​​Competitive debate, beyond being a highly prestigious extracurricular student activity, builds self-confidence, public speaking ability, critical thinking skills, logical reasoning, and much more amongst participants. Despite its countless benefits, access to the world of debate is often extremely limited. Throughout Bergen County, only a select few middle schools currently offer the opportunity for their students to participate in debate in the Oregon Policy format, which does not extend beyond Bergen County. Even still, students receive little support when introduced to speech and debate on the regional level, and often, lack access to national and state circuits entirely. 
 
A group of driven, successful Bergen County high school debaters, competing at the state and national level, have founded the Bergen County Middle School Debate League (BCMSDL) in 2018. Having recognized that Bergen County high school students often lack any prior experience with debate, these high schoolers have decided to give back to the Bergen County community by forming the The Bergen County Middle School Debate League: a non-profit organization that sends qualified and trained high school coaches to the middle schools to teach professional lesson plans and prepare students for success at not just local circuits, but on state, national, and even international levels. We work with the goal of spreading our passion in debate to change the lives of middle schoolers -- the same way debate has changed ours.