We h o p e y o u ’ r e regularly checking the UIL academic Web page, as this is the fastest and easiest way to get important updates from our office. A very important recent announcement concerns a change in the 2007-08 UIL tentative academic calendar.
Because the University of Texas at Austin changed their original schedule for spring break in 2008, the UIL calendar had to be changed, as well.
The CX Debate State Meet requires approximately 100 classrooms, so it must be held when UT Austin is not in session. As a result, the CX State Meet in 2008 has been moved to the week of March 9-15. Academic district week one will be March 17-22, and district week two remains March 24-29.
I wish I could assure everyone that the 2007- 08 UIL calendar is now final, but I can’t. It must remain tentative until we get confirmation from TEA that the TAKS testing schedule will remain as it is currently posted and also to be certain that nothing occurs during the current Texas legislative session that would impact school, state testing or UIL calendars.
Our Web site also has been recently updated to include partial archives of academic state meet results.
From any UIL Web page, place your cursor on Archives in the blue pull-down menu across the top of the page and select Academics. You can find state meet results from 1983 to the present. We hope in the future to include earlier years’ results, as well.
Contact information for regional hosts is now available online, and we will be posting links to the regional handbooks in the near future. Regional academic meets are April 13-14.
Of course, information for your district meets is also posted online, and coordinators will soon be using the Academic Spring Meet Online System to enter district contestants, if you haven’t already done so.
Setting Up the Academic District Meet Academic district directors or meet hosts have already entered meet information in the online system, but some have failed to click the correct ‘Status of the Meet’ link from the pull-down menu on the meet setup page. ‘This meet is closed to schools and public’ is the default setting, which you would use before you are ready for schools to use the entry process. However, meet directors must change the status to ‘schools may enter contestants in the meet’ to allow academic coordinators to enter students in events. Some meets that have been set up online do not yet have scheduled times of events, so meet directors should check this, too.
Speech and Journalism are listed as ‘events’ because team points are combined from several contests. These team events will automatically be saved when you save the meet. You won’t need to enter a time or location.
The same is true for the subjects in the science contest. Biology, chemistry and physics have been added to the system as sub-events, so that the second-place top scorer in each event can be correctly identified by the computer, should an alternate need to be notified. The results for each contestant will be entered by subject (as they have always been graded), and the system will total the points for overall place in the science contest for both individuals and teams.
When your entry deadline has passed, change the status to ‘meet schedule is posted and available for review.’ Additional entries would be considered late entries. Any substitutions after that date could not be entered by competing schools and would need to be sent to the district academic director, but the public can still view the schedule.
Entering Contestants
Academic coordinators entering their school’s contestants need a UT EID, but do not need to be authorized by our office. Be careful to type students’ names correctly. Use upper and lower case, and enter last name first, followed by first name. Proof for correct spelling. Don’t use initials unless a student actually prefers initials to a name. Whenever possible, enter substitutes in each event. They will appear on the contest roster as eligible to compete if a replacement is needed.
Entering Results
Enter the results of each contest into the online system BEFORE verification is held for those contests that require it. Have someone double check results entered to avoid errors, since the computer can’t recognize typos or inverted numbers and will only crunch the information it is given. Don’t rush. It’s more important to announce the correct results than to hurry to finish on schedule. Once proofed, print the results and have these available at verification. Even though everyone is supposed to know that unofficial results are just that – unofficial – and subject to change if errors are found in verification, it is still not any fun to have to say, “Oops. We made a mistake. You didn’t win after all.”
Only after verification, when any actual errors in grading or recording scores can be corrected, should you ‘Certify event results as final’ in each contest. Read instructions carefully, as it takes several clicks before you see ‘the results of this event are final and certified,’ which is necessary to advance contestants to regional competition. Contest directors for individual speech events should download the speech tabulation program, PC-TalkTab, from the UIL speech and debate web site under the heading Tournaments and the link Download Speech Tabulation Software. It’s free, it saves a lot of time, and it really knows the UIL panel ranking criteria. The program also provides a ‘diagnostic’ sheet which explains the criteria for ranks and how any ties were broken.
After Results are Official
Once events have been verified and official results announced, the meet director or district chair must change the status of the meet to ‘Meet results are posted and available for review’ so they can be seen by the public. If you forget this step, expect lots of phone calls.
The wild card team is the best second-place team score in the region. Not all second place teams advance. Only the team with the highest score among all of the second place teams in the region will advance to the region meet. Districts must post results online by 5 p.m. of the Monday following the second district week. By Tuesday following the second district week, the UIL will post a list of tentative wild card entries to region. Schools will have 48 hours to notify the UIL of errors or omissions.
The final list will be posted on the Thursday morning after the second district week. After that time, no changes will be made. Wild card qualifiers will not be notified directly. The list of wild card qualifiers will be posted on the UIL Web site (www.uil.utexas.edu). All coordinators should check the posting, even if you think it’s a long shot. Your team’s second place score may be better than you realize.
Here’s hoping you have a smooth and successful academic spring meet!