaurian and Julian for setting out to get at least one win and accomplishing that in their very first debate!

If anyone is up for judging some debate this Saturday at Roosevelt, let me know! We have a few schools looking for judges still. There will be food 😃

🏆 Champions in Varsity Public Forum - Congrats to Isaac and Vaughn for defending the LSW title! With the win, they also secure a bid to the TOC!

🏆 Top Speaker - Isaac Mazariegos

🏆 3rd Place Speaker - Vaughn Kathner

🏆 Octafinalists - Chloe and Zoey - who also were competing in their first varsity tournament

🏆Also special shout out to Kennedy and Amara for pulling a winning record. Amara not only was at her first tournament ever, but didn’t even take the debate class!

The debate season is underway! So far so good, the Roosevelt debate team is a combined 10-5 after 3 debates!

There are a several students better dressed than the adults.

Must be Nationals Day 2!

Day 1 of Nationals!

Here is a fun fact—these 6 debaters were in the final round of every regular season tournament this year except for 1 and all 6 won at least one tournament!

Here is to finishing an already successful season!

Let’s go Roosevelt Speech and Debate!

Good luck to our RHS Debate friends today at the National Speech and Debate competition in Phoenix, AZ!

Proud of these trailblazers! They entered into a tough environment that was not designed for them and were resilient, supportive, and even pulled out a win!

All four have bright futures in front of them and I’m looking forward to cheering them on!

Brace yourselves.

Isaac (and partner Michael) won a round at the TOC on theory.

“If a school from South Dakota can disclose on the wiki, then so can a charter school from Arizona” 💪