I'm curious:

a) What classification are school that typically do this?
b) What classification high school do they feed?
c) What grade do they start beginner band?

My district is about to cut the middle school band staff to one full time director at each middle school, and we already have heterogeneous classes. I've toyed with this idea, but we are a large middle school that starts in 6th grade. I just want to make instruction simpler if it's going to be just a single director and heterogeneous classes. Teaching 4-5 instruments sure beats 9-10.