We recently moved to VA from Michigan, and I have to tell you that it has been absolutely refreshing making the transition to an educational environment that "gets it" with regard to my gifted children. The days of battling for accommodations for my kids are gone, as are the annual woes of budgetary shortfalls or changes in the school board philosophy of whether services are to be scaled back or provided at all.    

I come from an environment where there is a great deal of discrepancy with regard to identification methods, service delivery models, and budgetary support. The variance is not simply state-wide, but even among neighboring school districts within the same county.  The result is that many gifted students are not being adequately challenged, nor are their unique emotional needs being met.  

Please do not adopt these proposed changes.  It would be the beginning of a slow death spiral for gifted education in the State of Virginia.