PA Association for Gifted Education

March 22, 2007

Your PAGE President received a copy of the drafts of Chapter 14 and 16 today. It is a work in progress. Already they have made a few changes from the document given out yesterday.....mainly just fixing typos, etc. Even though it was advertised that the drafts would be posted to the website today, that will not happen until at least late next week. We were asked that we get that message out to our members.

We were also asked to let people know that these drafts may change daily. Please check often if you are planning on making comments so you are using the most recent draft. Drafts will be dated.

PAGE is optimistic about many of the changes and disappointed about some others.

Here are a few details:

Compliance monitoring is in Chapter 16 now and we will push for a strong committment to compliance.

Teacher case load is 60 and number of students in one class is up to 25.

In the process of writing the draft, the intent was to align several places in Chapter 16 with Chapter. 14 ...that is why the wording requiring short term learning objectives is removed from 16. It is removed in 14. Also the due process system parallels that in Chat. 14.

A section was included to ensure enforcement of a hearing officer order.

A Present Levels of Performance section is required.

Gifted identification plans and program documentation must be included in strategic plans.

This draft requires annual media publicity about gifted services through newspapers, websites, student handbooks, etc.

A statement is included that makes it clearer that IQ alone is not the only determining factor in identification and it should not keep a student from being identified as gifted. Clarification was added to keep memory and processing speed from being used to determine giftedness.

One major thing we wanted that is missing is a clear identification process for twice exceptional students. Chapter 14 is aligned exactly with IDEA when it comes to identification of twice exceptional students. Concern here is that if a student is on grade level they are considered fine. PAGE wanted PA to go beyond the federal regulations.

PAGE is continuing to evaluate and digest the draft. We will make a thoughtful and thorough determination of our position on each of the changes and publically comment at the sessions. We encourage each of you to look over the document once it is online and let us know your opinions.

We will keep you informed throughout the process.

Donna Benson

PAGE President