TJ Commended Student Emails Released - Who is really responsible?

[Anonymous]

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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.

They are intent on burning it all down. Democracy, laws, education, even facts.

Democrats in FCPS are hypocrites when it comes to equity or basic fairness, but sincere when it comes to hating on merit.

You’re just pissed it’s finally catching up to them and many are vulnerable this fall.

The certificates were just delayed. This has nothing to do with “equity” or “merit”.

Faux outrage to push your politics. Abusing these kids to push your politics. Disgusting.

Don’t think Dr. Reid would be running around from school to school to meet with parents, or requiring principals to send notes to parents and pledge to contact colleges and universities, if this was just about delays, but keep trying to spin. Hilarious.

Certificates for commended students were delayed.

Some number of clueless students who strangely weren’t aware of their NM status *and* who happened to have ED applications for 11/1 *and* who had space for academic awards may have been impacted. But TJ already reached out to relevant colleges.

Didn’t affect scholarships.

It’s certainly not worthy of a state investigation FFS.

Faux outrage to push your politics. You continue to abuse these poor kids to push your politics. Disgusting.

Calling any commended kids “clueless” is on par with the TJAAG crowd’s approach of denigrating generally kids who were in the top 3% but not top 1% of PSAT test takers.

It’s amazing how you folks could be so elitist yet ostensibly so committed to equity at the same time. You are lacking in both common sense and political acumen, and hopefully it will come back and bite you all in the ass this fall.

Only those kids who didn't already know their status would be clueless. These are bright kids - how many do you think actually weren't aware? How many of those had 11/1 ED applications? How many of those still had room for academic awards? The actual impact of this error is infinitesimal.

It's clear that you continue to push this faux outrage, at the expense of TJ kids, to push your politics. Disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, the issue is not whether the school administrators think there is value to being a NM Commended Student. That is not their role. The students earned that distinction the day they took their PSATs and the scores and cutoffs were established. The school’s only role is to distribute the letters to the students and let the student decide whether there is value in adding that award to their college and scholarship applications.

You may believe that it is a waste of resources for the state to investigate the handling of these commendations because you feel they are trivial. But what happens when the school withholds awards or information about your student because it is deemed trivial before the student (or you) have the opportunity to even see it? What happens if the administrator making the call doesn’t happen to share your worldview and values?

TJ did distribute the certificates. They just did it a little too slowly for any possible ED applications (for the rare kids who didn't already know their status).

Won't the kid be able to see their commended status on collegeboard and thus include that in their ED application regardless of whether or not someone told them they were commended? Based on my kid's recent PSAT score (he's in 11th grade), we already know he is/will be commended and intend to include that in the common app. At a school like TJ, everyone is hyper aware of these things and I'd be surprised if some kid is waiting for a certificate to confirm his status..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, the issue is not whether the school administrators think there is value to being a NM Commended Student. That is not their role. The students earned that distinction the day they took their PSATs and the scores and cutoffs were established. The school’s only role is to distribute the letters to the students and let the student decide whether there is value in adding that award to their college and scholarship applications.

You may believe that it is a waste of resources for the state to investigate the handling of these commendations because you feel they are trivial. But what happens when the school withholds awards or information about your student because it is deemed trivial before the student (or you) have the opportunity to even see it? What happens if the administrator making the call doesn’t happen to share your worldview and values?

TJ did distribute the certificates. They just did it a little too slowly for any possible ED applications (for the rare kids who didn't already know their status).

Won't the kid be able to see their commended status on collegeboard and thus include that in their ED application regardless of whether or not someone told them they were commended? Based on my kid's recent PSAT score (he's in 11th grade), we already know he is/will be commended and intend to include that in the common app. At a school like TJ, everyone is hyper aware of these things and I'd be surprised if some kid is waiting for a certificate to confirm his status..

It’s pretty easy to tell from the scores like you did, though maybe some people were waiting for more official confirmation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, the issue is not whether the school administrators think there is value to being a NM Commended Student. That is not their role. The students earned that distinction the day they took their PSATs and the scores and cutoffs were established. The school’s only role is to distribute the letters to the students and let the student decide whether there is value in adding that award to their college and scholarship applications.

You may believe that it is a waste of resources for the state to investigate the handling of these commendations because you feel they are trivial. But what happens when the school withholds awards or information about your student because it is deemed trivial before the student (or you) have the opportunity to even see it? What happens if the administrator making the call doesn’t happen to share your worldview and values?

TJ did distribute the certificates. They just did it a little too slowly for any possible ED applications (for the rare kids who didn't already know their status).

Won't the kid be able to see their commended status on collegeboard and thus include that in their ED application regardless of whether or not someone told them they were commended? Based on my kid's recent PSAT score (he's in 11th grade), we already know he is/will be commended and intend to include that in the common app. At a school like TJ, everyone is hyper aware of these things and I'd be surprised if some kid is waiting for a certificate to confirm his status..

Exactly. These are bright, engaged kids. How many kids did this actually impact - any?

