Cityspan and Student Rosters

All CDL district and charter (but not guest) high schools have gotten a notice from CPS central office — via Sylvia’s friendly voice — that each school must use Cityspan this year for recording their student participation. Sylvia also has provided a Cityspan Debate Reference Guide which will help walk you through the process of getting set up and using it.

Here are a few important supplementary notes about the CDL’s commitment to Cityspan this year.

• Cityspan will replace the CDC’s collection of student rosters — from all but our (two) guest schools: Champaign Central, Evanston — who should use the Student Roster template and submit it to the CDC (info@resources.chicagodebates.org).
• You need to use your school-specific user name and password that Sylvia sent to each school (if you don’t have yours, shoot any one of us an email)
• All district and charter schools should enter their “debate participants” (debaters) and “staff” (coaches) into the Cityspan system this week, prior to T1.
• You should enter your two “activities” (debate practices and tournaments) into the system next week.  You should enter debate tournaments by the day, so each day of a tournament is entered as its own date.
• The Cityspan system is pretty straightforward, and the Cityspan Debate Reference Guide is helpful, but the CDL will also be posting a webinar walk-through of the system in October — though you are not likely to need it to enter your “participants” (debaters) and “staff” (coaches).
• Cityspan will merely be a new way for the CDL administration to gather the data that we’ve been gathering for years — student rosters, coach rosters, and tournament participation — with one exception: now, debate practices will be tracked, too.  We think that is a good thing for the CDL, because the hours and hours of student time spent in debate practices after school and on weekends will be recognized and understood by CPS and CDL supporters.   Obviously this benefit has to be obtained at minimal cost in additional “bureaucratic” time spent by coaches, and we believe that Cityspan meets this requirement (we think you’re going to find it simple and quick, once you try it).
• In order for this to happen, though, coaches have to be sure that each practice — even when it is not on the “regular weekly schedule” — is entered into Cityspan.  One valuable button, to make it a less timely process entering student attendance, is the “all present” button, that you can press and “uncheck” any debaters that weren’t present.
• Note that Cityspan is NOT a tournament registration system.  You will register for tournaments in the customary way — via email to David (davidsong@resources.chicagodebates.org) in advance of a tournament.  You can record student tournament participation in Cityspan at any time after the date of a tournament.

The CDC and CPS are, as always, working in close partnership on this transition to  Cityspan, so feel free to ask any of us for assistance at any time as you get to know this rather straightforward web-based participation-tracking system.