TJ Commended Student Emails Released - Who is really responsible?

[Anonymous]

Commended = Honorable mention (at best).

Neither the NMSC or top colleges give a hoot about "commended" status.

The elite colleges barely inlude NM finalists in their "at a glance," "FAQs," or "class profiles." Commended status simply does not register.

No commended student was harmed. Your SAT score spoke for itself when submitted. Your PSAT score is not required or expected.

COMMENDED STUDENTS DO NOT CONTINUE IN THE COMPETITION FOR NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIPS.

From the NMSC:

In late September, more than two-thirds (about 34,000) of the approximately 50,000 high scorers on the PSAT/NMSQT receive Letters of Commendation in recognition of their outstanding academic promise. Commended Students are named based on a nationally applied Selection Index score that may vary from year to year and is typically below the level required for participants to be named Semifinalists in their respective states. Although Commended Students do not continue in the competition for National Merit Scholarships, some of these students do become candidates for Special Scholarships sponsored by corporations and businesses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear parents of Commended students who are throwing an tantrum:

I’m so SO sorry that your child was not a NMSF.

Signed,

Parent who is laughing at what how the same people who are are screaming “MERIT” also want their child to get a cookie for a not-so-amazing score.

THIS. If this situation were truly about an intentional suppression of merit it would be about Semifinalists, Finalists, or Scholars.

I can’t speak to other schools, but at TJ this was a simple clerical error by the DSS that he turned into a major problem by lying to a parent and making up some nonsense about hurt feelings and equity concerns to cover his ass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, he screwed up, finally admitted it and seemingly is working to fix things.

+1
This. It's unfortunate but for sure I've dropped the ball occasionally in my own job and I imagine everyone has at some point as well. Sounds like he forgot about the packet for a few weeks. Also perhaps notable re: timing - TJ only has advisory on Mondays I believe. No school 10/24 or 10/31 so prior to 11/14 there was just one other Monday: 11/7 and it too was after the 11/1 cut-off. Naturally they could have figured out some other way to hand them out but really it seems like just an error. One that's been apologized for, that TJ's working to help clean up with outreach to colleges, and that he already said they would handle it differently moving forward.

Agreed. He indeed messed up and made it worse by trying to cover it up. When certain parents' names pop up in the email, he should be more prepared when crafting the answers. Anyway, the remediation methods have been taken, and most importantly, there is no real impact on the kids, the kids probably won't even care.

Is it warrant an apology from the school? Yes, an Attorney General's investigation? No.

BTW, I am just one of the NORMAL Asian parents in TJ, who don't think this is a big deal, and it is definitely not an act of racism.

But the Attorney General's office didn't know about these emails prior to the release yesterday, did they?

And the AG's involvement, and the national attention, forced FCPS (Miyares) to announce that their office of civil rights was doing an investigation and appointing an outside investigator. Actions have consequences.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a big deal or not.

Youngkin and the other RWNJs want press to build faux outrage.

It all feeds off each other.

When you have an all-Democrat School Board that give consultants $500K to advocate for “equal outcomes for all students, without exception,” don’t be surprised when the conservatives look for every opportunity to push back, especially if it involves TJ.

Common sense left the room a long time ago in FCPS. Everyone happily fights the culture wars while basic things like academics and facilities get overlooked.

So your plan is to implode TJ rather than let in a slightly more diverse group? Destroy FCPS because they want a more diverse group to succeed?

So vile.

I have no plan when it comes to TJ. I am tired of the non-stop bickering and how it sucks all the oxygen out of the room, and wouldn’t be sad to see it go.

The flip side of the question you posed is “So your plan is to ignore all the other schools in FCPS until everyone with a stake in TJ is satisfied that TJ admissions are fair?”

Better idea: work on the admissions process in the background while people bicker about it and change it as necessary without spending needless public resources and time on the matter. People will never agree on it, but the solution to “people are mad” can’t be to blow things up.

Yes, the biggest problem with the recent admission changes is it can't be as easily gamed like the old system where all you had to do was sign up for prep.

What an utterly asinine characterization of the prior merit-based admissions.

Now the perverse incentive is to pull your kid out of an AAP center and send them to a low-performing middle school like Poe or Whitman where they may not learn as much but have a better chance of being in the top 1.5%.

Any gaps will be made up by supplementing with time and resources that would previously be spent on prep.

And Poe/Whitman gets an active and engaged student and family.

Win/win.

No offense, but the few students from Poe/Whitman now at TJ are just not good students. Feel sorry for them and hope they can improve.

Citation?

[Anonymous]

Things that are true:

- The DSS at TJ failed to distribute, for whatever reason, the notices of Commended status until a month after they were placed on his desk by Dr. Bonitatibus. He should have done it and there’s really no reason for him not to.

