That's just it.

Every year it happens because every year there's only one or two people that write pieces and submit them for sight reading.

They can't just "get a new piece" in January. It's gotta be published, printed, and distributed. So the powers that be have decided that the "guidelines" can be bent if it doesn't make the piece more difficult than it should be.

This goes all the way back to the early 2000s when the Grade 3 included sixteenth note runs in the woodwind parts - and the best part is they edited the part later so that people who went to UIL after Spring Break had an easier sight reading piece than those before.

I don't know what the solution is, short of requiring two pieces be written, but that would likely result in the additional cost being passed on to member schools.