The Origins of Speech & Debate

Ashlee Teczon, 22nd of August 2025 

Q&A Profile: Ashlee Teczon 

By ALEX RIZO 

The Tower 

MANTECA – You walk into room 94 and hear the debating and strong-willed words of the students around you. 

That’d be the Speech and Debate Club talking, led by Ashlee Teczon. 

Ashlee Teczon is the teacher for Intro to Earth and AP Environmental Science.  

She’s also the advisor and starter of the Speech and Debate club.  

Ashlee Teczon is helping a group of her students to better understand and clarify the project she assigned them, answering any questions asked about it. 

She’s proved to be educated in the law and justice system in just her lessons alone. All her lessons coincide with at least one form of a real-world problem with the law, for example her unit for DNA was focused on how often people can get wrongfully convicted for crimes they never committed, and how DNA could help free these innocent people. Not to mention she’s also served on a jury many times. She has experience and does her research, so she knows exactly how to run this club.  ADD 

This story is relevant because the speech and debate club did extremely well in such a short time last year. Four members of the determined team managed to qualify for nationals in just four and a half months, with one member going on a congress level. This is thanks to the organized and confident officers of the team, Aswell as Ashlee Teczon’s unconditional support. 

“We had four kids qualify for nationals, and one qualify for congress,” said Ashlee Teczon. 

Now that the club has the necessary time to prepare and practice more, they’re ready to outdo themselves this year-round.  They’re already having their first competition on September 13th at Manteca High. This gives the new, and old members plenty of more time than last year to gather more experience to further succeed this year, which means many more members qualifying for higher ranks like congress.  

A sophomore, original and current member of the club Aubrey Lohmann stated, “Teczon is incredible, she truly creates an environment where you can really tell everyone in club is serious about competing in speech and debate.” 

The Tower sat down with Ashlee Teczon to discuss the speech and debate club’s success, plans for the future, and what could possibly help support the club. 

The Tower: What encouraged you to start speech and debate club? 

Ashlee Teczon: It wasn’t necessarily me. I taught AP environmental science last year, and I had a couple kids that wanted to start speech and debate, and they came to me and asked me if I was advising any clubs. They asked if I would be the advisor for speech and debate. I knew some friends in high school that had done speech and debates, a bear creek had a pretty good speech and debate team. So, I was like oh yeah this would be something I’d be interested in advising. So that’s really how I took it, it’s mostly the kids that advocated for it. 

TT: What are your further plans for speech and debate? 

AT: Well, last year it was sort of like we got started mid-year. This year we’re already planning our first competition, and It’s at Manteca high and it’s on September 13th so those of you that want to join, please join!  

TT: Even though you guys started late into last year, how did last year’s club run go? 

AT: Honestly the kids who started, I think we had such solid foundation cause many of them are kids that have done academics. So, they already had some competition experience. Many of them have been doing academics since freshman year, and so academic decathlon I think built a solid foundation for a lot of the kids. They knew how to do speeches; it was debates that they had never done but many of them did very well in debates just being their first time. I think it’s because they’re well versed in research, and not being shy to really put themselves out there. Last year I would say we did such a great job, I’m extremely proud of my kids and all that they accomplished in the two to three events that we went to. 

TT: The team was on a national level, how was that? 

AT: Yeah! We had four kids that qualified for nationals and went to nationals for speech. As well as going to nationals for congress. Really great kids that we have, and it was our first year and only our second competition. 

TT: What do you think could help boost the club’s performance and popularity? 

AT: I think exposure, so No. 1 is putting ourselves out there. I think kids need to have a fundamental understanding of what Speech and Debate is and maybe even go and see a competition. which here we have our first one at Manteca high that’d be the best time to then really see and really understand what speech and debate is all about. Not only that but understanding that when you put yourself out there and you’re getting the opportunity to talk to other folks, you’re networking. Networking at the high school level is so important because it can help you figure out future careers, it can help you figure out where you want to go to college. So, I think for me it’s number one is exposure to putting ourselves out there. We do have a social media so… follow our social media! Then you know, announcements, listen to the announcements and maybe Mr. Burns would let us put ourselves in there.  

TT: He probably would.