- The DSS lied to a parent about the responsibility of the school and attempted to deflect his personal responsibility by making up some nonsense about hurt feelings and equity. (To me, this is a 100% fireable offense.)

Things that are false/unsupported by any facts or reason:

- There was a school decision to withhold these recognitions intentionally. If this were the case, the principal would not have turned them over to the DSS for distribution.

- Students were harmed in any way by this oversight. “Commended Student” status confers essentially zero realistic benefit to even a well below-average TJ student.

- This matter in any way amounts to an attack on merit. You’d have an argument here if we were talking about Semifinalists, Finalists, or Scholars - but we’re not.

- The existence of a majority-Asian population at TJ makes this matter a racially motivated attack on Asian students and families. If you believe this, you’re monumentally stupid. The people pushing the story don’t believe this - they are trying to get you to vote Republican in School Board elections so that they can defund public schools and replace them with for-profit institutions.

- The principal has anything to do with this issue. She doesn’t. Yes, the DSS is a subordinate, but a matter like this is so simple and insignificant as to not even warrant follow-up.

- TJ students care at all about this designation. They don’t, and for the most part neither do their parents. You’ll notice essentially zero TJ students or alumni who are quoted as having a problem with this.

[Anonymous]

Same issue at Langley and Westfileds.

In a way, relived to see that this issue was not some TJ “conspiracy” against asians etc, as Youngkin and the MAGA crowd is claiming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Things that are true:

- The DSS at TJ failed to distribute, for whatever reason, the notices of Commended status until a month after they were placed on his desk by Dr. Bonitatibus. He should have done it and there’s really no reason for him not to.

- The DSS lied to a parent about the responsibility of the school and attempted to deflect his personal responsibility by making up some nonsense about hurt feelings and equity. (To me, this is a 100% fireable offense.)

Things that are false/unsupported by any facts or reason:

- There was a school decision to withhold these recognitions intentionally. If this were the case, the principal would not have turned them over to the DSS for distribution.

- Students were harmed in any way by this oversight. “Commended Student” status confers essentially zero realistic benefit to even a well below-average TJ student.

- This matter in any way amounts to an attack on merit. You’d have an argument here if we were talking about Semifinalists, Finalists, or Scholars - but we’re not.

- The existence of a majority-Asian population at TJ makes this matter a racially motivated attack on Asian students and families. If you believe this, you’re monumentally stupid. The people pushing the story don’t believe this - they are trying to get you to vote Republican in School Board elections so that they can defund public schools and replace them with for-profit institutions.

- The principal has anything to do with this issue. She doesn’t. Yes, the DSS is a subordinate, but a matter like this is so simple and insignificant as to not even warrant follow-up.

- TJ students care at all about this designation. They don’t, and for the most part neither do their parents. You’ll notice essentially zero TJ students or alumni who are quoted as having a problem with this.

The hurt feelings comment was about stopping the ceremony, not handing out certificates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear parents of Commended students who are throwing an tantrum:

I’m so SO sorry that your child was not a NMSF.

Signed,

Parent who is laughing at what how the same people who are are screaming “MERIT” also want their child to get a cookie for a not-so-amazing score.

They want their participation trophy certificate ceremony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things that are true:

- The DSS at TJ failed to distribute, for whatever reason, the notices of Commended status until a month after they were placed on his desk by Dr. Bonitatibus. He should have done it and there’s really no reason for him not to.

- The DSS lied to a parent about the responsibility of the school and attempted to deflect his personal responsibility by making up some nonsense about hurt feelings and equity. (To me, this is a 100% fireable offense.)

Things that are false/unsupported by any facts or reason:

- There was a school decision to withhold these recognitions intentionally. If this were the case, the principal would not have turned them over to the DSS for distribution.

- Students were harmed in any way by this oversight. “Commended Student” status confers essentially zero realistic benefit to even a well below-average TJ student.

- This matter in any way amounts to an attack on merit. You’d have an argument here if we were talking about Semifinalists, Finalists, or Scholars - but we’re not.

- The existence of a majority-Asian population at TJ makes this matter a racially motivated attack on Asian students and families. If you believe this, you’re monumentally stupid. The people pushing the story don’t believe this - they are trying to get you to vote Republican in School Board elections so that they can defund public schools and replace them with for-profit institutions.

- The principal has anything to do with this issue. She doesn’t. Yes, the DSS is a subordinate, but a matter like this is so simple and insignificant as to not even warrant follow-up.

- TJ students care at all about this designation. They don’t, and for the most part neither do their parents. You’ll notice essentially zero TJ students or alumni who are quoted as having a problem with this.

The hurt feelings comment was about stopping the ceremony, not handing out certificates.

