General CDE Guidelines

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Acknowledgments

The Career Development Events Handbook include a comprehensive listing of the rules and guidelines for the events held during the 2025 State FFA Interscholastics, as hosted by Oklahoma State University and sponsored by Farm Credit Services of Oklahoma. Sincere appreciation is expressed to the event superintendents for their time, effort, and suggestions in planning, organizing and conduction career development events for the Oklahoma FFA Association.  

Foreword

Career development events held during the State FFA Interscholastic competition at OSU are planned and conducted to motivate students to learn more about the industry of agriculture, including its many careers. Each state event is designed to assess student knowledge and skills in a particular subject area and to recognize students who demonstrate outstanding achievement.  

 

Career development events are intended to reflect a portion of the curricula that is taught in secondary agricultural education courses throughout the state. Therefore, career development events may be used as motivational tools to encourage student learning.  

 

This handbook has been produced to assist teachers in preparing students to participate in the State FFA Interscholastics competition hosted by Oklahoma State University and sponsored by Farm Credit Services of Oklahoma.  

 

Please review the rules and guidelines carefully. 
 

General CDE Rules

1. Any student in grades 8-12 must be regularly enrolled in a yearlong school-based, agricultural education program to be eligible to participate in any FFA activity. For this section, a school-based, agricultural education program is defined as being physically present and supervised in a classroom by a certified agricultural education instructor. Exceptions are granted to students who attend a school with block scheduling who may have completed a yearlong course of study in agricultural education in one semester. Students in the seventh grade are not eligible for FFA membership in Oklahoma. A chapter’s Affiliate Membership Fees Package must be paid in order for its student members to participate in any FFA activity. 
2. CDE participants must be in good standing with the local chapter, state association, and the national organization.  Each participant must be listed on the current FFA Chapter Membership Roster submitted to the Oklahoma FFA Association for the current membership year.   
3. All registration is electronic via www.judgingcard.com.  Entries not made on judgingcard.com on or before the deadline established by the OSU general superintendent will not be accepted.  The only exception to this rule will be an FFA Chapter Membership Roster issue that is being resolved between the local chapter advisor and the State FFA Office.  
4. An entry fee of $3.00 per student will be charged at the time of registration for all CDEs with the exception of “qualifying” events. Qualifying events listed below are not required to pre-register. 
   1. Jr. and Sr. Parliamentary Procedure 
   2. All Public Speaking Divisions 
   3. Freshman Agriscience Quiz Bowl 
   4. Agriscience Fair
5. Late entries will be accepted for a specified period after the open registration period has passed. An entry fee of $100 per team will be charged at the time of late registration for all CDEs for which a registration fee is required. 
6. Scan forms will be used for scoring several, but not all, of the career development events.  Samples of the scan form that will be used can be previewed in this handbook or online at www.judgingcard.com
7. Individual participants are responsible for providing accurate scoring information on each scan form, including the team number (FFA chapter number).  Event officials will not correct, enter, or change marks or errors on scan forms. 
8. Each individual or team is required to report to the respective event at the time and place indicated herein. Teams arriving after the career development event has begun may be disqualified. No member substitutions will be made after the career development event begins. 
9. A team of four FFA members may represent a chapter in each career development event unless otherwise stated in the event’s guidelines.  The three highest scores of the four members will constitute the team score, unless specified differently in the event’s guidelines. 
10. At the discretion of the event superintendent, a team will be disqualified if a coach or an assistant enters the tabulation room before the official results are posted. 
11. Participants will not be allowed to use personal electronic communication devices (cell phones, pagers, unauthorized calculators, etc.), other than those approved by the event officials, during the entire course of the event. Participants who access personal electronic communication devices without approval of the event officials will be disqualified. 
12. Students may not bring pictures, printed material, or other items that have not been authorized. Where non-programmable calculators are permitted (see individual events), the memory must be cleared before entering the event location. The event superintendent will provide blank paper, as deemed necessary. Violation of these rules will result in team disqualification. Where applicable, team members may bring a clean folder, extra scan forms and/or a copy of the scan form for recording their evaluative decisions. The event superintendent must inspect these materials and approve them before the event begins. 
13. Any verbal or non-verbal communication between participants during a career development event will be sufficient cause to eliminate the team member(s) from the event. The only exception to this would be communication between team members during the team activity portion of a given career development event. 
14. Any assistance given to a team member and/or individual participant from any source other than the career development event superintendent or assistants will be sufficient grounds to eliminate the team and/or individual participant from an event. 
15. Event superintendents may stop participants if they deem their behavior to be hazardous either to themselves or others during an event, which could result in disqualification of an individual participant or an entire team. This could affect overall team ranking and high individual rankings.  
16. In Oklahoma, participants in State FFA Career and Leadership Development Events may be 8-9-10-11-12th grade FFA members, unless a particular event requires a specific age. However, it is important to note that the National FFA Organization only allows FFA members who are 9-10-11-12th grade FFA members, at the time of their selection, as team members to participate in a national CDE.  Eighth grade FFA members who are a part of a state winning CDE team, other than Conduct of Chapter Meetings, are not eligible to participate on that team at the national level. Questions about rules and regulations pertaining to national contests should be directed to the State FFA Office. 
17. The winning team or individual in the national qualifying event will represent Oklahoma at the National FFA Convention.  The national qualifying event for all career development event areas will be State FFA Interscholastics at OSU, except for forestry.  The national qualifying event for forestry is held at Eastern Oklahoma State College in Wilburton, OK.   
18. Any FFA member who has represented Oklahoma in a national career development event or national awards area as a 4-H or FFA member is ineligible to compete again in the national qualifying event for that area. 
19. FFA members are eligible to participate in only one event during the Saturday portion of the OSU State FFA Interscholastics. A chapter may enter only one team in each event unless otherwise specifically indicated for a particular event area. National FFA Organization rules state that a member is eligible to compete in only one career development event each year at the national level. 
20. General and individual CDE superintendents and their assistants will exercise every effort to enforce all event rules. Event superintendents will notify the OSU general superintendent of all disqualifications and the circumstances surrounding incidents meriting disqualification. The State FFA Office will be notified by the OSU general superintendent of all such disqualifications.  

