We parents of FCPS students have serious concerns about the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Budget Task Force’s budget cut options. Many of these cuts, if implemented, would negatively impact our children’s emotional and academic health.

We ask FCPS to:

• Provide AAP Centers that offer highly gifted students appropriately challenging instruction and access to related co-curricular activities.
• Offer separate AAP Center, Honors, and standard level classes in middle schools with AAP Centers, to provide truly differentiated instruction.
• Cease calling one-school programs “Centers,” so parents are not misled into thinking that they offer the same instruction as multi-school Centers.
• Require high school principals to offer AP and IB courses when 20 or more students sign up for those AP or IB classes.
• Continue funding the 8th period at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ).

The 2015 Budget Task Force (BTF) will select budget cut options that total about $100 million.  These options will be considered by Superintendent Garza and School Board members in developing and voting for the FY 2017 budget.

The BTF lists multiple options that reduce funding and support for AAP Centers.  One would replace Centers with single-school Local Level IV classes, with too few qualified students to sustain a high-level curriculum or co-curricular activities like MathCounts, Science Olympiad and Model UN. Another would eliminate bus service to Centers for students who have a Local Level IV class, resulting in inequitable access to a generally more challenging version of Level IV services. A third option would increase only AAP class sizes.

Some gifted students will not thrive in Local Level IV classes, where there is a small community of highly gifted students and Level IV classes are sometimes taught with less rigor to accommodate students who would struggle in an AAP Center class.  FCPS should avoid closing or restricting access to AAP Centers, given the social, emotional and academic needs for some gifted students to be in a large cohort of academically highly capable children who are the same age.

The BTF has also considered a range of options to reduce funding for TJ, and is actively considering an option to eliminate the 8th period. With students who live all over Northern Virginia, this option would destroy the opportunity for TJ kids to extend their learning through co-curricular activities and to participate in other community-building school clubs and activities.

The BTF is looking at other options that increase class sizes for all general education (including AAP) students and indirectly limit access to AP courses.  AAP students already have larger class sizes, on average, than other general education students. Further increases not only are likely to push more AAP classes to or over the legal caps, but could also reduce courses offerings for classes that appeal only to a small number of academically strong students.

The County’s Economic Development Authority uses the existence of TJ and options for high-achieving students as a marketing tool to attract companies and talented workforce.  The School Board should not undermine our County Supervisors’ efforts to revive our local economy, by cutting the very programs that attract businesses and a talented workforce to Fairfax County. These gifted children are a source of talent for Fairfax County and the nation. Our children’s well-being depends on the availability of programs that meet their needs.

With a grateful heart, we ask FCPS to support gifted children’s needs by supporting high quality gifted and advanced education in FCPS.