Nationally recognized, the WCUSD speech and debate teams were welcomed home with cheers and applause. They left on June 14th, 2024, to attend the National Speech and Debate Association in Des Moines, Iowa, and came home victorious. 

The National Speech and Debate competition is held every summer, and over 6,000 students compete for national titles. It is the largest academic competition in the world, where students debate current events, voice their views, and share their stories. This past summer, schools from the West Covina Unified School District attended this prestigious competition, and a select few came home with national titles. 

Mt. SAC Early College Academy 10th grader, Leahmarie Mendoza Sanchez, had a lot to say about her experience not only at nationals but also with the activity as a whole. Mendoza Sanchez had lots of fun at the competition; however, there was lots of preparation her and her team had to put in beforehand. For her personally, she practiced her speech multiple times throughout the day, practiced with coaches multiple times a week, and overall “just getting comfortable with the material” she was working with. 

One of the most challenging aspects she had to overcome was accepting the fact that the judges determine the outcome and she has no say. Luckily  she overcame this and did incredibly well for her first time at high school nationals. 

Mendoza Sanchez and the rest of the WCUSD teams were very proud of how far they came and overall were just appreciative of the whole experience. In Mendoza’s words, “The experiences we had were very memorable because, at the end of the day, you can come home with as many plaques as you want, but experiences are what’s important.”

Mendoza Sanchez is preparing for MECAS’s next competition, the Gabrielino  Invitational Speech Tournament  in San Gabriel, California. She stated that the most important skills for this type of competition are confidence, being able to get out of your comfort zone, and “being able to embody your character.” 

The current Speech and Debate coach at MECA is Andrea Pedroarias; she is also the College Readiness teacher and the Senior Seminar Teacher. Although she was not the coach when the WCUSD team went to nationals, she is very proud of the team’s accomplishments and performance in the competition. 

She thinks the most challenging part of being the speech and debate coach is “trying to meet the needs of each and every individual student.” She believes confidence and discipline to memorize speeches are the most important skills for success in speech and debate. 

Preparing for competitions is an essential process in speech and debate teams. She thinks the most challenging aspect of preparing for a competition is “staying organized and keeping cool, don’t let your fear and anxiety get the best of you.” 

The team prepares a lot whether it’s in class and out of class, nearly every moment they rehearse and practice; Andrea Pedroarias stated that “We do time run throughs, we have coaches coming in every Monday, Wednesday, and some on Friday. We just rehearse, rehearse, honestly we rehearse a lot.” 

Despite not having attended any competitions, it’s clear that she has a passion for speech and debate, she enjoys coaching students, and helping them in every way she can. “I feel that I have something to offer, because I have a theater arts background. It’s only been a short time since school started, but I would hope they see my energy and my admiration for their skills because it’s a really solid group here in MECA.” 

Overall, the WCUSD speech and debate teams did incredibly well at Nationals, but there were some students who really shined in the competition who were not from MECA. Brayden Barraza-Rodriguez is one of them. He is an 8th grader at Edgewood Middle School; he won 1st place in Declamation,  3rd in Duo Interpretation, and 5th in Dramatic Interpretation. Also from Edgewood Middle School is Darcy Lam, who won 1st in Prose Interpretation. 

Their hard work, dedication, and talent truly paid off; they have made the school and the district proud. Congratulations to them and all the members of the WCUSD speech and debate teams for their outstanding achievements at Nationals.

Currently, the MECA speech and debate team is gearing up for its upcoming competition at Gabrielino High School in October. They’re in the process of preparing for competition. 

“I feel like now that all the students have their speeches,” said Pedroarias. “we’re at a good point where everyone has equal time to rehearse their speeches for the first competition.”

The teams are looking forward to all the competitions they have coming up this year, and they are already preparing to make waves at next year’s national competition.