TJ Science and Engineering Fair Results

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Wait. I thought teachers were judges? I don’t believe the winners were predetermined.

Parent judge here. Few teachers were there but only for students who only had one judge. A couple parent judges were interested in the projects. However, it's possible, and to be frank likely, that parents were colluding.

So parent cannot vote for their DC but form alliance with other judges to vote for alliance DC and vice versa?

I find this highly unlikely. Cheating is one thing but conspiracies are extremely difficult to maintain over any period of time.

These are TJ parents. Their children cheat and they cheat as well. It’s not l “difficult” to maintain a WhatsApp group chat. I don’t think you have any idea of what you’re talking about.

This is much, much less true than it was a decade ago.

Which part is less true? The students or the parents cheating? Because student cheating continues to get worse and worse.

You're going to need to show your work on that one.

Are you serious? Ask any other TJ teacher or even any student. Especially with AI, students are cheating now more than ever. Students are literally taking pictures of tests or even stealing them from classrooms and then sharing them on various Discord groups. There is a reason why teachers have to keep creating new tests every year and creating several versions of every test. We wish cheating wasn't an issue. Would make our lives a lot easier.

I mean, using AI and cell phones to cheat in high school is not a problem that's unique to TJ.

I agree. I was arguing that cheating is worse than it has ever been in general. It is a major issue at TJ though.

[Anonymous]

Is this required entry into the Regional Science Fair?

[Anonymous]

I believe this happened because it's happened before. There are kids who cheat and where do you think they learned it from? Disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And this comes as a surprise to anyone?

+10.

[Anonymous]

Daymmmn! That's crazy but as a fellow TJ parent I would totally believe it. My kid absolutely refused to participate in this stuff and I guess I now know why!

Cheating is totally a widespread issue to the point that teachers even accuse kids that aren't cheating of cheating. It totally erodes the trust of the entire community.

Frankly, of the stuff I hear, the kids are quite creative regarding the variety of methods to cheat.

What boggles my mind is some teachers don't change the tests. Like what? Are you that lazy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What boggles my mind is some teachers don't change the tests. Like what? Are you that lazy?

As if teachers don't have enough to do, they are apparently lazy if they don't change their tests every single year or make multiple versions of each test. That's the problem. Not the students cheating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Daymmmn! That's crazy but as a fellow TJ parent I would totally believe it. My kid absolutely refused to participate in this stuff and I guess I now know why!

Cheating is totally a widespread issue to the point that teachers even accuse kids that aren't cheating of cheating. It totally erodes the trust of the entire community.

Frankly, of the stuff I hear, the kids are quite creative regarding the variety of methods to cheat.

What boggles my mind is some teachers don't change the tests. Like what? Are you that lazy?

Test scores rise throughout the school day. The afternoon classes do better on exams than morning classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this required entry into the Regional Science Fair?

Yes, and all the way up to International. This affects a lot of kids college applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this required entry into the Regional Science Fair?

Yes, and all the way up to International. This affects a lot of kids college applications.

This is news. Then how come an event of such significance can have this level of irregularities (as alleged here anyway)??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What boggles my mind is some teachers don't change the tests. Like what? Are you that lazy?

As if teachers don't have enough to do, they are apparently lazy if they don't change their tests every single year or make multiple versions of each test. That's the problem. Not the students cheating.

There is a number of reasons its problematic, but this was standard practice at my HYPSM to make sure tests were unique.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this required entry into the Regional Science Fair?

Yes, and all the way up to International. This affects a lot of kids college applications.

This is news. Then how come an event of such significance can have this level of irregularities (as alleged here anyway)??

The complete disregard of merit. The parents who contacted the PTSA detailing this were redirected to the school administration. Not only are Mukai and Science Fair Director(s) at fault here for not properly monitoring or investigating such issues, but some of the parents are notorious. Not to mention, those parents are also mainly influenced by their own students for their personal interest above the scientific mission.

[Anonymous]

This is deeply disappointing. Parents of kids at TJ should not be allowed to be judges.

[Anonymous]

Our high school doesn’t have judges.

[Anonymous]

TJ students know that there are cheating circles among their peers— it’s much more coordinated than you could imagine. Admin does nothing; FCPS as a system does not care at all. The problem extends deeply and the honest kids feel absolutely powerless to do anything about it. Yes there are honest, ethical kids at TJ but they largely avoid all the competition teams (where kids cheat on tryout tests to make the teams) and the honest kids avoid all the science fair type stuff for the same reasons. They know it is rigged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TJ students know that there are cheating circles among their peers— it’s much more coordinated than you could imagine. Admin does nothing; FCPS as a system does not care at all. The problem extends deeply and the honest kids feel absolutely powerless to do anything about it. Yes there are honest, ethical kids at TJ but they largely avoid all the competition teams (where kids cheat on tryout tests to make the teams) and the honest kids avoid all the science fair type stuff for the same reasons. They know it is rigged.

This needs to be addressed immediately. It's not right that the most prestigious science fair is so mismanaged at the most prestigious STEM high school in the country. Parents should sign a petition.