It's all faux outrage to push politics at the expense of TJ kids. Disgusting Republicans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, the issue is not whether the school administrators think there is value to being a NM Commended Student. That is not their role. The students earned that distinction the day they took their PSATs and the scores and cutoffs were established. The school’s only role is to distribute the letters to the students and let the student decide whether there is value in adding that award to their college and scholarship applications.

You may believe that it is a waste of resources for the state to investigate the handling of these commendations because you feel they are trivial. But what happens when the school withholds awards or information about your student because it is deemed trivial before the student (or you) have the opportunity to even see it? What happens if the administrator making the call doesn’t happen to share your worldview and values?

TJ did distribute the certificates. They just did it a little too slowly for any possible ED applications (for the rare kids who didn't already know their status).

Won't the kid be able to see their commended status on collegeboard and thus include that in their ED application regardless of whether or not someone told them they were commended? Based on my kid's recent PSAT score (he's in 11th grade), we already know he is/will be commended and intend to include that in the common app. At a school like TJ, everyone is hyper aware of these things and I'd be surprised if some kid is waiting for a certificate to confirm his status..

Exactly. These are bright, engaged kids. How many kids did this actually impact - any?

It's all faux outrage to push politics at the expense of TJ kids. Disgusting Republicans.

My guess is very few — there’s probably the rare kid who didn’t go look it up and was expecting to find out from the certificate, but the vast majority have likely known since December 2021.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have twin seniors and knew for months before this unfortunate series of events happened that they were commended. Why? Because I looked up the index and then checked their scores to compare. It took maybe 5 minutes. If this is SO important to list college apps (which it's not, it's not that big of an award IMO), it's on the College Board and parents/families to figure it out. My kids turned in apps before their school (not TJ) let us know they'd been commended and were able to note they were Commended on them because we took it on ourselves to find the info. I'm sure many others did the same.

+1 Of course these parents knew the kids were commended. It's why they wanted a ceremony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, the issue is not whether the school administrators think there is value to being a NM Commended Student. That is not their role. The students earned that distinction the day they took their PSATs and the scores and cutoffs were established. The school’s only role is to distribute the letters to the students and let the student decide whether there is value in adding that award to their college and scholarship applications.

You may believe that it is a waste of resources for the state to investigate the handling of these commendations because you feel they are trivial. But what happens when the school withholds awards or information about your student because it is deemed trivial before the student (or you) have the opportunity to even see it? What happens if the administrator making the call doesn’t happen to share your worldview and values?

TJ did distribute the certificates. They just did it a little too slowly for any possible ED applications (for the rare kids who didn't already know their status).

Won't the kid be able to see their commended status on collegeboard and thus include that in their ED application regardless of whether or not someone told them they were commended? Based on my kid's recent PSAT score (he's in 11th grade), we already know he is/will be commended and intend to include that in the common app. At a school like TJ, everyone is hyper aware of these things and I'd be surprised if some kid is waiting for a certificate to confirm his status..

Exactly. These are bright, engaged kids. How many kids did this actually impact - any?

It's all faux outrage to push politics at the expense of TJ kids. Disgusting Republicans.

Of course but this is about finding a reason to gin up faux outrage to affect far-right political agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, the issue is not whether the school administrators think there is value to being a NM Commended Student. That is not their role. The students earned that distinction the day they took their PSATs and the scores and cutoffs were established. The school’s only role is to distribute the letters to the students and let the student decide whether there is value in adding that award to their college and scholarship applications.

You may believe that it is a waste of resources for the state to investigate the handling of these commendations because you feel they are trivial. But what happens when the school withholds awards or information about your student because it is deemed trivial before the student (or you) have the opportunity to even see it? What happens if the administrator making the call doesn’t happen to share your worldview and values?

TJ did distribute the certificates. They just did it a little too slowly for any possible ED applications (for the rare kids who didn't already know their status).

So this is a big far-right conspiracy, nothing burger. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, the issue is not whether the school administrators think there is value to being a NM Commended Student. That is not their role. The students earned that distinction the day they took their PSATs and the scores and cutoffs were established. The school’s only role is to distribute the letters to the students and let the student decide whether there is value in adding that award to their college and scholarship applications.

You may believe that it is a waste of resources for the state to investigate the handling of these commendations because you feel they are trivial. But what happens when the school withholds awards or information about your student because it is deemed trivial before the student (or you) have the opportunity to even see it? What happens if the administrator making the call doesn’t happen to share your worldview and values?

TJ did distribute the certificates. They just did it a little too slowly for any possible ED applications (for the rare kids who didn't already know their status).

So this is a big far-right conspiracy, nothing burger. Got it.

Pretty much, yeah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, the issue is not whether the school administrators think there is value to being a NM Commended Student. That is not their role. The students earned that distinction the day they took their PSATs and the scores and cutoffs were established. The school’s only role is to distribute the letters to the students and let the student decide whether there is value in adding that award to their college and scholarship applications.

