This article reports on a study designed to identify and describe advocacy factors that were influential in enabling a rural school district to expand its gifted program in the face of greatly dinilshed state-support and a local budget crisis. Parents played a vital role in this event, through both their strong presence at board meetings and hearings and their use of a vaiety of specific advocacy strategies developed over a period of years. The relationships between a loosely structured parent support group, the program coordinator, and the superintendent were also important in obtaining the positive outcome.
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