We don't need to add yet another layer at the middle school level. What we need to do is to re-examine the numbers for each MS classification, which have largely remained unchanged for the past ~20+ years.
The difficulty, of course, is that said revision would require an amendment to UIL's C&CR, since it's codified, whereas it isn't for HS athletics since it revises every two years. Maybe the amendment needs to be to remove the numbers from the C&CR and make it a sliding scale.
Sample number idea:
C - 1-400 students
CC - 401-850 students
CCC - 851+ students
For example, not as a suggestion. They'd have to look at actual enrollments to make sure they're equitable. This would have the added benefit of driving more schools into class C, which is historically incredibly underrepresented at Honor Band since most Class C school communities simply can't afford to participate at TMEA.
We also do need to ensure that the numbers are accurate. In most schools, the band director is the sole person in charge of submitting the paperwork attesting to their classification. Fine Arts directors could take a more active role here - and UIL and/or TMEA could do a better job educating us.
For example, I know of a campus in an inner city ISD that always competed at CCC because twenty years ago they had 900 students in grades 7-8.
Gentrification had reduced the enrollment of that campus to about 450 students 6-8, low enough in fact to classify as a class C, yet they still competed in CCC competitions because the band director didn't know he could change classes (didn't grow up in UIL, was from out of state) and didn't know how to submit the paperwork to change it - and then thought "it would look bad" if they dropped that far.
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