 

Protest Information

Event results will be carefully calculated and verified to ensure accuracy. If sufficient evidence emerges that a discrepancy exists in the results, the following protest procedure will be followed:  

• All protests should be directed to the general superintendent, Dr. Rob Terry, by email to rob.terry@okstate.edu.  
• All protests must be in writing, outlining the specific reason for the protest. 
• To be considered, all protests must be received in by 5:00 PM Sunday following the State FFA Interscholastic event. 
• In the event of a protest, the official results for the event in question will be pending until the general superintendent confers with the event superintendent to resolve the issue.  
• Results will become official by 12:00 noon Monday following the State FFA Interscholastic Events, unless an unresolved protest remains. Protests that are pending will be marked as such on the results page until they are resolved. 
• All results that are posted to X or cde.okstate.edu are unofficial until 12:00 PM Monday following the State FFA Interscholastic Events. If a change in scoring or placing occurs as a result of a protest, all instructors for that event will be notified as soon as possible. 

In the case of discrepancies, individual event rules will take precedence over the general rules.  

 

Event	Individual Event	Team Event	Maximum Number of Participants	Official FFA Dress Required	National Qualifying Event	Scan Sheet to Use
Agricultural Communications		X	4	Yes	Yes	705A-12
Agricultural Education	X		1	No	No	n/a
Agricultural Issues Forum		X	3 to 7	No	Yes	n/a
Agricultural Technology and Mechanical Systems		X	4	No	Yes	105481
Agricultural Sales		X	4	Yes	Yes	105481
Agriscience Fair	X	X	1 or 2	Yes	Yes	n/a
Agronomy		X	4	No	Yes	705C-1
Animal Science Quiz Bowl		X	4	Yes	No	n/a
Conduct of Chapter Meetings		X	6	Yes	Yes	705A-12
Dairy Cattle Evaluation & Management		X	4	No	Yes	705A-12
Electricity		X	4	No	No	705C-1
Employment Skills	X		1	Yes	Yes	n/a
Entomology		X	4	No	No	n/a
Environmental & Natural Resources		X	4	No	Yes	705C-1
Farm Business Management		X	4	No	Yes	105481
Floriculture		X	4	No	Yes	705C-1
Food Science & Technology		X	4	Yes	Yes	479-4
Forestry		X	4	No	EOSC	530-1
Freshman Agriscience Quiz Bowl		X	4	Yes	No	n/a
Homesite Judging		X	4	No	Yes	601NM-2
Horse Evaluation		X	4	No	Yes	705A-12
Land Judging		X	4	No	Yes	601TX-3
Livestock Evaluation		X	4	No	Yes	476-3
Marketing Plan		X	3	Yes	Yes	n/a
Meats Evaluation & Technology		X	4	No	Yes	480-4
Milk Quality & Products		X	4	No	Yes	479-5
Nursery & Landscape		X	4	No	Yes	705C-1
Senior Parliamentary Procedure		X	6	Yes	Yes	705A-12
Poultry Evaluation		X	4, 2 Alternates	No	Yes	478-5
Public Speaking	X		2 per division	Yes	Yes	n/a
Rangeland Judging		X	4	No	Yes	602-OK1
Soil and Water		X	4	No	No	705C-1
Turfgrass Management		X	4	No	No	705C-1
Veterinary Science		X	4	No	Yes	705C-1