Gifted students and their parents tired of a perception they will succeed in any setting are battling for their share of tight local budgets.
A letter to Fairfax Superintendent Jack Dale from parents at Stratford Landing Elementary School’s gifted center bemoaned threatened class size increases of up to four students, compared with one-student increases in regular classrooms.
“It is incorrect to assume that [gifted] classes are largely populated by a homogeneous group of highly focused, well-behaved students,” the parents wrote. “They often exhibit high energy levels, are over excitable and bore easily, which if left unchecked, can spiral into behavioral upsets.”
In both Fairfax and Montgomery counties, busing for gifted and magnet programs is on the list of potential cuts.
“Ultimately, the families that are most likely to abandon [gifted] centers will be those without cars, families where both parents work, families with multiple children attending different schools and families who do not speak English well enough to arrange a carpool,” Grace Chung Becker, president of the Fairfax County Association for the Gifted, told the Fairfax school board.
Students at the schools have created online petitions seeking continued busing and financial support for their programs.
In Maryland, a gathering in Annapolis last week of gifted students, their teachers and administrators celebrated Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proclamation of February as “Gifted Education Month.”
But underlying the accolades was a message: If you’re going to honor us, fund us. Unlike Virginia, Maryland offers no state funding for gifted education.
“Sometimes so much of the federal and state laws focus on lower- and underachieving students, and we should be focused on them,” State Superintendent Nancy Grasmick said. “But we cannot reduce the opportunities for our students who can achieve at very high levels.”
