AMTA President Brandon Harper Announces 2020-2021 Season Guidance
Aug. 28, 2020 - At the 2020 American Mock Trial Association Annual Board Meeting in July, the Board voted to move the 2021 Regionals and ORCS competitions online. As a result of that decision, additional changes and guidance were necessary. At the time, AMTA committed to providing the community with guidance for the 2020-2021 season by September 1, 2020. You can review the first edition of AMTA's online tournament guidance here.
In releasing today's guidance, we are hopeful that schools and programs will have greater clarity about what to expect during the 2020-2021 season. Online competition is new to our entire community, and we will continue to assess the best way forward. I want to thank the many members of our community who emailed, called, and texted us over the past couple of months with their thoughts about how to best execute this season. Your contributions are important and we appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective. I am also grateful to our Student Advisory Board for meeting with members of the Board to discuss and provide invaluable input on One Last Time and on much of the guidance that we announce today, and I look forward to working with the SAB as we continue to refine our best practices for online mock trials.
Much of today's guidance relates to aspects of college mock trial that are not changing. But there are some things that will be different this year, including a 40% fee reduction for each school's first Regionals team and a change to our timing limits in light of our experiences at our One Last Time online competition for seniors. Any additional and final guidance and rules changes will be announced after the AMTA midyear meeting, and no later than December 31, 2020. As always, the full agenda for the midyear meeting will be posted online in advance of the meeting. The date and time of the meeting, as well as information about how to provide your thoughts to us both before and during the meeting, will be made publicly available this fall.
We know that many of you will still have questions after reviewing today's guidance. As I have said since May, you should feel free to contact us via email with any questions or concerns, and anyone can contact me directly via email. We look forward to the 2020-2021 season!
Brandon
AMTA President