Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy State Funding for Gifted...how much?

Hi, I am hoping someone can help us with what is turning into a nasty political mess. I would like to find out how much each school, more specifically my children's school, receives for the gifted program. Here is the catch though, we do not trust the Superintendent of the school nor the Board members to give us the correct information. So, where do we go to find the accurate amount of funding they are receiving?
Our DD is in 2nd grade and the only 'gifted' encouragement and challenge is being allowed to check out books above the 2nd grade reading level. We live in Arizona and I know that Arizona provides some funding but how is it broken down from there?
I really appreciate any input any of you can provide! Thank you!

Have you tried contacting Arizona's Gifted and Talented ? They may have the answers you seek or know how to go about finding the answer.

Best of luck.

I found that one listed above, and also Arizona Department of Education has a lot of things that might be useful. There are school budget links there for every school in Arizona, but I was unable to determine which line of the budget, if any, pertained to GT. Not sure if that's useful or not. There is a link to the state statute that covers GT education--you might like that.

I started out searching for the Board of Cooperative Services, which is where that information would be in Colorado, but I haven't found one of those yet for Arizona.

Thank you so much for the tips, I will check into the places you suggested!! This fight is bigger than just the Gifted program but I think finding out how much they are getting and how little they are actually using may add some valuable fuel to the fire! Thank you both!

Did you check the Davidson info on Arizona? They are listed as a green state with mandated funding and it has some contact info. (see the Links on the left hand side of the page) It may be the same as the stuff listed in previous posts.

PMd you

This looks like what you are looking for. http://www.ade.state.az.us/asd/gifted/statutes.pdf
Info. on per pupil funding:$75 per pupil for Four percent of the distric's student count or TWOTHOUSAND DOLLARS. This PDF has information you need, to put in writing the problems you are having with school distric, and speciffically how the distric isn't in compliance with ADE Gifted Program. I susgest e-mailing a very nice letter to the Gifted Director, Peter C.Laing, e-mail: Peter.Laing@azed.gov, (602)364-3842. He is responsible for distric being in compliance. You can request he mail you the Open Records Forms. So you can request in writting, you be provide all the records your distric has given the ADE to show they are in compliance with providing Gifted Programing, the data, how many students, amount of money they have received, how they are claiming they are meeting requirements to provide Gifed Educational Services in your school..all documents. Also request Complaint Forms and name, address and contact information of who is the Director of Complaints Program. Parents who provide State Departments with information of schools who are not in compliance, are essential to the suscess of the Educational Programs. If you have a group of parents who also have these same concerns, you might consider having all the parents get together and agree on what are all issues of concern and have them all sign complaint. Then you could format your letter as a petition from concerned parents in the distric. Hope this info. helps you to work out problems. Wishing you the best!

Hi Tinkerweed -

I'd also be curious to see what you find out. We try to keep the Davidson state pages as up-to-date as possible (http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/state_policy_arizona_10004.aspx), often times using information from NAGC. Arizona has always been fully funded, but I recently saw this article come through:
http://www.paysonroundup.com/news/2010/oct/15/gifted-funds-gutted/.

The article contains these lines:





I'll try to do some more research to see what has changed in Arizona.

Hi and welcome! I've got nothing useful to add other than encouragement. I'm originally from AZ and fighting the fight in another state right now. Keep up your spirits you will get there!