You may believe that it is a waste of resources for the state to investigate the handling of these commendations because you feel they are trivial. But what happens when the school withholds awards or information about your student because it is deemed trivial before the student (or you) have the opportunity to even see it? What happens if the administrator making the call doesn’t happen to share your worldview and values?

TJ did distribute the certificates. They just did it a little too slowly for any possible ED applications (for the rare kids who didn't already know their status).

Won't the kid be able to see their commended status on collegeboard and thus include that in their ED application regardless of whether or not someone told them they were commended? Based on my kid's recent PSAT score (he's in 11th grade), we already know he is/will be commended and intend to include that in the common app. At a school like TJ, everyone is hyper aware of these things and I'd be surprised if some kid is waiting for a certificate to confirm his status..

Exactly. These are bright, engaged kids. How many kids did this actually impact - any?

It's all faux outrage to push politics at the expense of TJ kids. Disgusting Republicans.

Ok - TJ parents and kids might be hyperware, but what about Westfield HS now. 64.7% minority enrollment and 31% FARM. Think everyone at Westfield is hyper aware?

Again - the school had a job to do. Pass out letters. No dog in the fight about ceremonies, etc, but they should have passed out the letters in a timely fashion. That was there job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:'Just like at TJHSST, the new revelations appear to impact many Asian American students – one focus of the investigation.'

https://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/area-principals-admit-to-withholding-national-merit-awards-from-students/article_2e5ed028-8f01-11ed-997c-37c69ccfb584.html

This whole bruhaha makes no sense. Kids got the certificates for a minor award a week late, so what's the big deal? College apps aren't due for months; even if someone felt this was necessary to mention on an ED, they can update their app online after the due date. There was 0 harm here, so I don't see the problem, but this is more about creating issues for TJ as payback for making the admissions process fair by eliminating the widespread cheating that allowed wealthy parents to game admissions.

This is part of the motivation - the greater point is to gin up Asian-American voters to act against their self-interest and vote for Republicans for School Board, who will then proceed to defund public education and funnel tax dollars to for-profit schools under the guise of "school choice".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:'Just like at TJHSST, the new revelations appear to impact many Asian American students – one focus of the investigation.'

https://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/area-principals-admit-to-withholding-national-merit-awards-from-students/article_2e5ed028-8f01-11ed-997c-37c69ccfb584.html

This whole bruhaha makes no sense. Kids got the certificates for a minor award a week late, so what's the big deal? College apps aren't due for months; even if someone felt this was necessary to mention on an ED, they can update their app online after the due date. There was 0 harm here, so I don't see the problem, but this is more about creating issues for TJ as payback for making the admissions process fair by eliminating the widespread cheating that allowed wealthy parents to game admissions.

Part of Yashar’s complaint was that some schools (she mentioned UMD, Michigan, and UIUC specifically) don’t have places to update the admissions committee with this information. However, Kosatka took care of that, so that’s solved in this specific instance.

And realistically, none of those schools are interested in Commended Student status. It's not a help for any of those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

So then he didn't want to protect the feelings then? It was just an excuse for forgetting? Make up your mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing is, the issue is not whether the school administrators think there is value to being a NM Commended Student. That is not their role. The students earned that distinction the day they took their PSATs and the scores and cutoffs were established. The school’s only role is to distribute the letters to the students and let the student decide whether there is value in adding that award to their college and scholarship applications.

You may believe that it is a waste of resources for the state to investigate the handling of these commendations because you feel they are trivial. But what happens when the school withholds awards or information about your student because it is deemed trivial before the student (or you) have the opportunity to even see it? What happens if the administrator making the call doesn’t happen to share your worldview and values?

TJ did distribute the certificates. They just did it a little too slowly for any possible ED applications (for the rare kids who didn't already know their status).

Won't the kid be able to see their commended status on collegeboard and thus include that in their ED application regardless of whether or not someone told them they were commended? Based on my kid's recent PSAT score (he's in 11th grade), we already know he is/will be commended and intend to include that in the common app. At a school like TJ, everyone is hyper aware of these things and I'd be surprised if some kid is waiting for a certificate to confirm his status..

Exactly. These are bright, engaged kids. How many kids did this actually impact - any?

It's all faux outrage to push politics at the expense of TJ kids. Disgusting Republicans.

Ok - TJ parents and kids might be hyperware, but what about Westfield HS now. 64.7% minority enrollment and 31% FARM. Think everyone at Westfield is hyper aware?

Again - the school had a job to do. Pass out letters. No dog in the fight about ceremonies, etc, but they should have passed out the letters in a timely fashion. That was there job.

Everyone agrees about this for the most part. It's not up for discussion. What is up for discussion is whether or not this should be viewed as a big deal - and it shouldn't.

The worst part about all of this by far is the fact that the DSS straight-up lied to a parent and gave this disinformation machine more ammunition to use in their BS "War on Merit" narrative - without him trying to cover his rear end with that nonsense, this is even more of a non-story.