2023 NJSDL State Championship Information
Live Document with entry deadlines and tournament policies
Tournament Administration Sign-Up: One person must serve as a tournament administrator for each school that signs up for the tournament. See the form for more information.
Script Information for Interpretation and Speech events
Interpretation Checklist (for DI, HI, DUO, POI, OI, & Dec)
&
Speech Checklist (for OO and Info)
The culminating tournament of the NJSDL local calendar, the State Championships are held at a large campus in New Jersey each year to determine our State Champions in each of our competition events. Each State Champion receives a scholarship, and all State Champions in Varsity-level events also receive a Governor’s Award in Arts Education, to be presented in May at the Patriots Theater at the War Memorial in Trenton.
To qualify to compete at States, schools and students must meet the following criteria:
- Schools must be fully-paid members of the NJSDL in good standing
- Schools must not owe any outstanding balances to the NJSDL, or have a disciplinary history at League tournaments past
- Students must have earned a qualification bid during the year in their event, or must use the one free slot for their school in their event
For students to qualify to States, they must earn a bid during the same school year by breaking into the top 6 in their event at a previous NJSDL tournament (or, if there are insufficient numbers, by a smaller number). The League also accepts students who clear to elimination rounds at regional or national tournaments, but NOT students who make top 6 at CFL tournaments. When registering for States, each entry must indicate where they received their bid, and the League tournament director will verify based on competition records. Speech entries are permitted to double-enter.
Schools also receive one “free slot” in each event. Students do not need a bid to register as the “free slot” in their event. However, each school is limited to no more than four entries in each event (except Congress) regardless of whether the students have bids or not. For example, if Team X has six Varsity Lincoln Douglas entries with bids and one without a bid, regardless of who the coach decides to register, only four are permitted to compete in that event.