TJ Failure to Notify Letter of Commendation Winners

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bonitatibus needs to be fired over the break. She is anti-Asian and has zero credibility after this latest debacle.

What does race have to do with this? I agree this was a bad decision, but it’s not as though she failed to inform only the Asian students.

The whole "semi finalist" vs "commended" by state thing is discriminatory. Look at what type of students benefit from having lower cut off scores in states like Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia, etc. That system isn't benefitting Asian students.

You mean Asians who live in Montana benefit! OMG OMG This is nuts.

Montana is 1% Asian while Virginia is 7% Asian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wasn’t Asra the TJ PTSA President during this time period?

Why didn’t she work with the TJ Admin to address this when she was in a position of influence? Why hold on to it until 2 days before Christmas and publish to a National audience?

How would she know the information was being withheld?

If, as she claims in the article, it has been going on for YEARS and impacted college admissions, then certainly parents were mentioning it. And she, as the PTSA president, should have advocated for a change.

But, I suspect parents/students don't actually care and recognize that national merit commended means nothing to colleges coming from TJ. Therefore, she is manufacturing a crisis.

[Anonymous]

So it wasn't that they were withheld but apparently weren't distributed for roughly a week and a half after they showed up. OMG, some people are just looking for these problems.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What is "city journal. org?" Never heard of it.

She’s a legit author. Google her and TJ. The article is based on facts if she wrote it.

No, she's a Trumphumper who pushing RWNJ propaganda.

This is not how an intelligent person responds to facts.

The fact is she used to be a legit journalist. Now she’s a Trumphumper who pushes RWNJ propaganda.

I can't stand people who respond to issues with name calling. When you respond to issues with personal attacks like racist, sexist, transphobic, groomer, left-wing, right-wing, maga....it just means you don't have a valid argument to stand on, or you're just incapable of making a valid argument. If you don't agree that the TJ administration is wrong, why don't you explain why rather than tear down the messenger?

I was responding to the inaccurate comment above: “She’s a legit author.”

Whatever credibility she had is long gone. Total Trumphumper.

So...because she supports Trump...her story isn't credible? It seems the TJ administration's response implies the veracity of her reporting. If you disagree with an aspect of her story, you should articulate that. Otherwise, it's just noise. Defining her by the political candidate she supports only means something in your own mind, and not necessarily to others. (I didn't vote for Trump, btw) Imagine if I called you a Bidenhumper? How stupid would I be to say that? It would add nothing to this discussion, other than to show that I'm stupid and inarticulate.

She pushes RWNJ propaganda. Period. She has been pushing Trump and using dubious tactics for years. She abused her position in TJ PTA and has gone to great lengths to push her agenda. She is willing to harm kids for her political agenda. Those are just the facts.

Most intelligent people evaluate their news sources to understand the underlying bias. Her bias and her vulgar actions have destroyed her credibility.

Just because you’re ok with her being a Trumphumper doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t have standards.

I’ve evaluated other news sources and find that the coverage of FCPS by the Post and Hannah Natanson in particular is sporadic at best, and biased when visible. It’s a good thing there are alternative sources when the leading paper in the area has basically allowed itself to function as a PR wing for FCPS and makes little effort to dig deeper or verify the facts.

Doesn’t make Asra the Trumphumper any more credible.

This is offensive, ad hominem, misogynistic name calling which is not appropriate. Hello, moderator?

The question was if she’s a “legit author” as PP claimed. No, she is not credible. That has nothing to do with her gender.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, the TOP students are TJ are NMSF. And Students are compared against their classmates at TJ for college applications, so commended means nothing except to show that you are not in that bottom group of 50-70 kids who are not commended or NMSF.

It’s kinda hilarious to see parents of commended students getting bent out of shape about their child not being thrown a party over this. The parents who are upset are likely also the same parents who prepped their child into TJ and have the pathological need to feel superior to other parents.

According to the article, 240 TJ students were semifinalists or commended. That means there were well over 200 that were neither.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think Asra is unbiased or a good source for facts, but clearly they didn’t notify the Commended Scholars and that’s not acceptable. My DC was Commended in a different FCPS school and it was announced in News You Choose and we received the certificate in the mail. While DC has great grades and SAT scores, Commended was included in the common app and I am sure it contributed to the large merit scholarship that DC was offered with a recent college acceptance. It’s part of DCs academic accomplishments and it’s not acceptable that TJ wouldn’t share this info with the students in a timely manner and with celebration.

