Damien Debate Tournament 2023

The Kudos Middle School Debate Teams traveled to Damien High School this past weekend and had great success. They concluded the 2023 calendar year on a high note and have returned with numerous trophies. We sent students in Congress, Lincoln Douglas, and Public Forum, and Kudos got great experience going up against fresh competition.

Starting in Congress, Kudos was incredibly dominant. Kudos had 13 of the top 16 students in congressional debate, including 10 of the 12 finalists. Shoutouts to first year Carrie Rao and third year Sanju Chanumalla for being the winner of the preliminary chambers with first years Ella Fan and Jacquelyn Meng plus second years John Dong and Hayley Fung for rounding out the top six seeds in prelims. Those six, plus first years Kayli Tang and Justin Huo earned 10 of the 12 available first place ranks in the prelims. Kayli and Justin were also the top Presiding Officers from their prelim chambers and Justin was the top P.O. in finals. Credits are due to Jacquelyn and fellow first year Jenay Han, for making their first ever final. Jenay especially deserves praise for her tremendous growth, after getting all 9’s last tournament, to then not earning a single nine in prelims at this competition. Third year Annie Zhao, as well as John, Hayley, Sanju, Carrie, and Justin have all made the final round at both tournaments this year. Sanju deserves praise for winning the tournament! She, Annie and Carrie have all placed top six at both tournaments this year.

On the Lincoln Douglas side, returners Yuna Wu, Harry Chen, Katherine Duan, and William Lin all won top 10 speaker awards as they were all in the top six. Yuna deserves credit for her effort after some bad luck, where she had to go against two of the students that went undefeated in prelims. Special praise to William for tying for the top speaker. Harry and Yuna have received speaker awards at both tournaments this year. Speaker points are calculated after dropping the debaters’ best and worst result. But based on the raw total of speaker points, Katherine was the top speaker overall! Creds to Rebecca Ho for being top half in raw points. Despite there being nearly 30 entries, the tournament only broke the top two competitors to finals. Katherine deserves a round of applause for being the top seed and then winning the whole tournament. This was especially impressive considering she didn’t drop a ballot the entire tournament, with every judge who saw her giving her a win in her rounds.

Finally in Public Forum , congratulations to Claire Yuan and Isabella Meng for having a winning record and only losing to the tournament co-champions. Matthew Li and Kaitlyn Wu also deserve credit for earning speaker awards. Snaps for Jayden Huang, Derek Hu and Frances Xiao for being in the top half of speaker points. Derek and Jayden were also 4th and 5th respectively in raw speaker points.

YAY Kudos!

Team Photo

Kudos Speech and Debate Team Shines Bright at Jefferson Middle School Tournament!

Under the guidance of Coach Allison and Coach Thomas, the Kudos Middle School Team recently participated in the first in-person Speech and Debate Tournament of the 2023-24 year, hosted at Jefferson Middle School in San Gabriel on November 2nd, 2023. For many of our students, it was their first time competing, but the initial nerves and jitters didn’t hold back the team as multiple students broke into finals and had an incredibly strong showing with a total participants of 122 and 12 schools registered.

Alyssa Guo made her very first competition appearance and not only gave outstanding performances in SPAR and Impromptu speaking but also managed to place 4th and 6th overall in each respective event. Alyssa might have started the day nervous, but by the end of the day, her talent and dedication were undeniable!

Kaylee Lu also had an incredibly impressive tournament outing, managing to place 8th in the SPAR standings and taking home the 2nd place trophy in Impromptu Speaking. This wasn’t Kaylee’s first tournament outing, but Coach Tom and Allison were incredibly proud to see her place higher than she ever has before.

First-time competitors Harry Zhou and Bailey Tang also placed 11th and 7th in the SPAR competition, respectively, and Kudos’ own Kenneth Yue thrilled judges in his storytelling event, taking three consecutive 1st place rankings in his preliminary rounds before snagging 5th place in the final round!

Coach Tom also wanted to highlight the incredible progress of student Olivia Chen. This was her first tournament appearance, and her level of dedication to prepare for the tournament, as well as her ability to overcome her initial nerves, was incredibly inspiring!

