NSC 2024 Rule Changes

[PACE Announcements]

The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence has made some changes to the eligibility rules for the National Scholastic Championship that will be in effect for the 2024 NSC.

These changes are not major-- they are simply codifying ad hoc policies that have been previously enforced and clarifying that the NSC is a tournament for high schoolers. The current eligibility rules can be found here with changes and points of emphasis highlighted in yellow. I've also excerpted the individual updated rules below with the changes in bold italic:

1.a. The player must be enrolled in 6th grade or a higher grade level for the academic year in which the NSC takes place, or be at least 12 years old by June 1 of the calendar year in which the NSC takes place. (For the purposes of this rule, the NSC comes at the end of an academic year; e.g. eligible players for the 2024 NSC must be in 6th grade or higher during the 2023-24 academic year.)

1.c. PACE will keep a public list of players who have been granted special permissions to participate in the upcoming NSC that would otherwise be ineligible under these rules on the official PACE website. Exemptions to these rules will be granted exclusively for a single competition year and must be renewed each year.

2.a. For the purposes of these rules, a "school" is any high school which holds classes in at least one physical building.

2.c. Middle schools are not eligible for the NSC. Middle school students may not play for a high school team if the high school is a different school than their middle school, except in cases of multiple enrollment as specified in Eligibility Rule 2.b

2.d. Students attending a school that teaches a wider range of grades than a typical high school -- for instance, a school that teaches Grades 6 through 12 -- may all play together for that same school, even if some of those students are of middle school age and some are of high school age. Any student that has not yet begun Grade 9, but intends to play the NSC under this rule, must upload proof of enrollment upon submitting their roster forms.

2.f. Online schools and distance-learning programs may be eligible to register for the NSC provided that all players on teams fielded by the online school or distance learning program live within the same area corresponding to a circle of diameter 50 miles. Any such online school or program must receive special dispensation from the TD before registering.

4. Adult chaperones. Each school attending the PACE NSC must be accompanied by at least one non-competing adult who is at least 21 years of age by the start of the tournament ("chaperone"). This person may be the school’s quizbowl coach, a teacher or administrator at the school, a parent or legal guardian, or another volunteer. There is no need for each separate team from a school to be accompanied by a distinct chaperone while the competition is ongoing. Under certain circumstances, non-player legal adults who are not yet 21 years of age may be allowed to chaperone a team provided they receive special dispensation from the tournament director.

5.a. It is the responsibility of each participating team to ensure that their roster is compliant with the PACE eligibility rules. Failure of a team to ensure all of its players are eligible is punishable by disqualification before, during, or after the tournament at the discretion of the TD without refund or other compensation. 

6.f. Any player participating or intending to participate in the NSC must be able and willing to provide enrollment documents clearly showing their enrollment at the school they are set to compete for upon tournament director request. Examples of such documents include but are not limited to report cards, transcripts, etc.

[DragonSM]

I assume these rules were meant to help with edge cases and avoid any eligibility issues like what happened last year, but the rules don't seem to have any actual definition of what counts as a high school vs a middle school. I'd assume based on implications that any school offering a grade from 9-12 is considered a high school and any offering lower grades isn't, but it isn't spelled out anywhere, and I'm still not sure what would happen to districts like East Brunswick which has a 10-12 HS, a 7-9 Junior HS, and then elementary schools. Does the Junior HS count as a high school or middle school for these purposes?

I assume there is some sort of stance on this but it feels like the rules should probably have a provision somewhere accounting not just for schools that are 9-12 plus lower grades (which it already does), but also schools that serve grades above and below 9 but don't go all the way up to 12 and defining what category they fall into explicitly in the rules.