There are some positive changes in the proposed Regulations for Gifted Education, including a stronger emphasis on instructional services for identified students and updated language in the guiding definitions. However, several of the proposed changes do not benefit students or the program of services designed to serve them at the local level:

1)      Please do not accept the change from a five-year local plan to an annual local plan. The five-year plan format allows divisions to work strategically and determine long-range goals to strengthen and improve services for students. The local plan format has built-in features to allow for revisions as a school division’s needs evolve through the Local Advisory Committee.

2)      Please do not remove the Department of Education Gifted Specialist and the current peer-review evaluation system from the approval system of Local Plans. The oversight of the VDOE and peer-review provide the expertise necessary to maintain and improve local gifted education services. While many school divisions have very strong programs and services in place at present, others are increasingly vulnerable to economic and social trends that discount the needs of advanced students, especially their need for meaningful and rigorous school experiences that enable them to develop their own potential and contribute to their community for the greater good.

3)      Allow flexibility in the Identification/Placement timeline for school divisions of varying size and staffing capacity. Due to the requirement of using multiple criteria in the identification process, specifically not just standardized assessments, the concept of “60 business days” for the Identification timeline does not allow Divisions adequate time to collect the other necessary information in the instructional setting. Please consider “90 Instructional Days” or more flexible language.

4)      Revise 8VAC20-40-60. Local plan, local advisory committee, and annual report, section A, # 14, regarding the annual evaluation of the effectiveness of the division’s program of services. While recent research and scholarship in the field of education supports accountability and gauging the “value added” to students by their participation in educational programs, the tools available to gauge the “intellectual and academic growth” of gifted students are limited and inappropriate to the broad range of students served by these programs. Most divisions no longer have a “one size fits all” gifted program and need more flexibility when assessing student outcomes.

5)      Please reinstate and/or clarify the use of designated state funds to support each school division’s Local Plan for the Education of the Gifted.

Finally, students identified through their local school divisions have varied educational needs. The policy language of the Virginia Administrative Code is not the ideal vehicle for recognizing and responding to these needs. Please consider regulatory language that requires a high level of services across school divisions with diverse needs while allowing some flexibility that acknowledges the local student and school division needs. Then develop a Guidelines document that provides more specific recommendations based on the regulations through VDOE’s collaboration with the Virginia Advisory Committee for the Education of the Gifted, the Virginia Association for the Gifted, and the Virginia Consortium for Gifted Education Administrators.