Announcing: The National History Bee Middle School Division

[Great Bustard]

The National History Bee and Bowl is excited to announce the creation of a middle school division for The National History Bee for the 2011-2012 academic year. This competition is being sponsored by the History Channel and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - full details of the extent of their sponsorship will be forthcoming shortly.
The National History Bee's middle school division will work on a fundamentally different basis from our high school division where middle schools are still welcome to compete in the junior varsity division in both The National History Bee and The National History Bowl. Please note that for this academic year, there will be no separate middle school division for The National History Bowl. As far as the middle school History Bee is concerned, it will almost certainly follow the four-stage format summarized here:

1. Intramural Bee
When a school registers for the middle school division of The National History Bee, the designated school contact person will be sent a competition kit that includes an Intramural Bee multiple choice test. This test should be administered to all students interested in sitting for it. The top scoring student from this test will then be the Intramural champion; if necessary, a tiebreaker will be used to distinguish among students with the same scores.

2. Online Qualifying Test
All school champions will then complete a multiple choice online test; the format of this will be very similar to the "Practice Online Quizzes" available at http://www.historybee.com The top 120 students in each of 35 regions across the USA will then advance to the next stage.

3. Regional History Bees
35 of these are being planned across the country; unlike the high school tournaments, students who qualify for the Regional Bee will need to attend the Bee that corresponds to the designated region their school falls under. The Regional History Bees will function very similar to the high school History Bees and will be buzzer-based - unlike the Spelling and Geography Bees. There will likely be three rounds of approximately 45 pyramidal questions; students will be grouped in the three rounds into groups of ten. Unlike the high school bees, schools will not be required to bring a reader - in fact, students will be limited to bringing one adult with them due to space limitations in the competition rooms. Students will compete to answer as many questions as they can each round. With ten correct answers, a student will be done for a particular round, though they will accumulate bonus points based on how quickly in the round they finish their quota of ten questions. The top ten students from the preliminary rounds will then face off in the Regional Bee Finals. The format is yet to be determined for the finals; this will be done within the next two weeks. The winner of each Regional History Bee will then advance to the National Championships.

4. National Championships
The National Championships will likely be in the Washington, DC area in April 2012. Further details will be posted soon.

Entry Fees
Entry Fees have not yet been conclusively determined, but will be approximately $125 per school. This will encompass all levels of the competition. Host schools for the Regional History Bees (see below) will play for free.

Call for Host Schools
The National History Bee is looking for a few good host schools. These can be either middle schools or high schools for each of the 35 competition regions. Host schools, if they are middle schools, will receive free entry into the competition, though they are then responsible for providing 12 classrooms and an auditorium that can seat at least 260 people, as well as all custodial and building use fees. All tournaments will take place on weekday evenings, with competition beginning around 4:30 and ending around 8:00, with a break for dinner from 6:45-7:30. The 35 Regions are not 100% set in stone, though they will resemble the following list, if not be identical to it. Please note that for each region, we are looking for host schools, though due to a need to be geographically central, a limited flexibility regarding potential dates, and a need to provide the requisite rooms, not all schools may be suited for this. Regional Tournaments will with the likely exceptions of Alaska and Hawaii occur from mid-January to mid-March. Please email: director at historybee.com if you are interested in hosting for your region!

