Kansas lawmaker says gifted-education bill was misinterpreted

A Kansas lawmaker who introduced and quickly withdrew a proposal to remove gifted students from the realm of special education says she didn’t intend to do away with gifted education.

“I would like to take gifted out of special education and make it its own” category, Rep. Sue Boldra, R-Hays, said Wednesday.

“I’m not trying to do away with gifted education at all. I’m trying to enhance it.”

Boldra, who proposed House Bill 2630 on Monday and pulled it from consideration on Tuesday, is an instructor in the department of teacher education at Fort Hays State University.

She said special-education administrators and teachers from some rural districts in western Kansas had urged her to propose the change because they think gifted children are being slighted by being grouped in the same category as children with learning disabilities and other special needs.

“So many of the special-education co-ops … think that’s probably the wrong place for them,” Boldra said. “They don’t get what they need there, because those teachers spend a great deal of their time with children with special needs, and the gifted is kind of an afterthought.”

Boldra’s proposal was similar to one that gifted-education advocates fought last year, saying it could gut funding for gifted education and do away with protections that gifted students and their families have.

Because Kansas groups intellectually gifted children within special education, gifted students are entitled by state law to an individualized education program. The written plan describes services a student will receive and is regularly reviewed and revised by a team that includes teachers, counselors and the child’s parents.

Boldra said she planned to remove gifted education from special education but then propose a new law that would make gifted its own category and would mandate services and funding for gifted students.

Opponents speaking against Boldra’s bill this week, including the nonprofit Kansas Association for the Gifted, Talented and Creative, said such protections and funding for gifted students would be unlikely because the state faces a budget deficit.

“Teachers are getting beat up with practically every bill we bring up in that (education) committee, so there was a lot of consternation, a lot of fear,” Boldra said. “They saw this and said, ‘Sue Boldra is trying to take gifted education away,’ and that wasn’t the intention at all.

“So I just said, ‘Let’s pull it.’ We’ll do this another year, when things have settled down, when we’re not attacking teachers at every turn.”

This story was originally published February 10, 2016 at 11:48 AM with the headline "Kansas lawmaker says gifted-education bill was misinterpreted."