After reading posted comments and hearing live comments in Richmond, I believe that the proposed revisions to the state regulations for gifted education should not be adopted by the Virginia State Boaard of Education. It is clear to me that the professional gifted education organizations in the state do not support these revisions and I, for one, respect these people as experts in the field.

The main parts of the revisions that I disagree with are the change to a one-year plan cycle and the oversight being handed to the local school boards. With one-year plan requirements, there will be no long-range planning possible. I have worked on my local gifted advisory committe for several years, and some plans just take a few years to get put in place and implement. As far as local oversight of the plans, I don't think many local school boards are qualified to make decisions as important as this. We need professionals at the state level to review and accept gifted education plans. Please don't leave this up to people not qualified.

There are parts to the proposed revisions that also seem to be inconsistent or just too hard for small, local school divisions to abide by. There just isn't enough funding for gifted education and I would hate to lose programs already in place because poor regulations were put in place. I thnk the whole set of revisions needs to be scrapped and the revision process should be started again.

I urge the Virginia State Board of Education to listen to the professional organizations in the state and to throw out these proposed revisions. Please start over again with a committee of professionals- we have an abundance of qualified gifted education experts in this state- and create some meaningful, well thought-out regulations. Thank-you.