As a parent in a smaller school division, I recognize the difficulties our division has in implementing and providing services.  We do not have magnet schools or centers; instead, our concerns center around having our child placed with another "similar" student in the classroom.  The term "gifted" is applied too broadly; our students, identified through a local plan, would be considered merely bright in one of the larger school divisions in VA.  However, if the term was not applied broadly, we'd have a very small number of students who'd be identified as gifted.  By allowing schools to identify gifted students as having "general academic aptitude", the regs do not require differentiated programming.  Each student in VA should have the opportunity to participate in an appropriate differentiated curriculum.  If they excel in math, science, English and history...then they should have a differentiated, accelerated curriculum in all of those areas.  We have ten high school students that attend a regional Governor's school during the academic year and it was a struggle to get funding for that; more support is needed to help students receive TRULY differentiated and acclerated services in their home school.