De Soto High School offers many clubs and programs for students to be involved in.  Debate is one program that can affect students throughout their life by giving them advanced speaking skills and critical thinking.

Inga Kelly has been teaching for 13 years and has taught debate for four of those years. In addition to teaching debate, Kelly also participated in Policy Debate in high school and forensics at Baker University.

With a new Policy Debate season starting and a new teacher many things have changed. Students seem hopeful about the new season with the topic being about education in elementary and secondary levels.

Policy Debate is a competition where teams of two people will argue against other teams about a plan relating to a national topic. Last year, the debate team sent six teams to State and two teams to Regionals.

Junior Daniel Smith, who participated at State last year, is excited to have a new teacher working with the debate team.  

“Mrs. Kelly has already won her students over. She already has tons of new ideas she wants to put into effect. She is a strong believer of teamwork, and she can really get this program to have tons more people in,” Smith said.

One of the unique things that debate has to offer is a fun atmosphere in addition to challenging one’s academics.

“In debate, students are given a chance to be part of an amazing squad going to tournaments around the area on Saturdays debating a few rounds and hanging out with friends in between. Plus, they get to spend time with Mrs. Sweet, our amazing assistant coach, and me outside of DHS,” Kelly said.

Smith is looking forward to the upcoming debate season.

“I am most hopeful that we could take more teams to state than previous years, and that with a new room and teacher dedicated solely on debate, we could really get some stuff done that we couldn’t before,” Smith said.