I’m pleased to announce that this past Saturday, April 21, from 8am – 8pm at Rio Vista school in Oxnard, Fillmore had 19 students in grades 6th - 12th participate in the 9th annual regional Migrant Speech & Debate tournament! There were a total of 150 migrant students competing from around the county of Ventura. Fillmore did exceptionally well as we had 15 of the 19 students place in either 1st, 2nd or 3rd place for speech or debate! Ten of those students were first place winners and several students were double winners (both in prepared and extemporaneous speech). This year, Fillmore’s HS debate team was among the first place winners! Therefore, alltogether Fillmore left the tournamnet with 24 trophies and representing Piru School, Fillmore Middle School, and Fillmore High School.

The 10 first place winners (5 speech and the HS debate team) will be competing in the 2nd annual state tournament held in Sacramento over the weekend of May 4, 5, and 6.

I’d like to give a big thank you to their coaches: Jennifer Fitzpatrick (FHS), Nancy Kirkpatrick (FHS), Jenny Bortins (FMS), Jennifer Beal (FMS), and Mary Schroepfer (PIRU). In addition, Maria Gonzalez (Migrant office) spent the day helping support our students and John Wilber (FHS) came by to visit and watch the debate team compete in their final debate for the day.

In my 7th year of being involved with Fillmore’s Migrant Speech and Debate tournament, it was a great pleasure watching so many of our migrant students excel and finish well!

Jennifer Weir is Special Populations Student Support Coordinator for Fillmore Unified School District