GRANITE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Utah — Braxton Deeb, Noah Crane, Abbigail Mackris, and Veda Sanchez are four teens who love to argue.
"One time I argued is mac and cheese better to use a fork or a spoon at an actual tournament or fiscally redistributing money," Deeb said.
They don't just argue with their siblings – or each other – they argue competitively on the Kearns and Hunter High Speech and Debate teams.
"My favorite part of debate is to not only learn about the world but develop a drive to change it as well," Crane said.
The four, and others on their teams, qualified to go to the NCFL Grand Tournament, a national debate competition, in Chicago in May.
"This is an opportunity for many debaters that can go to this national event and compete with the competition we've never competed with before," Mackris said.
Despite the excitement about the new opportunity, some members of their teams are concerned about raising the estimated $2,500 PER PERSON to attend if they don't get approved by the Granite School District's Board of Education for school-sponsored travel.
"A lot of people don't just have thousands of dollars to go to a trip like this," Crane said. "but we can solve for it, we can solve for it by a fundraiser which we plan on doing the work for, but unfortunately we're limited even when it comes to that."
"With programs we have to state, 'I am a singular person trying to go to nationals rather than we as a debate team from Kearns are trying to go to nationals'. It's something that will benefit us greatly if we are to say we are going," Sanchez added.
If the team's Nationals trip were to be school-sponsored the students would be able to use the school's name to help fundraise, but district board policy limits school-sponsored travel to Western states – unless school administration or the coach appeals, and a travel exception is granted.
Ben Horsley with the Granite School District says the board has previously provided exceptions.
“We want to make sure that again the actual request is meeting the goal of our policy which is to provide an enhanced academic experience without taking away from our students' ability to participate in school and without creating an undue burden on our families with the financial costs," Horsley said.