We couldn’t be more proud of how hard our students worked to prepare for this tournament. Here are the listed placements below:

Impromptu:
Kaylee Lu – 2nd Place
Alyssa Guo – 6th Place

Spar:
Alyssa Guo – 4th Place
Harry Zhou – 7th Place
Kaylee Lu – 8th Place
Bailey Tang – 11th Place

Storytelling:
Kenneth Yue – 5th Place

Kudos’ Middle School Team recently visited Cal State Long Beach to compete at the 30th annual Jack Howe Memorial. The team sent seven students, with six competing in congress. Freshman Ethan Li participated in Public Forum for the first time and placed in the top 20% for speaker points, securing 6th best speaker in his category. He and his novice partner were one win away from a winning record, marking a strong debut for Ethan.

In the congress event, Kudos had notable successes. Edwin Jiao earned rankings on multiple ballots in his first high school competition, while Anne Liu placed 7th in her chamber. Evelyn Lam, despite a strong performance, narrowly missed breaking into outrounds, but was ranked 1st by her parliamentarian.

Three Kudos students advanced to outrounds: Freshman Audrey Huang, and Juniors Claire Wen and Zach Chang. Claire ranked 8th in prelims, while Audrey was the highest-placing freshman. Zach and Claire finaled for the second consecutive tournament, earning their second TOC bids. They are now fully qualified for the Tournament of Champions, a distinction achieved by only ten students across the country before October 1st. As of today, Kudos is one of only two programs nationwide with multiple students fully qualified for the TOC in Congress. GO KUDOS GO!

The third year of Kudos High School Congress kicked off with a bang as our students competed at three different tournaments throughout the month of September. The grind towards the mountain top of success starts by working hard right from the start, and these students showed that mentality by kicking off competition on September 9th, before some other debate programs even held their first official practice.

It started with the Season Opener, hosted by the University of Kentucky. Kudos sent five students and all five were in the top 25 for cumulative ranks out of over 80 entries. Three students from each of the eight chambers broke into semifinals, and we had four of our students advance into semis. Junior Claire Wen and Freshman Audrey Huang not only were the top students in their prelim chamber, but the top two students overall coming out of prelims. Junior Zach Chang and Sophomore Evelyn Lam were the top #2 seeds in the tournaments, having the sixth and eight best cumes respectively. Sophomore Serena Guo actually had the 25th best cume and would have broken if not for being put into a hyper-competitive preliminary chamber. Our upperclassmen, Zach and Claire both advanced from the semi-final to the final and each picked up their first bid to the Tournament of Champions.

Fiona Zhao was the only student from the entire state of California to make the trek out to the East Coast and compete at Yale, which is the 2nd most prestigious tournament in the country for congress, right behind Harvard. She was ranked in the top eight by six of her seven judges, including a 1st place rank from the parliamentarian. Not only is the parli’s ballot the most important because they are usually the most experienced judge, and see the competitors in all prelims rather than in just one round. But Fiona got the 1 from former Congress National Champion, Parker De Deker! Fiona also picked up her first TOC bid this year.

Great Job Kudos!

SCJFL Debate finally returned to in-person after a whopping three years and eight months, due to the pandemic-related in-person hiatus. Not only was this the first tournament ever for some students, even for many returning students, this was their first in person tournament of their careers. Kudos kids did not let this faze them, and took the campus of East Los Angeles College by storm. Across Congress, Lincoln Douglas, and Public Forum, Kudos made their presence known and walked away victorious.

Starting in congress, Kudos absolutely dominated. Kudos had all 11 congressional debate finalists, and 14 of the top 15 students. Shout outs to 3rd year students Zoey Luc, Sanju Chanumalla and Annie Zhao for all placing top six overall in their final SCJFL opener ever. Those three, in combination with second years Hayley Fung + John Dong, in addition to first year Carrie Rao, took all 12 of the possible first place ranks that were offered between the three prelims and the final round. It was thus no shock that Zoey (five) and Hayley (three) took 1st and 2nd overall after they alone earned 75 % of the available 1st place ranks. Carrie and fellow first-years Jessica Wang, Ella Fan, and Justin Huo, closed out the final round in addition to Betty Chen, who rejoins congress after a successful year competing on the speech team and Samantha Zheng in her first congress tournament after competing in PF last year.

