WHY REGENT LEGACY ACADEMY?

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With the controversial closure of La Reina, students and parents asked the school’s speech and debate coaches to open an after school academy to continue offering the activity as their daughters were forced to scatter to different schools, most of which don't have speech and debate programs.  Regent Legacy Academy is a continuation of that labor of love, particularly as the La Reina Alumnae Association and former trustees and administrators work to reestablish a school in the Conejo Valley.

Regent Legacy Academy supports students in whatever events they want to compete in, rather than limiting ourselves to one format of debate, or forcing students to compete in only one speech event throughout their careers.  One recent student, for example, competed in policy debate as a middle schooler and then qualified to the high school state tournament the next year in Original Prose & Poetry.  We encourage students to both learn the analytical skills of debate, but also to learn the presentation skills and soft skills of speech competition.  RLA students go back and forth between events and receive supportive coaching no matter what their interests are.

Matt Conrad is the founder of Regent Legacy Academy and was the last head coach at La Reina High School and Middle School. During his tenure, the program produced state champions in Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Original Oratory, and Original Prose & Poetry, with the program sending its largest entry to the Berkeley tournament in spring 2024 since Liz Harlacher ran the program. Matt has served as an elected leader of both the Tri-County Forensic League (high school) and the Southern California Junior Forensics League (middle school) and has been selected to judge over a dozen state championship final rounds. Since taking over as head coach, he has also been selected to judge national championship final rounds in policy debate, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Informative Speaking while the online La Reina Invitational has grown into one of the largest tournaments of the year on the West Coast – larger than several prominent university invitationals.

In its last year of operation, La Reina’s speech and debate program had a half dozen different students win a first place award at a competition, and for several years in a row, at least one 8th grader has won a high school varsity competition. The program was also named as a “Leading Chapter” by the National Speech and Debate Association.

It’s said in education that kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. For us, that means encouraging every student to be the best that they can be – building relationships with every student, listening when they’re feeling down, and celebrating the little milestones along the way that mark each student’s journey in the activity. Some kids will want to win nationals while other kids are just looking to learn some skills, go to a few tournaments, and have the activity on their resume when they apply to college. 

RLA coaches are committed not just to helping students pursue excellence in speech and debate competition but to help them grow to be winners in life. Like any other teenage competition, the world of speech and debate has its share of students who were successful in that world... and not much else. The goal for RLA students is to help them win in life. That means not just achieving excellence in the classroom or in competitions, but helping them figure out their own inner passions, develop their own goals, and take ownership of the next chapter of their lives while avoiding the traditional pitfalls of drinking, drugs, bad study habits, etc. Students graduate competent and confident to go out and pursue success at the highest levels of their academic and professional lives.