Seattle Debate Clubs

Berna Cristobal
Berna Cristobal teaches second grade at Catharine Blaine K-8. She graduated from Gonzaga University in 2011 with a BA in Sociology and Elementary Teaching Certificate. Growing up in Guam, she is a true islander who loves being close to the water. Teaching is her passion. Seeing the students grow as the year progresses makes all the hard work ten times more rewarding. She believes in the importance in having students think critically, formulate an opinion, articulate it, while being also balancing listening, respecting, and understanding another person’s opinion.  It is so exciting to see all these skills developed in Debate!

Amber Vandermeulen
Amber is a teacher at McDonald Elementary School currently teaching fifth grade Humanities. A little bit more about her: She lives in the central district of Seattle with my husband, two sons and cat. Her oldest son is 6 years old and loves to play outside. She was fortunate to stay home with him for his first year when he was born in Northern Japan where she and her husband were teaching for a year. She calls him their Japanese souvenir! Her younger son is a toddler at 2 years old. Amber loves to travel and study languages, and has lived and taught in France and Japan and traveled to many other countries.

Walid Malouf 

Walid is a father, a coach, a business executive, and an entrepreneur. He joined the DebateAble coaching team in Fall 2019 out of his love for working with children and helping them acquire the skills they need to grow into confident, articulate and successful adults. He is the founder and producer of LifeHack, a life design bootcamp for high school students that helps them define their identity, discover best fit career paths, reach out to mentors and enablers, and start building a life they love based on who they are and what they believe. He holds a BA in political science and economics from UC Berkeley, and an MBA from the HEC School of Management in Paris. He lives in Magnolia with his wife and two young boys, Lucas (10), and Theo (6).

Sabeth Fitzgibbons
Sabeth always wanted to try debate in high school, but was too shy. Now she's excited to not only be coaching but also learning along with her students, and is looking forward to watching her debaters develop the important skills she will be teaching them and showing off these skills in future debate matches. Sabeth has a BA in English and Psychology from Seattle University, as well as advanced degrees in social work and theology. In her professional life, she has worked in non-profits, and is now an Episcopal priest. A native of the Pacific Northwest, Sabeth moved back to Seattle in 2016 with her husband, daughter and son.

Melanie Wienecke
Melanie is an elementary teacher, biochemist, and park ranger from Colorado. She loves teaching, and especially enjoys sharing her love of science with people of all ages. Melanie has a BA in Biochemistry from Colorado College, a Graduate Diploma in Teaching from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Southampton, England. She taught second grade in Fort Collins, Colorado, for five years while spending her summers working as a ranger in Yellowstone National Park. As a student, she participated in speech and debate throughout junior high, high school, and college. Melanie enjoys skiing, camping, hiking, cooking, and dancing.
I am excited to be sharing something that I enjoyed so much as a student and that has benefited me so much in life with the students!

Sarah Holt (Program Manager, Coach)
Sarah was raised in the San Francisco Bay area before moving to Seattle 18 years ago with her husband, Bill. Sarah has two teenage kids in the Seattle Public School system. Her love of working with kids was strengthened by countless hours volunteering in the classroom at John Hay Elementary. She has served as co-chair on the John Hay PTA and is currently on the Board of the Queen Anne Farmers Market. In addition to her role as DebateAble's Seattle Program Manager, Sarah has supported DebateAble for several years as a tournament judge and coach, where she's committed to teaching kids the fundamentals of debate in an encouraging and fun atmosphere.

Sarah Yatsko
For the last ten years, Sarah has worked at the University of Washington researching public education policies and practices across the country. Before that she spent 11 years working with arrested youth as a Sentencing Alternative Specialist in King County’s Juvenile Court. She has a B.A. from Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Washington. She is a Philadelphia native but Seattle, where she and her husband are raising their two children, has been her home for over half her life. She is deeply passionate about the value of debate for young students and is regularly reminded of how her own early exposure continues to reap professional and personal benefits many decades later.
There are few things I enjoy more than a rousing exchange of ideas and, I believe, there are few things more important in life than being able to confidently state your case, respectfully disagree and fully consider another’s viewpoint. 


Xena Eckert
Xena is an educator, activist and performer who currently teaches 4th grade at Salmon Bay School.  She has a degree in performance from Naropa University and a Masters in Teaching from Seattle University.  She lives in Ballard with her two sons and two cats, practices Bollywood dance, throws interesting parties, and believes that people should wear capes more often.    

Dominique Grandmougin                                                                             Dominique is a grade 5 French curriculum teacher and a middle school drama teacher at the French American School of Puget Sound. He is also an educational leader at FASPS. Dominique came to the US 10 years ago. He has two daughters. One is in grade 7 at FASPS and the other one is now a freshman at Mercer island High School. Dominique has a passion for Languages, Drama and Debate!