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Student Council

How the BDL makes decisions, what the Student Council does, and how to run for an at-large seat.

Representative democratic values

We know there are difficult decisions to make, in our own lives and as larger communities. There are lots of ways to make decisions, but as an orientation we choose this one.

“Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or representative government, is a type of democracy founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies are types of representative democracies.” — World Economic Forum, 2026

Part of the BDL’s mission is to teach you these values in practice, so you better understand how to bring them not only to the government but to your places of work. We bring these values deep into the BDL, not just to be good role models but because it works so well.

Somebody has to decide…

  • What tournaments your team goes to
  • What categories you can do
  • How to keep the vibes right at the league level
  • The topics of debate
  • How we loop in families
  • Whether we get shirts in this color or the more orange one

Who decides what

This is our first draft of these policies as a company. We’re refining it over the course of the season, so expect changes.

Strategic decisions

BDL Directors

  • Internal governance rules and policies (outside the Board’s purview)
  • Major curricular decisions: styles, events, and topics at the arc and yearly level
  • Hiring, firing, and payroll for Directors is the Executive Director’s job, except where there’s a conflict of interest; there, the Board has oversight and decides
  • Every Director, including the ED, gets a vote and the majority wins. On a tie, the ED casts the deciding vote
  • For some decisions, like the circuit tournament schedule, the Student Council gets one collective vote

Operational decisions

BDL Directors & Senior Coach Fellows

  • Attendance rules (for example, what being late costs)
  • Minor curricular decisions: styles and topics at the tournament level
  • Setting and upholding students’ professional expectations and consequences
  • Prep and attendance expectations for travel events, including selection and removal
  • Directors and Senior Coach Fellows each get a vote. If it’s deadlocked, the strategic rules apply
  • They can delegate specific decisions to the Student Council, or ask for its input

Team decisions

School coaches

  • Adapting lesson plans from the BDL curriculum
  • Attendance logs and excused vs. unexcused absences
  • Prep expectations for scrimmages and locals
  • Wild card selection
  • Congress legislation submissions
  • Votes at the local CFL league
  • Team officers, recruitment, interest meetings, and tryouts
  • Family and school engagement, like showcases and Debate a Teacher
  • Student Council nominations

Student Council decisions

The Student Council

  • Decide how to spend $1,000 of discretionary funding on anything BDL-related
  • Cast one collective, Director-level vote on the BDL’s circuit tournament schedule for the coming year
  • Set the docket for BDL scrimmages, starting in November
  • Act as a liaison between debaters and BDL staff
  • Take on decisions that Directors, Coach Fellows, or school coaches delegate to it

Decision-makers at every level get input from other stakeholders: advisors, coaches, students, families, and school admin. Some of it will be informal, and there will also be regular, inclusive surveys. None of that input is binding unless it says so here. A majority of Directors can reclassify a question as strategic, but that should be rare. If anyone objects, their dissent is recorded and reported to the Board.

Is it a lot of work?

Not really, except for writing the scrimmage dockets. The council mostly talks on Slack. You can set your own meetings if you want, and we ask council members to come to two BDL Community Meetings a year.

Who sits on the council

Ten students. Seven seats go to schools, one each, chosen at Kickoff:

  • Brooklyn Latin
  • Pace High School
  • DREAM Charter
  • Coney Island Prep
  • BDL Nomads
  • Uncommon Collegiate
  • Uncommon Prep Charter

The other three at-large seats are filled by an open election on this page.

Who can run for an at-large seat?

Anyone who has attended a BDL event in the last year, or anyone at one of the schools above, including FDA and UCHS, can run for an at-large seat.

How the election works

Candidates register with a short statement of up to 300 characters. Everyone registered appears on the ballot. Once voting opens, each student picks up to three candidates, and the three with the most votes win.