NEWARK, NJ - Two new schools joined the Jersey Urban Debate League family on Oct. 22 at the second high school tournament of the season at Technology High School. Orange High School re-joined the league with a group of policy debaters and North Star Academy had a pool of public forum debaters.

This was the first tournament Orange has participated in since the 2007-2008 school year. The new coach, Jean Jackson, said that she choose to bring back the team.

"It's energetic for me - I've re-built the team," she said. "We have a new vision and a new focus."

To ease the school back into the debate program, Jackson created a debate club where she taught students fundamental debate ideas. After networking with JUDL director Brent Farrand the club turned into an official team. At the time of the tournament Jackson had three teams.

She also said that the district wants to gear debate toward middle school.

"We want to move forward in a big way – the district sees a need for debate."

Eleventh graders Melissa Tanis and Asner Philemon represented Orange High School at the tournament.

"I'm on the debate team to learn to extract information and use it on my own," Tanis said. "In Language Arts, for example, you have to be persuasive. I want to be a psychologist, registered nurse or first response doctor."

Asner said that he likes debating and that it will bring shy kids out of the dark.

"I see the world and it's pretty corrupt and I want to put a change to that," he said.

North Star Academy is also helping the league grow by numbers of participating schools but also by increasing JUDL’s involvement in public forum debate.

This year the principal at North Star wanted to improve college readiness for students and debate was implemented as an extracurricular activity.

Daniel Rauch is the coach and teacher of three sections of a speech and debate class offered at North Star.

"JUDL was an ideal partner for facilitating coaches, general information, debate resource to create a debate class and team," he said.

The resolution has the affirmative arguing for private sector funding and the negative arguing for public sector funding in space exploration.

Amir Ballard and Dalila DePaula were two of the teams that debated at the tournament.

"The first round was fun," Ballard said. "I wasn't as nervous as I thought I'd be. I felt like I was prepared."

DePaula said that she debates because it will help build her public speaking skills for her career.

"I want to do corporate law," she said.

Rauch conclude by saying, "I've seen a ton of engagement and involvement, and some tension but I'm pleased with how we're reacting. It's incredibly exciting to be involved with JUDL."