Let’s Get Started: 2025-2026 Season Launch
from the Director
Dear NHSEB Community,
Today, the National High School Ethics Bowl will kick off its 2025-2026 Season with the release of a new and exciting Regional Case Set, the opening of school registration, and the opening of application portals for some of our yearly initiatives.
I am incredibly proud of our community, and of the work that you all do to prepare to be the next generation of leaders.
Ethics Bowl helps students to develop the skills that allow them to be effective and successful members of our democracy and I am always inspired by it’s transformative power. High school students are already important members of society, and it can feel as though they are expected to know intrinsically how to engage with challenging topics or alternative beliefs constructively. Our activity is designed to equip participants to take on these challenges—not only as students, but as full members of social and political communities. Our goal is not merely to teach students to reason about and discuss moral and political issues. It is to teach them to do this hard work responsibly, constructively, and most importantly, together. The reasoning and communication skills that you are learning and teaching here are vital and more valuable now than ever before.
Thank you for being a part of the NHSEB community. It is a true privilege to work with you all and I cannot wait to hear the conversations that come from this year’s season!
Below we have compiled a few important reminders for the beginning of our season together. Please review them as your register your events and teams and get started for 2025-2026, and don't hesitate to reach out to my team (ethicsbowl@unc.edu) if you have any questions or concerns we can be of assistance with.
All the best,
School Registration and Fees
Coaches, you can now register your schools with the NHSEB for the 2025-2026 season!
For official recognition and to get started competitively, an Ethics Bowl team should complete a two-step registration process. These steps should generally be completed in tandem:
Teams should register with their geographically closest Regional Competition by contacting its Organizer(s). NHSEB Regionals typically occur between January 1 and early February of a given school year. A full list of contact information for NHSEB Regional Organizers is available here.
All teams participating in the NHSEB program must register with NHSEB HQ each season, and pay a yearly registration fee. The registration fee for 2025-2026 is $175, if schools register before November 1, 2025. After November 1, fees will increase to $250. All payments must be completed by January 15, 2026. As always, NHSEB HQ is committed to ensuring that no team is prevented from participating because of financial need. Therefore, financial assistance and/or fee waivers are available for teams who qualify as part of the NHSEBBridge initiative. For more information or to request a fee waiver, contact NHSEB. Schools may register and pay their fees here.
2025-2026 regional Case Set
The 2025-2026 Regional Case Set is now live!
We’ve partnered again this year with the Association for Practical and Profession Ethics’ Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl (IEB) program to swap cases between the NHSEB case backlog and the current IEB Case Set.
The IEB is a great way for students to continue the Ethics Bowl activity after graduating and pursuing higher education. Please check cases 12 & 14 of the NHSEB Regional Case Set for examples of the kinds of cases that college students are discussing at their events!
This year marks the first year of a new timeline for the NHSEB Student Case Competition.
As of the end of last season, we now accept submissions to the case competition year-round. In addition, the first place winner of the case competition each season will now be guaranteed acknowledgement in the following season’s regional case set in addition to the traditional monetary rewards. To get the program started following it’s announcement at the end of last year, we ran a truncated “summer case competition”.
It is my pleasure to announce the winners of that competition, and to say that all three submissions have been included in the regional case set this year. All of the submissions this summer were spectacular, and a testament to the amazing community of students who make up the NHSEB.
Student Case Competition - Summer 2025
Winner: “Mission: Admission“ by Chloe Lau, Lowell High School
Honorable Mention: “Dead Men DO Tell Tales“ by Kevin Chen, Hamilton High School
Honorable Mention: “The Cyborg Games” by Carson Palmer, Franklin Academy
Congratulations to our winners!
Only cases submitted before the August 18 deadline were considered for the Summer competition. Any cases submitted after the deadline will be automatically entered for consideration in the current 2025-2026 season competition.
If a student would like to be considered for next year’s case set, they must complete their submission by February 28, 2026.
COach of the year nominations
Nominations are now open for the National High School Ethics Bowl’s 2025 Coach of the Year Award. Nominations may be submitted in written form (with a maximum length of 500 words), or via a short video narrative (with a maximum length of 3 minutes). Nominations will be accepted through February 28, 2026. All nominations will be reviewed by NHSEB’s Special Committee on Equity, Access, and Community, and winners will be announced at the 2026 National Championship Awards Ceremony in Chapel Hill.
Established in 2023, the Coach of the Year Award is designed to celebrate the extraordinary impact educators have on the Ethics Bowl activity. It annually recognizes the Ethics Bowl Coach who most clearly and consistently expresses and promotes our program’s core values: dialogue over disagreement, reasoning over rhetoric, and an appreciation for moral nuance wherever it exists. Teachers make the activity what it is, and all that NHSEB students accomplish would scarcely be possible without their effort and example. Winners receive an official citation, a commemorative plaque, and a $500 honorarium to aid in the development of Ethics Bowl programming at their schools.
Student Advisory Council Applications
The National High School Ethics Bowl is pleased to invite student applications for seats on the NHSEB Student Advisory Council. First formed in 2022, the Council is designed to bring the perspectives of currently participating students to the center of NHSEB's administration and governance, and in so doing, contribute to the continuous improvement of the program for students across the country.
The NHSEB Student Advisory Council (SAC) is composed of four representatives from among the students participating in the National High School Ethics Bowl program across the United States. One representative from each of NHSEB’s four Divisions will be selected as the result of a competitive application process occurring early each Fall. Prior experience with the NHSEB program is a prerequisite for eligibility (i.e., students must be at least in their second year of high school and program participation in order to apply).
We’ve adjusted the timeline for application to align better with the schedules of students, and the schedules of internal NHSEB team members that they will be working with. Applications are open now, and will be accepted through October 15.
After their selection, Council members will be appointed at the discretion of the NHSEB Director and Executive Committee for terms of up to two years (i.e., typically a second-third year, or third-fourth year sequence). Terms on the Student Advisory Council will run from November 1 to September 31.
More updates
The celebrated NHSEBAcademy program will continue to be a resource for teams, including printable and graphic learning resources, an extensive slate of Studio Hours for on-demand coaching assistance with UNC-based Ethics Bowl experts, and more.
NHSEBAcademy Studio Hours will open in October 2025.