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“By half”? Guess you’re not so good with numbers?
Recap of admission #s from 2024 to 2025:
+64 overall
+50 female
+14 male
+46 hispanic +242%
+37 white +26%
+29 black +245%
+8 other/mixed +26%
-56 asian -26%
+142 from underrepresented MSs
-36 private school
And despite that TJ is still over 50% Asian right?
Yup. Headline: Group That Is Over-Represented Threefold Thinks It’s Racist That They’re No Longer Over-Represented Four-Fold
+1 And something must be done about this!
Keep going. This "racial balancing" motivation is what is being questioned by the court. You can have a great outcome but if the process to get there is not constitutional then it does not matter. But keep going. You guys dont care how unfair/unconstitutional a process is as long as it gets your goals.
People have *repeatedly* pointed out that the approach sucked but the outcome is a step in the right direction.
People have *repeatedly* pointed out that ends do not justify the means in any modern democracy. If that does not sink in from a constitutional perspective, let me give you something you can relate to.
Even if you catch a murderer red-handed and dont follow due process like reading the Miranda rights, you will not get the conviction.
There are many on this forum who are on board with increasing diversity at TJ but you have to do it the right way.
What is the right way to increase diversity at TJ?
There are enough ideas that have been thrown around including prior pages on this thread.
A good place to start would be for the School Board to formally apologize for Braband's "pay to play" innuendos and reach out to the impacted communities (Asians as well as the school districts that have been impacted) and try to tap down the adversarial nature of the dialog.
Most people (yes, Asians included) care for diversity and would listen. But all we see is liberal use of innuendos that Asians are cheats and resource hoarders. That does not create an environment where you get any moderate to collaborate. Solutions have been found for many more intractable problems. It needs leadership and we have none of that at FCPS.
So the right way is to do nothing and pretend there is no problem? Oh, and listen, but only if it isn't accompanied by action.
Absolutely, you need action. You need to set reasonable timelines (2 years may be) and reach out to all impacted folks. Given the amount of discussion this "Change" has triggered (including on this board) and the fact that the Supreme Court has taken notice - the inadequacy of the process that Braband and his political cronies conducted is in full view.
Instead of running models that showed racial yields, they could have run models on how schools like Mclean would have been impacted. They could have addressed all of this one go to make change palatable to the impacted parties. You would never get everyone on board but you would show you care. The school board leveraged their 12-0 mandate to take a shot at political glory. And are now entrenched in their position because their careers are on the line and even a minor concession will likely be against their legal strategy. All of us eff-up at work sometimes. I have greater respect for those that own up to it and move on. Not this school board.
+1. If you read the FCPS materials in the litigation, it appears McLean picked up about 30 additional freshmen this year due to the TJ admissions change, which will translate to 120 over four years. Over that same period, they plan to move 190 kids to Langley, so the net effect is to bring the enrollment down by about 70 kids before taking into account the impact of all the new housing getting built in Tysons and West Falls that will feed entirely into McLean and Marshall.
Yet they’ve spent maybe 5-10 hours addressing the overcrowding at McLean over the past several years, and done nothing to plan for the school’s need for a permanent addition, while spending many months obsessing about TJ admissions in the elusive search for “equity” and spending God knows how many hours and dollars on litigation (even with some of the lawyers not charging FCPS).
It’s insane that that they think the community isn’t paying attention to what they obsess about and what they choose to completely ignore. Elaine Tholen, Karl Frisch, and the at-large members like Karen Keys Gamarra should get ready to defend their records, because we are absolutely going to come after them if they try to run again next year. Listening to Keys Gamarra complain last night about the need to listen to the community felt like reliving some of the abuse of the past several years, because she has never listened to Asian families about TJ or McLean families begging for a sensible long-term plan to address the overcrowding at MHS and the growth in the Tysons/McLean area. The one time I was able to bend her ear about it directly she admitted that she didn’t even remember the difference between Langley and McLean - she just treats us all as equally not worthy of her attention.
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