NOTE TO THOSE SIGNING: Please also contact your local Senate/House Representatives. Lists of these can be found here for the Senate and here for the House. Georgia congressmen can be found here.

(6/21 UPDATE): Appropriations Committee contacts can be found here. They should be your new focus in calling and emailing.

Item 177.100 in the Georgia Senate Appropriation Committee's Substitute to House Bill 793 moves millions of dollars from the Governor's Office of Student Achievement, henceforth referred to as GOSA. This move would likely result in the complete termination of the Governor's Honors Program, henceforth referred to as GHP. As Georgia and many of its counties pride themselves on education, this would be a detrimental move to the foundations in place to recognize and reward gifted and talented students within the Georgia education system. 

GHP is the longest continuously running governor's school in the United States. In its legacy spanning over sixty years, it has changed the lives of students and educators across the state. It provides opportunities to those students who work towards and show passion for their major of choice. Even in 2020, when the program was cancelled for a single summer term due to the COVID-19 pandemic, GHP brought together students in a community to exchange ideas and support each other through an incredibly stressful time. Defunding this program is simply unacceptable as doing so would only indicate to Georgia educators that the state no longer cares about them or their students. Getting rid of GHP and defunding GOSA takes away from the future of the state. Georgia's future doctors, scientists, politicians, artists, and more exceptional members of its youth would be neglected by defunding their education and the opportunities that go along with it. 

This budget line item needs to be amended. There are no programs more worthy of funding than those that work to improve the bright minds of the future.