35 National History Bee Regions
Region - Preferred area for host school - Date of Tournament (subject to change)
1. Hawaii - Honolulu area Thursday, December 15
2. Alaska - Anchorage area either Friday, December 16 OR Friday January 6
3. MA, VT, NH, ME - Boston area or S. NH January - February
4. CT, RI - Central CT January - February
5. Upstate NY - Albany area January - February
6. NYC & Long Island - Manhattan January - February
7. New Jersey - Central NJ January - February
8. Pennsylvania - Harrisburg / Lancaster area January - February
9. MD, DE, DC - Baltimore or DC suburbs January - February
10. VA & WV - Richmond / Charlottesville area January - February
11. NC & SC - Charlotte area - either state January - February
12. Georgia - Atlanta area January - February
13. N. FL - Orlando area January - February
14. S. FL - Broward County Friday, January 20
15. Tennessee - Nashville area January - February
16. MS, LA, AL - Central Mississippi January - February
17. Ohio -Columbus area Monday, February 13
18. Michigan - Central Michigan / Detroit suburbs Tuesday, February 14
19. Illinois - Southern Suburb of Chicago Thursday, February 16
20. Missouri - Central Missouri Friday, February 17
21. OK & AR - Near Tulsa Monday, February 20
22. North Texas - Dallas area Tuesday, February 21
23. South Texas - Houston area Wednesday, February 22
24. NM & W. TX - Albuquerque area Friday, February 24
25. Arizona - Phoenix area Monday, February 27
26. S. Cal * & S. NV - Orange or San Diego County Tuesday, February 28 * = San Diego, Orange, Imperial, Riverside & San Bernadino Counties
27. S. Cal * - Los Angeles suburbs Wednesday, February 29 * = Rest of the Greater LA area, S. Central Valley
28. N. Cal & N. NV - San Francisco Bay Area Friday, March 2
29. WA & OR - Between Seattle & Portland Monday, March 5
30. ID, UT, MT - Salt Lake City or Boise area Wednesday, March 7
31. CO & WY - Denver area Friday, March 9
32. NE, SD, KS - Omaha - Lincoln area Monday, March 12
33. MN, ND, IA - Minneapolis area Tuesday, March 13
34. WI - Madison or Milwaukee area Thursday, March 15
35. KY & IN - Louisville area Friday, March 16


Call for Readers
If you are in college or are a high school or middle school coach and would be interested in being a reader for one or more tournaments, please email director at historybowl.com
Unlike our high school tournaments, The National History Bee will provide a stipend for experienced readers at each tournament. This amount will be determined shortly; somewhere around $35 plus pizza and drinks for dinner seems likely.

Final Notes
The website for the Middle School division of The National History Bee is being constructed in the month of September. Registration will likely open on or about October 1, and will likely close around Thanksgiving. Schools will likely be sent their Intramural packets over Thanksgiving weekend, and will need to administer their Intramural Bees the first week of December. Schools will then likely need to administer the Online Qualifying Test between December 8 and December 16. Alaska and Hawaii will operate on a slightly more forward schedule to accommodate their earlier dates. Practice questions will be sent to all participating schools, and also be posted online. Participation is limited to students in grades 6-8 though a school containing other grades as well as at least one grade in the 6-8 range can register. For such schools, though, only students in grades 6-8 may compete. Homeschoolers are welcome to compete through associations.

I will be happy to answer any questions in this thread. Much more information will be available by the end of September once logistics have been further solidified with our sponsors. Good luck and we hope your school will be a part of the inaugural year of The National History Bee's Middle School Division!

[Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill]

I'm thinking there should be at least 3 regions for New York. I can easily imagine middle schoolers from Buffalo or Rochester being discouraged from competing due to the nearest regional sites being either on the other side of the state or most of the way down through Pennsylvania.

[Great Bustard]

Unlike for high school, we are unable to increase the number of tournaments for this year beyond 35. For next year, we will almost certainly have a tournament closer to Buffalo, but for now, the best that can be done is to have the upstate tournament somewhere, say between Schenectady and Utica. As with all tournaments, though, if a school steps forward and expresses a desire to host, but is slightly beyond the preferred hosting area, I'll still seriously consider their interest in hosting.

[ryanrosenberg]

Unlike for high school, we are unable to increase the number of tournaments for this year beyond 35. For next year, we will almost certainly have a tournament closer to Buffalo, but for now, the best that can be done is to have the upstate tournament somewhere, say between Schenectady and Utica. As with all tournaments, though, if a school steps forward and expresses a desire to host, but is slightly beyond the preferred hosting area, I'll still seriously consider their interest in hosting.

Maybe Syracuse?

[jonpin]

Is there an update on the status of NHB:MS? Specifically, is a website up and running yet?

[Great Bustard]

There will be by Tuesday (at least I really, really hope so). Greg is working on it at the moment, in fact. Those who are curious (and want to watch the site get built in real time) can check out http://ms.historybee.com
A full update will follow when the site is officially up.