Tournaments Held
Member Schools
Students Qualified for the NCFL National Tournament
Students Competed in at Least One Preliminary Tournament
Founded in 1952, the Washington Arlington Catholic Forensic League (WACFL) is a speech and debate league open to all schools, public and private, in the greater Washington DC Metropolitan area.
It is the local unit of the National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL). WACFL’s mission is to assist in the development of articulate leaders and the promotion of speech and debate curricular and extracurricular activities. Annual dues are paid by member schools. WACFL works hard to keep dues low, so any interested school can participate.
WACFL provides a series of tournaments during the school year. Students in grades 7-12 are eligible to compete for their member schools. Middle schools can compete either independently or as members of the high school they feed into. All students competing at WACFL tournaments are eligible to earn points in the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) Honor Society.
Four styles of Debate and seven styles of Speech are offered. WACFL holds five preliminary tournaments in each event on Saturdays from October through February. At these, students can qualify to compete at the WACFL Metropolitan Championship (MetroFinal) Tournaments held in late February and early March. MetroFinals determine which students will represent WACFL at the NCFL Grand National Tournament held over Memorial Day weekend each year.
WACFL is separate from the Catholic Church and is not organized, funded, or governed by it. But our geographic boundaries correspond to those of the Arlington & Washington Catholic Dioceses. These two regions compete together at WACFL preliminary tournaments, but separately at MetroFinals.
There is no paid staff at WACFL – we are an all-volunteer organization. The Executive Committee consists of the coach or adult representative of each member school. This committee meets in-person twice each year, in September and May. Tournaments are managed by the WACFL Executive Council, which consists of 13 members elected by the Executive Committee.
