Holtville students
make their case at debate tournament
IMPERIAL — The Holtville High School debate team took first place in its category at the 2018 ICOE-Migrant Education Region Speech and Debate Tournament on Saturday and now is looking to build on its success at the state-level competition in May.
More than 200 local students participated in the tournament, which was held at Imperial Valley College.
The Holtville High team placed ahead of teams from Central Union High School and Calexico High School, which finished second and third, respectively.
Also among the winners was the Calexico High School 9th Grade Campus, which took first place in the middle-school-level debate competition, finishing ahead of Meadows Union.
“I was very impressed — they definitely have been working hard to get to this point,” Holtville coach J.P. Wells said. “I think [the key was] confidence. When they (students) feel they have their voice, they definitely get confident in what they are saying, and it goes a long way.”
Wells has coached the students on the team for a number of years. He said it has been rewarding to see their confidence grow through the years.
The topic of the debate competition was to make a case whether solitary confinement in prisons should be banned.
“It took a lot of work. You have to meet every week and make sure you do the right amount of work and practice,” Holtville freshman Melanie Lopez said. “(For state competition) we are going to be doing a lot more research; we’re going to be more prepared than ever.”
Junior Montserrat Gonzalez described the experience as valuable for a number of reasons, such as increasing knowledge about important topics with which people should be more familiar. He added that although there is a lot of preparation ahead, the team feels good about its performance Saturday and about its chances at the state level.
“I feel we were very well prepared. I feel very proud of my team,” Gonzalez said. “At the debate, we had great points; our communication was great; we had very good skills, and our voice was really good. I think this was a really good experience for all of us.”
Sandra Kofford, director of the Migrant Education Program at Imperial County Office of Education, said that since the start of the program, the competition has continued to improve, and the teams that represent the Valley at the state level have done well. Last year, a debate team made up of three Holtville seniors won first place in the English debate category.
is to make students more comfortable speaking in public, but even more importantly, it helps them to become critical thinkers.
“The fact they are learning how to speak in public is an investment that is going to serve them forever,” Kofford said. “It is very rewarding to see that the work we are doing with our students — teaching them how to speak in public and how to do research and differentiate between opinions and facts — it’s working, and they are really getting into it.”