As a dental assistant for 7 years before becoming a dental hygienist, I STRONGLY disagree with allowing DA's to scale.  I was a very qualified dental assistant and wouldn't have dreamed of scaling teeth.  After enduring 2 years of hygiene school I definitely felt like no dental assistant would be properly trained to scale teeth.  I live in the Northern VA area and we definitely do not have a shortage of hygienists in this area.  Although I certainly agree that there is an access to care issue in the Commonwealth of VA.  However, there are alot of other options to help that problem without compromising patient care.  And quite frankly letting DA II's scale above 3mm would be doing nothing but compromising patient care.