Stoneleigh-Burnham School Student Qualifies for World Debate Championship

11/28/18—Stoneleigh-Burnham School (SBS) Debate and Public Speaking Society member Jacqueline “Jax” M. ’19 recently qualified for the 2019 World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championship in Toronto, Canada, where she will represent the U.S.

SBS’s Debate and Public Speaking Society is one of the school’s signature programs, and Jax joins an elite group of former competitors. She is the 18th debater in the school’s history to qualify for the world competition.

Jax qualified for the championship during the International Independent Schools Public Speaking Competition held in Toronto earlier this fall, where she and SBS teammates Beatrice B. ’20and Joy L. ’20 competed with about 150 students from 47 schools from around the world.

Jax placed as a finalist in two categories, Impromptu Speaking, in which she finished 5th overall and 1st among U.S. schools, and Interpretive Reading, in which she finished 11th overall and 1st among U.S. schools. Her Interpretive Reading was so powerful that one of the judges reached out to SBS co-coach Karen Suchenski to say, “Congratulations on a spellbinding presentation…What an amazing performer you have on your hands … Her reading simply blew me away. I have never seen/heard anything like it.”