Coach/Participant Information

Contest Location

• District Contest will take place at Spencer High School, located at 800 East 3rd Street, Spencer, Iowa 51301.

Schedule

• Follow this link for the schedule: Contest Schedule

• In order to make any change, including student substitution, student drop, or title change, you must fill out the change form.

• All special requests should be directed to Stacy Hansen at 515-401-1834.

Other Information

1. All events will be held at the Spencer High School.

2. Please make copies of the schedule for the day. Additional programs will be available for $1.00 each on the day of the contest. Complete schedules will also be posted on the walls throughout the school.

3. All events begin promptly at 8:00 AM. The high school will be open at 6:30 AM for those groups needing to make-up and get ready for early performances.

4. Food will be served throughout the day. Please encourage students to support the concessions here at the school and not leave the school to eat at outside restaurants.

5. The field house gym floor and balconies may be used by students and for storage of properties and other equipment. No gum, pop, frisbees, balls, and music players without headsets are allowed in the gym. Students may locate on the main gym floor while coats, costumes, etc., and props may be stored on the floor and balconies of the gym. NO food or beverages allowed in the gym.

6. Warm-up areas for all events will be in the foyers of the gym, in the balconies of the gym, and in other designated rooms in the school.

7. Ratings will be posted in the gym after each break. You can also see them updated at the end of the day on this page.

8. Make-up areas will be in the various restrooms around the school or in the gym where your school locates for the day. One-act play participants may use the dressing rooms and make-up room between the dressing rooms in the hallway behind the auditorium.

9. Dressing rooms for both boys and girls will be the various restrooms located throughout the high school.

10. Remember that courtesy is a must if the contest is to be a success. Please keep the hallways, gym, and lunch room noise to a minimum. Send your students to view the events. Don't let them "camp out" in the gym all day! Make the day an educational experience.

11. Contest Headquarters will be the high school main office located inside Entrance #1 in the southeast corner of the building. Do not ask for your ballots until all of your groups are finished for the day and their ratings are posted. A coach must pick them up.

12. Be sure to bring all critique sheets with you and give them to the room host for each of your contestants as they go in to perform. Your school code must be put on your form accurately if you wish to get them back at the end of the day. Remember to make 3 copies of the critique sheet for One-Act Play! Critique sheets can be found and printed from this webpage!

13. In case of bad weather, please listen to KICD (Spencer) or check the IHSSA website. Our AD, Taylor Chapman, will email your AD as well.

14. Please remember - no recording equipment (video or audio) or photographic equipment of any kind is allowed in any of the performance centers, unless you have written permission from the state speech office in Des Moines.

15. To schools with Radio Broadcasting, TV News, and Short Film - remember that your school should not be identified by name anywhere. This means in the broadcast or on the device itself. Your school code number will be sufficient. Remember to have your device ready to play. All schools are expected to have their own projector ready for TV/SF; however, we will also have a large television available with an HDMI/USB-C hookup for TV News and Short Film.

16. A guest WiFi network is available, but we cannot guarantee its stability, uptime, or connectivity given the potential load. We always recommend having your RB, TV, and SF entries downloaded onto your device to present from. Don't let a spotty connection interrupt your presentation or delay a center! We are not responsible for any issues with Internet connectivity.

17. For information about the performance centers, please refer to Center Info.

18. The judges' room will be located in the high school home economics room, Room 113.

19. The coaches and bus drivers' lounge will be located in the high school teacher's lounge near the lunch room.

20. Entrance Doors: The Main Entrance and Entrance 10 will be the only entrances open on the day of the contest. Donation tables will be set up at each of these doors. Teams can load into the gym through Entrance 2 from 6:30 AM to 8:00 AM.

21. Bus and Trailer Parking: Buses and trailers are asked to use the baseball parking lot to the east of the high school.

22. Break a Leg to all of your groups on Saturday!!!

Weapons Policy

As you may notice, many schools in the state have a weapons policy, and it seems each school mas a different policy. After conferring with our legal counsel, the IHSSA  has come up with a method of dealing with the weapons issue in IHSSA  contest series. It will be the duty of an individual school to write their particular contest site manager if they have a look-alike weapon in their contest selection. Then the local contest site will make the decision if they will allow the look-alike on stage or in the classroom according to their own district rules. An example would be: school b is doing a choral reading of the old west. They will be wearing toy sixshooters for each individual in the choral reading. School b must then write their local contest site manager and ask permission to use this look-alike weapon at that site. The contest site manager will then inform school b that it will be 1) allowed with no specifications, 2) Allowed with specifications, or 3) will not be allowed. As of the 1996 contest season, each district in the state will have a weapons policy. If you have questions on this please call the state office.

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Tobacco/Alcohol Policy

No real tobacco, vapor products or alcohol will ever be used in IHSSA  contest entries. This includes live productions at contest as well as short film/tv newscasting productions that are filmed offsite. Look alike alcohol, vapor products, or tobacco that are necessary for IHSSA  productions at contest or in filmed events should be provided by the participating school and secured by the IHSSA  coach. All such "look alikes" will be facsimiles or non-functioning props. The IHSSA  coach is responsible for storing the prop "look alike" in a locked room or secure, concealed storage area. Students will check out these props when needed and will be supervised at all times. Real alcohol, vapor products or tobacco should never be used in an IHSSA  production. Use of real products is a violation of state law for the students) and the school.

Students should not be asked to bring a 'look alike' alcohol, vapor product, or tobacco prop to school or an IHSSA  contest. All props (empty cans, bottles, fake tobacco products, vapor products) should be provided by the participating school and secured by the IHSSA  coach. The prop should be wrapped whenever it is moved from one area of the school contest site to another. This moving should be done only by the teacher/coach. Students should never carry these props through the halls of a school/contest site. If the look alike prop is used in a rehearsal, at a filming, or at contest all administrators of participating schools should be notified of the use of that item.

All contest managers should be alerted if a "look alike" tobacco, vapor product, or alcohol prop is being used in the IHSSA  contest series.