Wait. So, are parents really upset that their child was not “celebrated” in a school-wide email?

Or do parents really just want to see who is at the bottom of the class? Ie not NMSF and not Commended?

I think the entire thing is ridiculous. Achieving Commended when you are a TJ student is not anything to jump up and down about. Almost the entire class is one or the other.

It’s the notion that these absurd TJ admins can’t recognize the achievement of some students for fear of hurting the feelings of other students that’s so ridiculous, when the entire reason for TJ’s existence is for those people to look down their noses at other kids.

Time to get rid of this magnet, which is fast becoming a farce.

+100

Just change it to an Academy open to any student.

That would serve more kids and be much better and more consistent with equity goals than the obvious joke that TJ has become, where everyone is asked to pretend that every TJ student is superior to every other FCPS student but they are miraculously all equal to one another.

+1

Time to pivot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wasn’t Asra the TJ PTSA President during this time period?

Why didn’t she work with the TJ Admin to address this when she was in a position of influence? Why hold on to it until 2 days before Christmas and publish to a National audience?

How would she know the information was being withheld?

If, as she claims in the article, it has been going on for YEARS and impacted college admissions, then certainly parents were mentioning it. And she, as the PTSA president, should have advocated for a change.

But, I suspect parents/students don't actually care and recognize that national merit commended means nothing to colleges coming from TJ. Therefore, she is manufacturing a crisis.

Or, most kids check their email account and don’t need to rely on their parents being notified.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, the TOP students are TJ are NMSF. And Students are compared against their classmates at TJ for college applications, so commended means nothing except to show that you are not in that bottom group of 50-70 kids who are not commended or NMSF.

It’s kinda hilarious to see parents of commended students getting bent out of shape about their child not being thrown a party over this. The parents who are upset are likely also the same parents who prepped their child into TJ and have the pathological need to feel superior to other parents.

According to the article, 240 TJ students were semifinalists or commended. That means there were well over 200 that were neither.

That cannot be accurate and shows that Asra is full of it.

If her statement in the article was correct, would mean that there were 132 NMSF, 108 commended and 210 students who scored below the 207 cutoff in the class of 2023. (Which does not make sense given the average SAT score of 1510 the schools.) https://tjhsst.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/inline-files/TJ%20Profile%202020-21.pdf

And she would trying to argue that NMSF were not notified? The names of the students who achieve NMSF are published widely.

No, this is a clearly wrong. And makes me wonder what else she says that is incorrect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think Asra is unbiased or a good source for facts, but clearly they didn’t notify the Commended Scholars and that’s not acceptable. My DC was Commended in a different FCPS school and it was announced in News You Choose and we received the certificate in the mail. While DC has great grades and SAT scores, Commended was included in the common app and I am sure it contributed to the large merit scholarship that DC was offered with a recent college acceptance. It’s part of DCs academic accomplishments and it’s not acceptable that TJ wouldn’t share this info with the students in a timely manner and with celebration.

Wait. So, are parents really upset that their child was not “celebrated” in a school-wide email?

Or do parents really just want to see who is at the bottom of the class? Ie not NMSF and not Commended?

I think the entire thing is ridiculous. Achieving Commended when you are a TJ student is not anything to jump up and down about. Almost the entire class is one or the other.

It’s the notion that these absurd TJ admins can’t recognize the achievement of some students for fear of hurting the feelings of other students that’s so ridiculous, when the entire reason for TJ’s existence is for those people to look down their noses at other kids.

Time to get rid of this magnet, which is fast becoming a farce.

Or maybe being commended at TJ should not be an “achievement”.

The crazy TJ parents cannot have it both ways. They screamed for months that their kids were so special that they NEEDED TJ in order to get a proper education. Well, the classes of 2023 and 2024 were both admitted under the old system. If they truly believe in meritocracy, they should be fine with their “commended” children taking a back seat to their peers who achieved NMSF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wasn’t Asra the TJ PTSA President during this time period?

Why didn’t she work with the TJ Admin to address this when she was in a position of influence? Why hold on to it until 2 days before Christmas and publish to a National audience?

How would she know the information was being withheld?

