Developing plans on an annual basis is not sound educational practice. Instead a five?year cycle is preferred. A school division then would be able to develop long?term goals, implement changes, and evaluate progress before updating its plan.  

 

The Department of Education needs oversight to ensure compliance to requirements of identification and programming across the Commonwealth. The present system of peer review is an accountability measure as well as a teaching and learning process for school divisions.  

 

Current regulations assure that available funds are to "be used to support only those activities identified in the school division's plan". This section is being removed in the proposed revisions. I want a reinstatement of the gifted funding segment which states that funding administered by the DOE for the education of gifted students be used only to support those activities identified in the school division's plan as approved by the Board of Education.  

 

The proposed revisions define specific academic aptitudes as students with aptitudes in selected academic areas: English/ language arts, mathematics, history/social science, and science. I believe the word and will result in many divisions no longer offering identification in this area as it is nearly impossible to identify specific aptitudes in history/social science, and science in the early elementary grades. Changing the "and" in this definition to an "or" would promote what is considered current best practice in the field of gifted education. 

 

I agree with Dr. Carol Tomlinson, professor at the UVA Curry School of Education:

 

          “The proposed regulations do not reflect our current understanding of best practices for high ability and high potential learners. They do not recognize the complex needs of academically diverse schools and classrooms--or of the students who constitute those schools and classrooms. They were developed without input from critical stakeholders and experts on gifted education in the state of Virginia. In many respects, they are more representative of thinking in 1970 or 1980 than 2008. “