Volunteers are needed as Essay Judges for the Georgia Rotary Clubs Laws of Life Essay Contest! As a Contest Sponsor, you and your club members are invited to participate in the reading and judging of the essays.

This year we are moving to an online submission and judging platform, Submittable. Both School Level Judges and State Judges will participate via an online process. While we wanted to roll this out over the next couple of years, virtual classrooms and social distancing necessities didn’t allow for that. With this change, even more volunteers throughout the state can participate from partner Rotary Clubs!

Online training sessions for judges on how to navigate Submittable will begin in late January. Teachers are being trained on the submission process now. The essay due date of February 8th will kick off the judging process.

School Level Winners will be announced by March 26th.

State judging will begin March 24th with State Winners announced by April 2nd.

We need your help.  Volunteers are asked to sign up now so that we can gauge if additional training sessions will be needed. Volunteers may sign up via THIS LINK.

Training dates are:

School Level Judge Training

• Tuesday, January 26, 2021 8:00 - 9:00AM
• Thursday, January 28, 2021 5:30 - 6:30 PM
• Wednesday, February 3, 2021 12:00 - 1:00PM
• Friday, February 5, 2021 12:00 - 1:00PM

State Judge Training

• Monday, March 22, 2021 12:00 - 1:00PM
• Tuesday, March 23, 2021 12:00 - 1:00PM

For those not able to attend a training session, video training will be available at a later date.

As we developed the online judging process, we worked hard to maintain many of the familiar processes and forms from previous years. Volunteers will have the opportunity to judge at the school level or state level or both. This is how the judging process will look this year:

School Level Winners

Round One

• Essay Judges will work in teams of 3 (2 volunteers & 1 staff) to read and score essays by grade by school via Submittable
• Essays will be scored using a rubric tool
• Volunteers will have approximately one week to score their assigned essays.
• Teams will meet online or in-person to discuss their assigned student essays; and at this meeting they will select grade winners, school winners and honorable mentions.

Round Two - State Finalist selection

• All School Winners will be considered for State Finalist selection
• Staff and a limited number of Essay Judges will review and discuss each School Winner to select the 15-18 State Finalists State Winners State Judges will select the State Winners from 15-18

State Winners

• State Judges will select the 7 State Winners from 15-18 State Finalists
• State Finalists State Judges will read and rank State Finalists essays via Submittable
• Most finalist judges find that it takes 2 to 3 hours to complete the assignment

While the process will look different this year the heart of the contest stays the same. The essay contest gives students of all academic levels an opportunity to reflect upon and share important life lessons while working on critical writing skills, gives volunteer judges a peek into the lives of today’s youth and Rotary Clubs the opportunity to recognize students for their work.

We appreciate your participation and partnership. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. PLEASE LET ANDRE MARRIA KNOW that you have signed up or wish to sign up.

Thank you to Brett Jenkins and Morgan Bailey who have already committed. Many thanks!