It was about both as indicated in the later email from Yashar. The first one referenced the ceremonies (and the “greater conversation at the school”) while the later email tied the distribution of the certificates to the feelings question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things that are true:

- The DSS at TJ failed to distribute, for whatever reason, the notices of Commended status until a month after they were placed on his desk by Dr. Bonitatibus. He should have done it and there’s really no reason for him not to.

- The DSS lied to a parent about the responsibility of the school and attempted to deflect his personal responsibility by making up some nonsense about hurt feelings and equity. (To me, this is a 100% fireable offense.)

Things that are false/unsupported by any facts or reason:

- There was a school decision to withhold these recognitions intentionally. If this were the case, the principal would not have turned them over to the DSS for distribution.

- Students were harmed in any way by this oversight. “Commended Student” status confers essentially zero realistic benefit to even a well below-average TJ student.

- This matter in any way amounts to an attack on merit. You’d have an argument here if we were talking about Semifinalists, Finalists, or Scholars - but we’re not.

- The existence of a majority-Asian population at TJ makes this matter a racially motivated attack on Asian students and families. If you believe this, you’re monumentally stupid. The people pushing the story don’t believe this - they are trying to get you to vote Republican in School Board elections so that they can defund public schools and replace them with for-profit institutions.

- The principal has anything to do with this issue. She doesn’t. Yes, the DSS is a subordinate, but a matter like this is so simple and insignificant as to not even warrant follow-up.

- TJ students care at all about this designation. They don’t, and for the most part neither do their parents. You’ll notice essentially zero TJ students or alumni who are quoted as having a problem with this.

The hurt feelings comment was about stopping the ceremony, not handing out certificates.

It was about both as indicated in the later email from Yashar. The first one referenced the ceremonies (and the “greater conversation at the school”) while the later email tied the distribution of the certificates to the feelings question.

Maybe it caused some hesitation but he DID distribute them. So ultimately not.

Do we have his side of the conversation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean, he screwed up, finally admitted it and seemingly is working to fix things.

+1
This. It's unfortunate but for sure I've dropped the ball occasionally in my own job and I imagine everyone has at some point as well. Sounds like he forgot about the packet for a few weeks. Also perhaps notable re: timing - TJ only has advisory on Mondays I believe. No school 10/24 or 10/31 so prior to 11/14 there was just one other Monday: 11/7 and it too was after the 11/1 cut-off. Naturally they could have figured out some other way to hand them out but really it seems like just an error. One that's been apologized for, that TJ's working to help clean up with outreach to colleges, and that he already said they would handle it differently moving forward.

Agreed. He indeed messed up and made it worse by trying to cover it up. When certain parents' names pop up in the email, he should be more prepared when crafting the answers. Anyway, the remediation methods have been taken, and most importantly, there is no real impact on the kids, the kids probably won't even care.

Is it warrant an apology from the school? Yes, an Attorney General's investigation? No.

BTW, I am just one of the NORMAL Asian parents in TJ, who don't think this is a big deal, and it is definitely not an act of racism.

But the Attorney General's office didn't know about these emails prior to the release yesterday, did they?

And the AG's involvement, and the national attention, forced FCPS (Miyares) to announce that their office of civil rights was doing an investigation and appointing an outside investigator. Actions have consequences.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a big deal or not.

Youngkin and the other RWNJs want press to build faux outrage.

It all feeds off each other.

When you have an all-Democrat School Board that give consultants $500K to advocate for “equal outcomes for all students, without exception,” don’t be surprised when the conservatives look for every opportunity to push back, especially if it involves TJ.

Common sense left the room a long time ago in FCPS. Everyone happily fights the culture wars while basic things like academics and facilities get overlooked.

So your plan is to implode TJ rather than let in a slightly more diverse group? Destroy FCPS because they want a more diverse group to succeed?

So vile.

I have no plan when it comes to TJ. I am tired of the non-stop bickering and how it sucks all the oxygen out of the room, and wouldn’t be sad to see it go.

The flip side of the question you posed is “So your plan is to ignore all the other schools in FCPS until everyone with a stake in TJ is satisfied that TJ admissions are fair?”

Totally agree.

TJ takes far far too much time and energy from FCPS leaders. And does about 1/3 of the school not even live in Fairfax County?

FCPS is already to big and complex. Time to cut back and focus on the basics. Closing TJ should be up for discussion.

Absolutely. Republicans have created an impossible situation in which a public school system must constantly spend massive amounts of money to fight baseless, nuisance lawsuits funded by fringe rightwing dark money groups, from the Koch Brothers and the Federalist Society to the Pacific Legal Foundation. The only solution is to close TJ and remove the need for these insane expenditures that go into a void. it's time to devote the school system's very limited resources to educating students rather than fighting a losing battle against media-weaponized lies in a Republican-funded culture war.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear parents of Commended students who are throwing an tantrum:

I’m so SO sorry that your child was not a NMSF.

