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, and her proposed cuts can be viewed here.
If you have not yet contacted your legislator, please do so immediately! 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. Thank you for your support – now let’s get writing!