UIL decision lengthens rehearsal window
AUSTIN — As marching band season begins to come to a close across the state, the University Interscholastic League is moving forward with a proposal that would alter summer band camps.
UIL’s legislative council approved an increase to summer band practice time during its annual October meeting Monday, Oct. 16 at a DoubleTree by Hilton in Austin.
Texas high school bands will now have an allotted 15 hours to practice visual fundamentals before Aug. 1, rather than the previous amount of 10 hours.
“With many school districts now beginning the instructional year in early August, the amount of time available for marching bands to practice prior to when the instructional year begins has reduced,” said Eric Wright, music standing committee chair.
Before the legislative council could approve adding cumulative hours for bands, Wright’s committee needed to recommend it. The music standings committee met Sunday, Oct. 15 and decided to pass it along.
Wright said allowing more cumulative hours before Aug. 1 creates the opportunity for more practice time before the school year starts and allows more time for summer-heat accumulation.
Now that the legislative council approved the proposal, it will be sent to Mike Morath, the Texas Commissioner of Education. If approved by Morath, it will go into effect immediately.
The music standings committee is just one of four committees that met during the two-day legislative council meeting. UIL also has a committee for academics, athletics and policies.
The legislative council approved a proposal from the academic committee that will add a Robotics Education & Competition Foundation competition to the UIL Robotics program.
Meanwhile, the athletics committee also had one of their recommended proposals approved by the legislative council. The UIL will essentially increase the number of regional qualifiers for the state spring tennis tournament.
While the UIL went through with some changes, it denied others as well.
The legislative council heard proposals for adding girls’ flag football, boys’ volleyball and wheelchair tennis as sanctioned sports during its meeting, but all three failed to be recommended by the athletics standing committee.
The refusals came despite some public momentum for the sports to be considered. Some public communicators mentioned that girls’ f lag football should be considered since flag football was added as an Olympic sport.
However, the athletics committee did not feel the numbers backed up making the changes. The UIL has not added a sport since it sanctioned water polo in 2019.
“Our general philosophy is that we’re not there to grow somebody’s activities,” said Greg Poole, athletics standings committee chair. “We’re there to respond when the numbers have become so sufficient that it seems there’s a need to sanction the competition.”
The UIL’s legislative council will not meet again until June.