If, as she claims in the article, it has been going on for YEARS and impacted college admissions, then certainly parents were mentioning it. And she, as the PTSA president, should have advocated for a change.

But, I suspect parents/students don't actually care and recognize that national merit commended means nothing to colleges coming from TJ. Therefore, she is manufacturing a crisis.

Or, most kids check their email account and don’t need to rely on their parents being notified.

+1

The kids were notified. If they cannot manage to check their email and inform their parents, I’m not sure why this merits a national media campaign.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, the TOP students are TJ are NMSF. And Students are compared against their classmates at TJ for college applications, so commended means nothing except to show that you are not in that bottom group of 50-70 kids who are not commended or NMSF.

It’s kinda hilarious to see parents of commended students getting bent out of shape about their child not being thrown a party over this. The parents who are upset are likely also the same parents who prepped their child into TJ and have the pathological need to feel superior to other parents.

According to the article, 240 TJ students were semifinalists or commended. That means there were well over 200 that were neither.

That cannot be accurate and shows that Asra is full of it.

If her statement in the article was correct, would mean that there were 132 NMSF, 108 commended and 210 students who scored below the 207 cutoff in the class of 2023. (Which does not make sense given the average SAT score of 1510 the schools.) https://tjhsst.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/inline-files/TJ%20Profile%202020-21.pdf

And she would trying to argue that NMSF were not notified? The names of the students who achieve NMSF are published widely.

No, this is a clearly wrong. And makes me wonder what else she says that is incorrect.

The article states clearly that 240 students in the Class of 2023 were commended, and FCPS has previously disclosed that 132 TJ students from the Class of 2023 were Semifinalists.

So that means that 87 students out of the Class of 2023, which has 459 students, were neither Semifinalists nor Commended (about 19%).

So Nomani is taking issue with the administration's decision not to notify or notify promptly the 52% of students who were commended out of a concern that the 19% who were neither Semifinalists nor Commended would have hurt feelings.

At the end of the day, I tend to agree with her that this wasn't the administration's decision to make. The NMSC relied on the school administrators to notify students, and they didn't live up to their end of the bargain. Some here are claiming that the students figure out the cutoffs on their own, and knew where they stood, but in that case the feelings of those who weren't recognized were going to be hurt either way. Better for the administration to be transparent and honor their understanding with the NMSC than sit on information.

Most likely Nomani is calling attention to this now because the administration's impulses to try and proclaim that everyone at TJ is "equal" would otherwise just increase as more TJ students are admitted under the new system. It will be a couple more years before we'll know how the Class of 2025 fares, but there's every reason to think the percentage of students who aren't Semifinalists or Commended will go up. Would they try to squelch that information as well?

If TJ is going to remain elite, it needs to be transparent. If you really think TJ is a school for those with the most STEM aptitude, then there should be no shame in being in the bottom 20% of TJ students on one test, as there are undoubtedly other opportunities to excel. But if the county's residents who are paying for TJ are being asked to indulge in the fiction that TJ students are still the best and the brightest in the county, yet somehow magically equal to one another, it may just be time to pull the plug on TJ in its current incarnation and replace it with an academy program that could serve more students and without the constant drama and shenanigans.

[Anonymous]

My child at a regular FCPS school was emailed by the school counselor about their commended score. It was really no big deal and they even wondered if it should be listed in the common app awards as there is limited space and they had other more significant (to them) achievements. They also scored high on the SAT so the commended award seemed less significant. Maybe if they were in the shoes of these other students I’d see it differently.

[Anonymous]

Here's another article as word gets out and this is covered in additional publications: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/top-u-s-high-school-deprived-students-of-national-merit-awards-as-part-of-equity-policy/

It's time for FCPS to be taking up some immediate personnel changes at TJHSST.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it wasn't that they were withheld but apparently weren't distributed for roughly a week and a half after they showed up. OMG, some people are just looking for these problems.

Yes, it's just some crazy histrionics over spilled milk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it wasn't that they were withheld but apparently weren't distributed for roughly a week and a half after they showed up. OMG, some people are just looking for these problems.

Yes, it's just some crazy histrionics over spilled milk.

Not entirely. the far-right extremists are trying to turn this molehill into something to effect changes in the hopes of rolling back the clock to when they could easily game admissions and limit low-income students at TJ.