Gifted Education Day is February 28, 2014. Join us in Olympia.
★ The Coalition has been active in Olympia for 30 years and for the most part we have been concerned with maintaining state funding for Highly Capable Programs.In the past ten years there have been several efforts to defund HCP entirely and, thanks to the efforts of all of you, the state funding was retained. One of our largest efforts was to get HCP included as a part of basic education and, again, advocates played a large role in our success.
★ As a part of basic education, HCP cannot be defunded. Funding as a voluntary program grew slowly over many years but as a part of basic education funding growth has come to a standstill.HCP is the only part of basic education which has not received an increase in funding and, because of the expansion of the program to grades K-12, per student funding has actually decreased: the same amount of funding is expected to provide services to many more students. As a result:
- Washington’s highly capable students are not getting equitable access to an appropriate basic education that includes accelerated learning and enhanced instruction.
- We are worried about losing ground on funding, leading to cuts in services.
- In the current budget, the state has only allocated a maintenance level $9.8 million using the funding formula from 2007, before inclusion.
- Districts are spending more than $56 million in local dollars to cover the additional costs associated with highly capable programs.
★ We need you in Olympia on February 28th to talk to your Legislators about the needs of gifted students and the need for ample funding for programs which meet these needs. If you have not already made plans to join us in Olympia, please do so now. And if you haven’t contacted your Legislators to make an appointment, please do so as soon as possible. Available slots are filling up fast. Look at the attachment to our last message for help in contacting Legislators.
★ We pledge to work with the Legislature to meet the court’s April 30 deadline for funding and implementation plans.
★ Attached is information on making Gifted Education Day a field trip or curriculum day for your students. This information supplements what students may have been learning in class in preparation for their trip to Olympia.
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