South County Parents Rally to Save State Funding for Gifted Students

Arguing that the same muscle they used to pass education reform can now be used to save a program for bright students, parents in south Orange County rallied Monday night to save the Gifted and Talented Education program.

Parents, teachers and other interested community members gathered at the Mission Viejo offices of Saddleback Valley Unified School District to plan political action to save what they regard as a much needed program that Gov. George Deukmejian is declining to fund. The program, GATE, is a statewide education option for students with high intellectual abilities and achievement skills.

Deukmejian has announced he will phase out money for GATE and some other special (called “categorical”) educational programs next year because of budget constraints. Deukmejian said the money saved by phasing out the special programs would then be used to reduce average class size in first grades in the state.

But opposition has been building to the governor’s plan, especially in Orange County. On Feb. 25, a meeting of the Orange County Council of GATE was held in Fountain Valley in an effort to mobilize the parents of the county’s 21,000 GATE students.

Parents of the 1,600 GATE students in Saddleback Valley Unified said Monday that they are responding to that call for political action.

“We’re letting parents know that all of education is going to be hurt unless the governor’s budget is changed,” said Diane Langer of Mission Viejo, one of the parents coordinating the event. “But we’re especially worried about what’s going to happen to GATE and the other categorical programs the governor’s budget will eliminate. . . . The residents of this school district had a big role in the passage of SB (Senate Bill) 813, and we’re going to start writing to Sacramento as part of our efforts to save GATE.”

When the Legislature in 1983 was debating its massive educational reform act, Senate Bill 813, many Orange County residents held rallies in support of the measure. Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction, frequently has said Orange County grass-roots support enabled final passage of that landmark educational reform act, which extended the school day and school year and toughened high school graduation requirements.

South Orange County parents said Monday that they now want to use their political-action skills to save GATE and some other programs targeted for extinction. About 7% of the 22,000 students in Saddleback Valley Unified are in the GATE program--about double the statewide average for school districts having the gifted program.

Saddleback Valley Unified officials said Monday that the higher percentage of gifted students in the district reflects the large proportion of college-educated, upwardly mobile families that have moved into south Orange County.

But GATE is not limited to affluent areas; the program has participation in all 28 school districts in Orange County. Several districts, including Orange Unified and Ocean View (Elementary) in Huntington Beach, also are organizing political action movements to try to save the GATE program.

In Santa Ana Unified, which has more than 70% minority enrollment, there are about 1,300 of the 37,000 students in the district enrolled in the gifted-education program, despite the fact that so many students have limited English-speaking ability.

Robert Reed, GATE director in Santa Ana Unified, said Monday, “Parents are very supportive of this program in our district. We have about 3% of the total enrollment in Santa Ana Unified in GATE classes. We’re very concerned what would happen to these gifted students if the program ended. There might be more dropouts if these talented students didn’t have the enrichment programs they need.”

Leah Welte, GATE coordinator in Saddleback Valley Unified, said in an interview Monday that she and other administrators in that school district also fear what would happen to bright students if state aid is ended.

“Gifted and talented children have problems, just as do children at the other end of the spectrum, the handicapped and mentally retarded,” Welte said. “Many people mistakenly think that gifted children will make it on their own if there weren’t special programs. This isn’t true. There are high dropout rates for gifted students who don’t have the programs they need. There is also a high suicide rate for gifted students. These children often have perfectionist qualities in themselves. They need special programs. No one would suggest that students with handicaps could get along without special programs. The same is true for gifted students.

“If the state discontinues support for the gifted and talented, it is making a waste of bright people. No one will ever know the discoveries that might have been made, the symphonies that might have been written.”

Welte, who spoke at the Monday night rally in Mission Viejo, said in an interview that California has never been generous in funding programs for bright students. She noted that Saddleback Valley Unified gets only about $122,000 a year from the state to support the gifted and talented education programs in the district.

“It’s been a program run on bread and water for years,” Welte said. “Now apparently, the state is going to cut off the bread and water.”