Fremont Debate Academy Hirsch

Register for FDA Hirsch’s 9th annual debate program here (in-partnership with the PTA) by February 28th!

TLDR: Register for Hirsch’s debate program by February 28th using https://www.fremontdebateacademy.org/hirsch. This program is in partnership with Hirsch PTA!

We’re excited to be running FDA Hirsch’s 9th annual debate program this year! 

DISCLAIMER: Because of limited bandwidth, we will be capping this year’s program at ~30-36 students. Students will be admitted on a first come, first serve basis. The rest of the students will be put on a waitlist.

Over the past 10 years, Fremont Debate Academy has impacted over 5000 elementary and middle school students in 19 states & 8 countries, including thousands in FUSD through operations in 25 FUSD schools. Under our instruction, students and alumni internationally over the past few years have qualified to elimination rounds or won tournaments in prestigious tournaments over 400 times! 

This year, we’re running an 8 week long competitive debate program focusing on the Middle School Public Debate Format at Hirsch Elementary School. Students will learn various structured forms of argumentation, and research techniques. Through practice sessions, drills, and mini-competitions, students’ public speaking skills will be vastly improved. At the end of the school year, there will be a FDA international tournament!

6th grade Horner students who were formerly FDA Hirsch students may participate as well. However, students currently involved in the FDA Debate program for Horner students may not participate. The program will be split up into Novice and Advanced divisions with new debaters learning more basic techniques of case building and more experienced debaters who have participated in a FDA program learning more advanced argumentation styles

FDA Hirsch Debate sessions will be held on Wednesdays from 5:45pm to 7:15pm. There will be 8 classes for this program. The start date for the sessions will be March 5th in the MUR. Our last session will be on April 30th. Note: Parents are responsible for picking their children up promptly at 7:15 PM right after the session.

Fremont Debate Academy’s studies about its programs exhibit strong results regarding student growth: Students participating in FDA’s debate & civics programs saw a 39.1% improvement in their self-confidence & public speaking skills, 45.9% improvement in their knowledge about the world & research skills, and 90% said that participating in FDA’s debate & civics programs has had a positive impact on their academic performance.

Feel free to direct any questions to our two Hirsch leads:

Kathy Feng - kathy@fremontdebateacademy.org     

Tejas Baskaran - tejasb@fremontdebateacademy.org  

Yaesh Alimchandani - yaesh@fremontdebateacademy.org

Isha Parikh - ishap@fremontdebateacademy.org