our Founder: Audrey Israel
- Audrey, a practicing attorney, comes with over 16 years of debate experience. Audrey founded and coached the Oak Park High School Debate Club from Fall 2015 through Winter 2020. Audrey is prior member of the Oak Park Unified School District Citizen Oversight Committee and is Court Appointed Special Advocate in Los Angeles County and Ventura County.
- In Fall 2015, Audrey began coaching 11 students at the newly created debate club at Oak Park High School, and expanded the club to more than 40 students. From its humble beginnings, OPHS Debate is now recognized as one of the highest ranking debate programs in California. In fewer than four years, the club won the "League Sweepstakes" title (top team in the league) at three tournaments, and OPHS debaters won more than 300 individual awards from League and Invitational tournaments throughout California. For each of the four years under Coach Audrey's leadership, OPHS Debate qualified students for the exclusive State of California Debate Championships--an unprecedented string of success!
- Audrey is the proud mother of three boys. Her oldest debated from middle school throughout college on the University of Pennsylvania Debate Team and currently uses his debate skills: first as a senior analyst in the Global Strategy Group at Accenture, and presently as a senior member of the business development team at Tik Tok. Audrey's twins, who debated from 5th-12th grade at Oak Park High School, are seniors at the University of Pennsylvania and at Northwestern University.
- Before coaching debate, Audrey was a practicing litigator for over 25 years. She worked as a Deputy City Attorney for the City of LA and managed her own law firm.
- Audrey formed Prestige Debate Academy because she truly believes in--and has personally witnessed--the individual development and empowerment participating in debate provides to students.