Debate will attend the Texas Forensic Association’s (TFA) State Tournament at Franklin High School in El Paso on March 5-7.

“We have all been working very hard and preparing for the competition,” senior Sameer Haq said. “We have been doing a lot of research, cutting evidence and reading to prepare our arguments.”

For students to qualify for state, they must earn 12 state points, which are obtained by participating in and winning debate rounds. Haq said this year Hebron has had the most teams qualify for state than ever before.

“We’ve had two teams qualify for the Tournament of Champions (TOC), which is the big national tournament, which is more teams than we’ve ever qualified in the LISD district,” Haq said. “We also have five policy teams qualified for state, which is the most we have had in Hebron history.”

This year, debate will take around 20 kids to state. Haq said he hopes to end his last year in debate on a good note.

“At TFA state, our goal, obviously, is to win all together, and I think we have the potential to do that this year,” Haq said. “Overall, I just want to make sure that we perform in a manner at state where we can look back at our debate careers and be satisfied with what we accomplished.”