The Youngstown (Ohio) City School District (YCSD) has a new initiative – the reinstatement of the speech and debate program.
Until 2006, the YCSD had an active speech and debate program, including state and national tournament qualifiers. In 2006, when the district was facing financial strain, the speech and debate program was discontinued.
Recently, local attorney Alan Kretzer teamed up with the Youngstown Foundation and Carl James of the Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhoods (ACTION).
ACTION is a non-profit community organization that seeks to unite faith groups, schools, neighborhood organizations, tenant councils and other non-profits to work for social justice.
James wrote a speech program “provides a path for creative and intellectual polish and maturation” in a memorandum presented to YCSD Superintendent Connie Hathorn and Deputy Superintendent for Academic Affairs Doug Hiscox, according to Youngstown’s local paper “The Vindicator.”
ACTION donated the first $10,000 which will be used to hire a coach as well as be used for tournament registration and travel fees.
The students who participate from East High School, Chaney High School or Youngstown Early College will all compete together as a Youngstown City team.
In the 2011-2012 school year, based on participation data from the National Federation of State High School Associations 919 schools have a forensics team and involves a total of 15,712 students.
Director of Forensics at Truman State University Kevin Minch wrote “The Value of Speech, Debate and Theatre Activities: Making the Case for Forensics” in 2005. According to Minch a forensics program enhances the understanding of different communication contexts (interpersonal, organizational, small group and mass), creates a higher level of reading comprehension, better listening skills and promotes academic achievement and better test-taking skills.
“How many debates, I wonder, did I participate in over a seven-year high school and college career?,” said Don Ritzenhein, professor of communication at Eastern Michigan University, in the publication featuring Minch’s essay. “How many rounds of oratory and extemp? And those are just the tip of the iceberg. Double, triple that number of contest events went into practice; double, triple that number of hours went into research and preparation. It’s no wonder the skills I learned are automatic. It is that intensity, resulting in intuitive lifelong skills, that makes competitive speaking so unique and so valuable.”
The YCSD, with the help of ACTION, Alan Kretzer and the Youngstown Foundation, is on its way to provide students with the opportunity to learn the lifelong skills that Ritzenhein attributes to being a part of a speech and debate program.