I share the many of the concerns of the parents, students and educators commenting on the proposed changes to regulations pertaining to Gifted Educations. Specifically three areas are troubling and place gifted education instruction at risk if adopted as proposed:

• Removing the language that protects gifted education funding from use for other purposes increases the chances that the funding will become a budget bargaining chip as localities continue to face funding challenges. The quality of our gifted education programs should not fluctuate with each budget cycle; students, teachers and parents should not worry that this funding may be raided in each budget cycle.

• Requiring annual strategic planning will leave gifted services in a continual stage of planning without time, resources and educators to actually implement the plan. It discourages a long range view when the planning and review process will begin again yearly. Retaining a five year plan would allow for careful planning, implementation and review of programs.

• Removing DOE oversight of gifted education will result in the Commonwealth no longer regularly determining compliance with the regulations.--quoted from the Economic Impact Analysis provided by DBP

   

A crucial part of the APA is public comments, and clearly several hundred Virginians have taken the time to express great concern about the change in direction of these regulations. The proposed regulations should be revised and resubmitted after careful consideration of these concerns. Virginia must ensure that our standards for gifted students move toward excellence rather than take a step backward.