Keep GATES Program Intact

To the Editor:

We understand that with the recent town budget defeat, the Board of Education is now faced with the task of cutting approximately $500,000 from next year’s school budget.  This will undoubtedly be no easy task.  We know that when faced with similar circumstances a few years ago, the board decided to cut the gifted program.  Fortunately, the program was resurrected for the last couple of years, though only in part. As parents of a seventh grade student who has been designated as gifted, and who has participated in GATES for the last couple of years, we ask that the Board of Education please keep this program intact.  We cannot tell you how important GATES has been to our daughter, as it has provided challenges, both academically and creatively, in ways that are not available in her normal classroom experience.  It also allows her to interact and learn with other gifted students, something which has been identified by the Connecticut Association for the Gifted, as extremely important for social and emotional growth in the gifted child.

The gifted and talented student needs and deserves to have his or her special needs addressed and met, just as much as a child who has been identified as learning disabled or challenged.  Again, we strongly urge the Board of Education to retain GATES as part of Newtown’s special education program.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Janice & George Paik

15 Overlook Drive, Newtown                                      May 9, 2006