Oh boy!! I didn't realize I would open such a can of worms when I started this thread. But, now that I have....
I have read through all of the posts and feel I should voice my opinion. Let me start by saying that I attended school K-12 in NY State and had never heard of anything like the KSHSAA rules until I moved here 9 years ago. I have also lived in IL, MO, CT, CA, AL and NC, and I do not believe any of them have anything similar to these rules.
I know this may seem offbase on a wrestling site, but I can tell you that, if the choice needs to be made, my son will be giving up band in school in a few years. You see, his mom and I were members of a nationally-competitive drum corps for many years and he now wants to do that as well when he turns 16. If these KSHSAA rules also apply to band, then his school will lose a very good trumpet player. There is no way, no matter how good the teacher, that a local HS band program can offer him the education and experiences of a top-level drum corps. These multi-million dollar private organizations have the absolute best musical instructors in the world working for them, they spend eight weeks a year living on the road performing, and the life lessons the members learn far exceed anything they can learn in a one-hour-a-day class. So, instead of the local school benefitting from a better educated member of its band, it will lose this talent due to a rule dictated by a state that does not even offer one of these top-notch programs (he will be going to a corps in either Iowa or Colorado).
So, my opinion is the same as many other people on this site (and I believe the majority of our state's voters): A small group of education officials should NOT dictate what my children do with their time away from the school. How they wish to live their lives, and spend their talents, should be up to them and, as minors, their parents. I believe this is one of the things our forefathers meant when they wrote the Constitution.