This has been a very difficult year, and for some more so than others.

However, what *can* you control?

1. The music you pick. (within required Grade level, of course)
2. When you started working on it...
3. What you get done during your class.

What you *cannot* control:

4. A week lost for snow
5. Quarantining of students
6. UIL dropping the level of all Sightreading
7. The UIL Rubric for Adjudication
8. How the judges will react to a performance during a pandemic...

I state all of this to say that UIL has helped with SR. But, a lot of variables for student success are STILL in the hands of the director. It is, therefore, incumbent on us to continue to make wise programming, planning and curricular decisions based on all aspects of how this year has gone.

Our cluster has uniformly dropped the grade levels of what we would normally play to assist with this. We are also not taking a SNV to UIL that we would normally take. We also chose music (especially for the NV groups) that are scored for success with lots of doublings and minimally rely on solos (and those solos are definitely being learned by back-up players!).

What I have seen all year has been a fair amount of leniency on the part of the various judging panels. I think that's absolutely appropriate. But, I don't think we can *count* on that to be the only pathway to student success. (If you equate student success as first division ratings...)