ATLANTA — Despite using what state officials call “many best practices,” an audit of the Georgia Department of Education’s gifted program found reduced effectiveness due to deviations in how the program’s funds were used.

The state auditor described the Gifted Program as one where “Services are not aligned with funding intent.”

According to the report by the state auditor, some of Georgia’s schools are not following the requirements of the program, but still receive funding.

However, the number of classes benefiting from the funding without meeting program requirements was a large portion, the report data shows.

The audit report said the funding, which is based on a teacher-to-student ratio of 12 students per teacher in gifted classes, 77% of Georgia classes exceeded that ratio.

All told, gifted classes in the Peach State are averaging 23 students for each Gifted-endorsed teacher.

“Local school systems earned Gifted funding for classes that did not meet state requirements related to student eligibility and teacher endorsements,” according to an analysis by state officials. “The excess funding due to these issues totaled $13.1 million.”

By way of student eligibility, the state auditor found 10% of classes receiving Gifted funding lacked a Gifted-endorsed teacher, while about 2% of the nearly 200,000 students in Gifted segments were not actually Gifted-eligible, according to the Georgia Department of Education.

The report also said “Systems should only receive Gifted funding for students who meet eligibility requirements and for classes with a Gifted-endorsed teacher, and these requirements cannot be waived,” but “local school systems have earned Gifted funding for classes that did not meet state requirements.”

Furthermore, the state audit report said resource constraints can make it so systems cannot implement best practices when it comes to identifying Gifted children.

The report said that fewer resources also means creates limits for the number of Gifted-endorsed teachers by reducing how many can receive stipends or other incentives to get the required training to teach those programs.

It also limits how many teachers that are Gifted-endorsed a school district is able to employ, or which delivery models the school systems can pick for their Gifted classes to ensure the classes are different than typical lessons.

“These issues can reduce the funding that systems receive to implement the program since student eligibility and teacher endorsement requirements cannot be waived,” according to the Georgia State Auditor.

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