On the Lincoln Douglas side, Mazel Tov goes to 8th grader Yuna Wu who made the semifinal round. Shoutouts also go to fellow 8th grader Harry Chen for taking wins against two students from other programs, which knocked them out of the top four seeds and allowed Yuna to break ahead of them. These two LD returners also were on the PF team as 6th graders, so Kudos was very happy to see their teamwork panning out. Harry himself only lost to Yuna, and the eventual champion, but won a speaker’s award for his stellar performance. Congrats go to Yuna as well as first year’s Rebecca Ho and Grace Yang for all winning speaker awards!

Finally in Public Forum, congratulations to Frances Xiao and Matthew Li who took 3rd overall, and head to head only lost to the top two teams. They were also the third seed heading out of prelims, solidifying their placement as a top three team in the tournament. Praise is due for Claire Xuan as well as Frances, and fellow first years, Jayden Huang, and Derek Hu, for all winning speaker awards.

Overall, Kudos won sweepstakes at this tournament with 38 points (2.5 as many as any other school) and won only four less sweepstakes points than all of the other programs COMBINED. Way to go Kudos!

Yuna Wu Trophy Semifinalist

Rebecca Ho LD Speaker Award

Frances Xiao and Matthew Li PF 3rd Place

All 11 Congress Finalists were from Kudos

Kudos students after winning 20 awards!

This past year was a great success for graduates of Kudos’ Middle School Congress program. Every graduate from the middle school program competing in high school congress either earned a bid to the Tournament of Champions, or qualified to State Championships.

Freshman Julianna Cui qualified to her state tournament (Virginia High School League), and made the final at her National Catholic Forensic’s League, National Qualifier. Freshman Anne Liu and Tim Cai both qualified to the California High School Speech Association’s (CHSAA) State Championships out of Area 4’s Orange County Speech League with Tim attending as a presiding officer, and Anne as a senator. Anne was joined by Sophomore Fiona Zhou who qualified out of Area 3’s Southern California Debate League. She and freshman Evelyn Lam qualified to the National Speech and Debate Association’s National Championships out of the East Los Angeles NSDA District with Evelyn in the House and Fiona in the Senate. Both girls made outrounds at Nationals with Evelyn making Quarter Finals and Fiona making semifinals.

This is the 2nd year in a row that a Kudos freshman broke at NSDA, with Evelyn joining Fiona who also broke her first year in high school at NSDA. Fiona didn’t stop there, as she was invited to Harvard’s prestigious round robin which is an invite only tournament for the best in the nation. Further, after being second in the NATION for TOC bids, she semi’d at TOC for the second year in a row. Her and fellow sophomore Claire Wen qualified for the TOC again after doing so the year prior. Freshman Serena Guo also qualified for the 2nd straight year, but was not allowed to attend TOC last year since she was only an 8th grader. Evelyn was our final TOC qualifier, with Julianna + sophomores Zach Chang and Lindsey Jiang each earning a bid this year. This was particularly notable for Lindsey and Zach who both only competed second semester after taking a first semester hiatus.

Kudos students earned a total of 18 TOC bids, which was twice as many as the year before. Things are looking up for Kudos high school congress as they head into their third year!

Tim, Zach, Juliana, Serena, Lindsey, Evelyn, Anne 2022 23 Updates

Claire and Fiona updated 2022-23 results

Evelyn Lam and Claire Wen at TOC

Anne, Claire Evelyn at CSULB

4/15/2023 The Last SCJFL Speech Tournament

The last In-Person Speech Tournament was held at Jefferson Midle School in San Gabriel on Friday, April 15. Six Kudos students competed in Open Impromptu. After a solid five hours and three rounds, Betty Chen, Kaylee Lu, and Paxton Kim-Tang broke into Finals.

In the final placements, Kaylee Lu won Fourth Place, Paxton Kim-Tang won Third Place, and Betty Chen won Second Place.

Huge congrats and applause to all of them for their hard work work throughout the year. The Speech Team coach, Mrs. Kalmus, was extremely proud of their growth and willingness to aim high, not giving up, and, most importantly, appreciated parental support.

This April tournament also conluded this year’s training season and we look forward to seeing them back again in the Fall.

Here are some behind-the-scenes winner’s photos and bloopers!

Hello Kudos family!

