Our Impact

Our team has been coaching middle schoolers using SPAR since 2022. Most of them were complete beginners when it came to speech and debate, but SPAR has completely changed the way they speak. The impact SPAR has had not only on their public speaking but also their ability to form sound arguments both structurally and content wise showed the team just how effective a simple debate format like SPAR truly is. Our team wanted to increase accessibility to a tried and true method of improving public speaking. Hence, Start with SPAR was created! Throughout their journey to educate, our coaches have grown their community from six kids the first year to almost thirty the year after. Below are images of their middle school team at tournaments or simply having fun!

The Numbers

  • 500%

    That’s how much we increased membership in a single year. Our membership grew from six students the year we restarted the program to over thirty the year after, an increase in students by 5 times.

  • 12

    That’s how many students finaled at the very first speech tournament that we brought them to. Seven finaled in SPAR, four finaled in Impromptu, and one championed public address.

  • 21

    That’s how many students attended the very first intramural speech tournament we hosted. Our coaches oversaw everything, from logistics to postings to judging.

  • 100%

    That’s how many of our seventh graders returned to the program as eigth graders. It’s also how many of our students reported that they’d take the program again, including eigth graders that were leaving the program to enter highschool.

  • Our finalists at the very first speech and debate tournament we brought our students to! 23 of our kids attended, and of those, seven finaled in SPAR, four finaled in Impromtu, and one finaled in Public Address! Thanks to Scholars of Speech for hosting this free and accessible speech tournament.

  • All of the students that attended the Scholars of Speech tournament! All 23 of them were entered in SPAR. Some with previous experience in speech and debate were doubled or even triple entered in other events!

  • We hosted our own intramural tournament to end the year! This is a picture of some of our kids in our squad room as they wait for postings and for some of the ongoing rounds to finish.

  • The SPAR finalists with our coaches at the intramural tournament we hosted at the end of the year!

  • Our Impromptu finalists (minus one who had to leave before we could take a picture) alongside our coaches at our end of year intramural tournament!

  • Coach Annie with SPAR and Impromptu finalist Krish at the end of year intramural tournament we hosted!