On ... November 23rd, Governor Gregoire ... [proposed cutting] all funding for highly capable [students in] ... Fiscal Year 2011, retroactive to September 1, 2010.It's easy to e-mail or phone your legislators. Go to Find Your Legislator, enter your address, then e-mail or call them. You can also contact Governor Gregoire.
Her letter to Senate Majority Leader Brown can be viewed here
http://wcge.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/2010_11_23_gregoire_letter.pdf ,
and her proposed cuts can be viewed here
http://wcge.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/2010_11_23_gregoire_cuts.pdf
*If you have not yet contacted your legislator, please do so immediately http://www.leg.wa.gov/LIC/Pages/hotline.aspx *! The Governor requested legislators have any potential responses to her recommendations ready by Monday, November 29th ... Please e-mail your [sitting] representatives or phone them directly.
This, by the way, happened last year too and was avoided. So phone calls and e-mails might help.
Update: The Governor's proposed budget is available. The section on education (PDF) contains the proposed cut to our funding.
Update: A group called "Parents and Friends Highly-Capable Education" sent out an e-mail urging people to write their legislators and the Governor and also sign a petition that will be delivered to the Governor.
9 comments:
For those of you who do not get the APP AC e-mails, here is the full text of what they sent out:
APP parent at Garfield and State PTSA Rep regarding gifted education, Janis
Traven, has forwarded a very important message
from the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education website.
http://wcge.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/highly-capable-funding-needs-your-voice
Governor Gregoire has proposed *cutting all funding for gifted education in
the State*. It is important that you write your legislator
by THIS MONDAY, to ask them not to cut this funding. All children deserve
an appropriate education.
Information on how to contact your legislators is below!
----------------------------------------------
From the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education website:
Highly Capable Funding Needs Your Voice NOW!
November 26, 2010 by ibdb
On Tuesday, November 23rd, Governor Gregoire delivered a list of programs to
either receive a reduction or complete elimination of funding
to deal with the state budget crisis.
Under her proposal, all funding for highly capable would be eliminated for
Fiscal Year 2011, retroactive to September 1, 2010.
Her letter to Senate Majority Leader Brown can be viewed here
http://wcge.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/2010_11_23_gregoire_letter.pdf ,
and her proposed cuts can be viewed here
http://wcge.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/2010_11_23_gregoire_cuts.pdf
*If you have not yet contacted your legislator, please do so immediately
http://www.leg.wa.gov/LIC/Pages/hotline.aspx *!
The Governor requested legislators have any potential responses to her
recommendations ready by Monday, November 29th. If you are
connected to other parents of highly capable students, please forward this
message to them, and ask them to pass it along to anyone they know.
In the past, WCGE has suggested you phone your legislators using the
legislature’s HOTLINE. Because the legislature is not in session,
and because of the extreme urgency and very short timeline we face, the
HOTLINE will not work in this situation. Please e-mail your
representatives or phone them directly. You may use the legislature’s
website’s e-mail forms to send messages to your legislators at any
time. From the Member E-mail List page, you may click a legislator’s name
to go to the e-mail form for that legislator. The Governor
will need to call a special session to enact these changes, so you need to
contact your sitting representatives, and NOT
newly elected members of the legislature.
We will continue to monitor this situation and keep you informed. To get
the very latest news, you can monitor our
website,
http://wcge.wordpress.com
or become a fan of the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education on
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Washington-Coalition-for-Gifted-Education/275853542460.
Thank you for your support – now let’s get writing!
While it's certainly a good idea to act today, the headline on this post is misleading. The elimination of highly capable funding is in the "Additional ideas for reductions" section, so it's not necessarily going to happen even if this goes through.
Where does the transportation funding for APP fit in? Is that in the highly capable funding that she's talking about, or in some other section entirely? It would be pretty weird if we lost the Advanced Learning Office altogether and still had busing paid for!
Helen Schinske
My apologies, Helen, you're right, the title probably should have been "Gregoire proposes cutting APP in 2011 budget".
FOLKS: IT'S TIME TO FREAK OUT!!! Call your APP neighbors and get them to call and e-mail their reps.
The entire gifted ed community statewide is rallying. Step Up Seattle!! Bombard with e-mails and phone calls.
APP is not a privilege. It's a critical necessity for these kids. Demand your rights under FAPEs (Free APPROPRIATE Public Education) - federal law mandate.
pj manley
Oh yeah. Write Gregoire Too.
Very easy. Too easy not to do. No excuses! Go Write Now!
FASTER!!!
PJ Manley
HI Greg and all,
if this funding is cut, it would not eliminate APP, so the title is not quite right.
The funding from the state is used primarily to identify students (pay for testing for all advanced learning programs) and to partially fund some of the Advanced Learning staff, but not Dr. Vaughan. His salary comes from the district.
So the title "Gregoire cuts APP in 2011" is inaccurate. Should say something instead like "email your legislators to support funding for gifted programs".
APP students do not see any of this State money directly. APP students are funded the same and at the same rate as most general ed students (some gen ed students get more dollars).
Last year, the state legislature voted to include gifted ed (how each district chooses to meet the needs of gifted learners is up to them, so the state does not define APP) as part of basic education, which is a huge win. I'm not sure yet how that will impact advanced learning in Seattle, have not had a chance to focus on that one.
Transportation for APP comes from another source from the state. With the recent election and lousy economy, it is likely that this funding source for transportation will change, be reduced, or go away.
Tom Bishop, head of Transportation, will be at tonight's meeting at Garfield and can answer some of the transportation questions.
Hope this helps.
Stephanie
Thanks, Stephanie. This is exactly what I was wondering when I started getting emails on this topic. It's hard to write to one's legislators without knowing exactly what may be cut. I did not know what the $7 million currently in the budget from the state for highly capable children actually goes to. It's good to get some details.
In the little bit of research I had time to do last nite, it seems that some of the money may also go to college scholarships for gifted teens with financial needs, as well as for some of the costs associated with AP and the IB programs. Can anyone confirm how/if those programs, including a new IB program at Ingraham, would be affected by cuts? I think I read that there are testing and other program fees as part of the IB program that the state currently pays.
Hi Lori,
what I described is how Seattle Schools spends their allotment of this state funding. Other districts may do different things with their dollars. Most districts do not have self-contained gifted programs.
If it will have any impact on IB, I can't say, but I doubt it, at least not from this fund. IB is not considered a gifted program. But the costs of IB are included in our list of questions (which is getting very long) to Dr. Vaughan. Maybe we will get to ask this tonight.
Thanks,
Stephanie
Hello, please sign this petition against Governor Gregoire's proposed cut to funding in 2010. Lowell parents are planning to deliver this petition in the next few days to our Seattle-area legislators and the Governor (ideally, by tomorrow).
AND, please, please pass it along, including to parents of kids in Spectrum and ALO parents. We don't know what the long-term impact of such a cut would be, but the state budget is so dire that this would be a bad precedent going into the biennial budget process, and certainly not help our Seattle programs.
Thanks.
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