On the 8th of April, 2023, the Southern California Junior Forensic League held its fourth debate tournament to wrap up the year, and Kudos emerged victorious, sweeping numerous awards in the process. Our tournament teams and coaches put in countless hours of hard work and dedication to achieve this remarkable feat. Their unwavering commitment to excellence has truly paid off, and we are incredibly proud of their outstanding performance at the tournament.

Karina Yue and Katherine Duan won the Championship of Public Forum Debate! Here’s the speaker award ranking and final placement:

Karina Yue Public Forum (w/Katherine Duan) 1st Place
Kathrine Duan Public Forum (w/Karina Yue) 1st Place
Eugene Dai Public Forum (w/Mathew Li) 7th Place
Mathew Li  Public Forum (w/Eugene Dai) 7th Place
Alexander Lee Public Forum (Solo Debater) 9th Plac
Eugene Dai Public Forum Speaker Award 2nd Place
Alexander Lee Public Forum Speaker Award 4th Place
Katherine Duan  Public Forum Speaker Award 8th Place
Kenneth Yue Public Forum Speaker Award 10th Place
Kaitlyn Wu Public Forum Speaker Award 11th Place
Karina Yue Public Forum Speaker Award 12th Place
Matthew Li Public Forum Speaker Award 13th Place
Honorable mention to Matthew Li and Alexander Lee, they were both 6 th grade, first time Finalist, huge advancement for them, keep up the good work!

Audrey Huang garnered the Championship of Congress debate! Here’s the speaker award ranking and final placement:
Audrey Huang Congress 1st Place
Sanju Chanumalla Congress 3rd Place
Zoey Luc Congress 5th Place
John Dong Congress 6th Place
Hayley Fung Congress 7th Place
Morgan Yuan Congress 8th Place
Annie Zhao Congress 11th Place
Winston Lee Congress 12th Place
Michelle Cheng Congress 13th Place

In Lincoln Douglas debate, Lacie Zhou, broke for the first time, was placed 6th and Michelle Zhang from Northern California got 3rd . Here’s the speaker award ranking and final placement:
Kaden Wong Lincoln Douglas Speaker Award 5th Place
Harry Chen  Lincoln Douglas Speaker Award 7th Place
Claire Chen Lincoln Douglas Speaker Award 9th Place
Michelle Zhang Lincoln Douglas Speaker Award 10th Place
Michelle Zhang  Lincoln Douglas  3rd Place
Lacie Zhou Lincoln Douglas 6th Place

Thank you again ~ to all the parents for your support !

Phil Historian Results 2023

Even though it was Kudos’ spring break, the congressional debate team spent extra time last week to compete at the Philhisorian Middle School and High School Championships. Six students went to an extra practice and spent time competing at this tournament hosted by Santa Clara University. This tournament was unique in that they divided middle school congress into two divisions: varsity, and novice. Our competitors came out victorious, with five of our six students advancing to the final round.

All of our students deserve praise for earning a 1st place ranking from at least one judge during the tournament. Special shoutouts to Joshua Qiu for his first 1st of the year. Additionally, all six students ranked top five in prelims on the ballot from their parliamentarian. This is particularly special, because parliamentarians give rankings on all three rounds combined, rather than just one individual round. Ethan Li, John Dong and Michelle Pan also should be applauded for getting a 1st place ranking from at least HALF of the ten judges who saw their debates. Michelle did particularly well, by almost picket fencing (where a student gets all 1st place ranks) in prelims (her only non-1st was a 2nd place ranking. Congratulations are due for John, Michelle Cheng, and Michelle Pan, who AVERAGED a rank of 2nd place amongst the ten judges that evaluated their performances (including finals). Both Michelles’, Ethan, John and Edwin Jiao also were ranked top five by every of the seven judges that saw them in the preliminary rounds. John and the Michelle’s continued this trend even throughout their final round.

Of the 60 ballots that our students received at this tournament, a whopping 90% (54) of those ballots ranked our students inside the top eight. Cheers to John and Michelle Cheng for breaking at a non-league tournament for the very first time. They both were top three in their division, with John being named tournament champion. Kudos was the only school in their division to have two students in the top eight, let alone the top three. In the varsity division, Kudos had the 2nd most finalists with Ethan taking 11th, Edwin taking 9th and Michelle Pan being named the runner up champion. Great Job Kudos!!

Philhistorian Results