Signed,

Parent who is laughing at what how the same people who are are screaming “MERIT” also want their child to get a cookie for a not-so-amazing score.

They want their participation trophy certificate ceremony.

I don’t think Democrats have much shot at getting re-elected this fall if the message from their stooges is that only kids who score in the top 1% rather than top 3% of PSAT test-takers deserve any recognition.

Their real goal, of course, is to deny any students recognition for academic achievement, since all academic achievement is tainted in their view by systemic racism, but this interim position of ridiculing kids who were in the top 3% but not top 1% is not a good strategy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear parents of Commended students who are throwing an tantrum:

I’m so SO sorry that your child was not a NMSF.

Signed,

Parent who is laughing at what how the same people who are are screaming “MERIT” also want their child to get a cookie for a not-so-amazing score.

They want their participation trophy certificate ceremony.

#okiedokiewokie

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Things that are true:

- The DSS at TJ failed to distribute, for whatever reason, the notices of Commended status until a month after they were placed on his desk by Dr. Bonitatibus. He should have done it and there’s really no reason for him not to.

- The DSS lied to a parent about the responsibility of the school and attempted to deflect his personal responsibility by making up some nonsense about hurt feelings and equity. (To me, this is a 100% fireable offense.)

Things that are false/unsupported by any facts or reason:

- There was a school decision to withhold these recognitions intentionally. If this were the case, the principal would not have turned them over to the DSS for distribution.

- Students were harmed in any way by this oversight. “Commended Student” status confers essentially zero realistic benefit to even a well below-average TJ student.

- This matter in any way amounts to an attack on merit. You’d have an argument here if we were talking about Semifinalists, Finalists, or Scholars - but we’re not.

- The existence of a majority-Asian population at TJ makes this matter a racially motivated attack on Asian students and families. If you believe this, you’re monumentally stupid. The people pushing the story don’t believe this - they are trying to get you to vote Republican in School Board elections so that they can defund public schools and replace them with for-profit institutions.

- The principal has anything to do with this issue. She doesn’t. Yes, the DSS is a subordinate, but a matter like this is so simple and insignificant as to not even warrant follow-up.

- TJ students care at all about this designation. They don’t, and for the most part neither do their parents. You’ll notice essentially zero TJ students or alumni who are quoted as having a problem with this.

I would agree that the lack of recognition did not harm TJ students that are top-10 bound. But not all TJ students are HYP bound and have 1550+ SAT scores. Many of them were high achievers in middle school and are interested in STEM, but do not have the credentials to get accepted into a top-10 school . A TJ student with a 4.0 WGPA and no nationally recognized awards would love to have a NMS commendation to add to their college application to UVA, VT, JMU...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things that are true:

- The DSS at TJ failed to distribute, for whatever reason, the notices of Commended status until a month after they were placed on his desk by Dr. Bonitatibus. He should have done it and there’s really no reason for him not to.

- The DSS lied to a parent about the responsibility of the school and attempted to deflect his personal responsibility by making up some nonsense about hurt feelings and equity. (To me, this is a 100% fireable offense.)

Things that are false/unsupported by any facts or reason:

- There was a school decision to withhold these recognitions intentionally. If this were the case, the principal would not have turned them over to the DSS for distribution.

- Students were harmed in any way by this oversight. “Commended Student” status confers essentially zero realistic benefit to even a well below-average TJ student.

- This matter in any way amounts to an attack on merit. You’d have an argument here if we were talking about Semifinalists, Finalists, or Scholars - but we’re not.

- The existence of a majority-Asian population at TJ makes this matter a racially motivated attack on Asian students and families. If you believe this, you’re monumentally stupid. The people pushing the story don’t believe this - they are trying to get you to vote Republican in School Board elections so that they can defund public schools and replace them with for-profit institutions.

- The principal has anything to do with this issue. She doesn’t. Yes, the DSS is a subordinate, but a matter like this is so simple and insignificant as to not even warrant follow-up.

- TJ students care at all about this designation. They don’t, and for the most part neither do their parents. You’ll notice essentially zero TJ students or alumni who are quoted as having a problem with this.

I would agree that the lack of recognition did not harm TJ students that are top-10 bound. But not all TJ students are HYP bound and have 1550+ SAT scores. Many of them were high achievers in middle school and are interested in STEM, but do not have the credentials to get accepted into a top-10 school . A TJ student with a 4.0 WGPA and no nationally recognized awards would love to have a NMS commendation to add to their college application to UVA, VT, JMU...

One nitpick: a 4.0 WGPA at TJ won’t get you into UVA (or even VT Engineering, for that matter). Most of those kids have at least a 4.3. It’s terrifying to see how college applications work over there.

[Anonymous]

+1 agreed with PP. The threshold for TJ students is so high that Commended isn’t making a difference in these kids’ applications. Even NMF won’t get you through the door in many cases.