The proposed changes to the Regulations Governing Educational Services for Gifted Students would effectively dismantle the gifted program. Statewide supervision of the Gifted Education Program is critical to ensuring compliance to requirements of identificaton and programming across the Commonwealth, thus ensuring equally high standards and accountability across jurisdictions.  Additionally, not specifically (and exclusively) identifying funding to support the education of gifted students devalues the potential of gifted students, and in difficult financial times, could essentially defund the program.  Lastly, the short-sightedness of these proposed changes is reflected most clearly in the short-sightedness of proposing annual planning, as opposed to five-year plans, which allow school divisions to develop big-picture, long-term goals, implement meaningful change, and evaluate progress, without sacrificing well-informed, shorter-term improvements and modifications along the way.  --  I strongly urge you not to adopt these proposed revisions.