AAS Appeals

Parents/guardians have the right to file an appeal with the Office of AAS for students who were referred during the ASS screening cycle and were not found eligible for services. The appeal will be reviewed before a Central-Office-coordinated appeals committee called the AAS Appeals Committee.

Parents/Guardians who wish to appeal the decision have 10 ACPS instructional days to submit an appeal after being informed of their child's eligibility for services. For the spring screening cycle, all appeals are due by June 1, 2024.

Required: Parents/guardians must submit an appeals form via PowerSchool. On the form, parents/guardians are required to note the following:

• Which subject areas the appeal is being made in
• The reasons you believe the committee decision was in error

Optional: Parents/guardians can include additional data and/or information they may have relevant to their child's eligibility for gifted services. Please submit all documents in one email to AAS@acps.k12.va.us. Some examples include:

• Up to five, single-sided work samples selected by the parents/guardians
• New test results
• Parents’/guardians’ narrative about their child via a video or audio recording, not to exceed five minutes (Due to email storage space, please send a link to the video and not the file of the video.)

The AAS Appeals Committee will convene within 25 school days of receiving the letter requesting an appeal. In the case of an appeal, all of the documents involved in the student's referral are reviewed by the committee, consisting of professional personnel familiar and trained with the gifted placement process. The goal is to have personnel from a different school other than the school the child attends, but that is not always possible. The AAS Appeals Committee may include an AAS Screening Lead, an AAS teacher, a grade-level teacher, a staff member certified in the area of social-emotional health, and a certified administrator. Other school personnel may include Central Office specialists, assessment leaders, and resource teachers.

Each case is evaluated individually. After reviewing the information presented at the appeals conference, the AAS Appeals Committee makes one of the following decisions:

• Eligible for services in Tier III- SAA
• Not eligible for services in Tier III-SAA
• Eligible for services in Tier II- GIA
• Not eligible for services in Tier II-GIA

The AAS Appeals Committee’s decision will be communicated in writing to the parents/guardians within 15 school days (or business days during the summer months) after the appeals conference. The committee's decision is final, and parents/guardians can refer again during the next school’s year screening cycle.

A record of each decision is placed in the division’s computer database, and screening portfolios are returned to the school.