“Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts. “
Langley, McLean and Chantilly pyramids didn’t send the overwhelming majority of FCPS kids picked for TJ prior to the change??
Nope. He (perhaps...you? Although the above is more in Glenn's voice than Harry's):
"- made fun of an autistic kid performing the national anthem at a School Board meeting, claiming he didn't know the kid was autistic as if that would have made it any better;"
Valid criticism. He didn't know. The performance interrupted the live stream and no one knew what was going on or why that performance was being played.
- got caught red-handed creating a Twitter profile for a dead toddler and tweeted at his mom on the anniversary of his death;
This is a bald-faced lie. Do you have ANY evidence that he ever did this or is this merely a projection of your unconstrained rage towards a person who is a minority not toeing to Marxist ideology?
- falsely accused a TJ alum of "grooming" while colluding with a guy who has been banned from TJ's campus to invite high school students to private chatrooms for "unfiltered discussion"
I don't think so. Google 'Jorge Torrico AND Pedophile' and the search results are interesting. Keep in mind, Jorge came after Harry and he only defended himself in the court of law.
Nope. He (perhaps...you? Although the above is more in Glenn's voice than Harry's):
"- made fun of an autistic kid performing the national anthem at a School Board meeting, claiming he didn't know the kid was autistic as if that would have made it any better;"
Valid criticism. He didn't know. The performance interrupted the live stream and no one knew what was going on or why that performance was being played.
- got caught red-handed creating a Twitter profile for a dead toddler and tweeted at his mom on the anniversary of his death;
This is a bald-faced lie. Do you have ANY evidence that he ever did this or is this merely a projection of your unconstrained rage towards a person who is a minority not toeing to Marxist ideology?
- falsely accused a TJ alum of "grooming" while colluding with a guy who has been banned from TJ's campus to invite high school students to private chatrooms for "unfiltered discussion"
I don't think so. Google 'Jorge Torrico AND Pedophile' and the search results are interesting. Keep in mind, Jorge came after Harry and he only defended himself in the court of law.
Nope. He (perhaps...you? Although the above is more in Glenn's voice than Harry's):
"- made fun of an autistic kid performing the national anthem at a School Board meeting, claiming he didn't know the kid was autistic as if that would have made it any better;"
Valid criticism. He didn't know. The performance interrupted the live stream and no one knew what was going on or why that performance was being played.
- got caught red-handed creating a Twitter profile for a dead toddler and tweeted at his mom on the anniversary of his death;
This is a bald-faced lie. Do you have ANY evidence that he ever did this or is this merely a projection of your unconstrained rage towards a person who is a minority not toeing to Marxist ideology?
- falsely accused a TJ alum of "grooming" while colluding with a guy who has been banned from TJ's campus to invite high school students to private chatrooms for "unfiltered discussion"
I don't think so. Google 'Jorge Torrico AND Pedophile' and the search results are interesting. Keep in mind, Jorge came after Harry and he only defended himself in the court of law.
Nope. He (perhaps...you? Although the above is more in Glenn's voice than Harry's):
"- made fun of an autistic kid performing the national anthem at a School Board meeting, claiming he didn't know the kid was autistic as if that would have made it any better;"
Valid criticism. He didn't know. The performance interrupted the live stream and no one knew what was going on or why that performance was being played.
- got caught red-handed creating a Twitter profile for a dead toddler and tweeted at his mom on the anniversary of his death;
This is a bald-faced lie. Do you have ANY evidence that he ever did this or is this merely a projection of your unconstrained rage towards a person who is a minority not toeing to Marxist ideology?
- falsely accused a TJ alum of "grooming" while colluding with a guy who has been banned from TJ's campus to invite high school students to private chatrooms for "unfiltered discussion"
I don't think so. Google 'Jorge Torrico AND Pedophile' and the search results are interesting. Keep in mind, Jorge came after Harry and he only defended himself in the court of law.
It was only 1 of the 72 media outlets that covered it.
It happened to be one of the two, along with headlineuse (another reputable source) that pp cited
If they printed falsehoods, they could be sued for libel and forced to retract their stories, which would have likely happened by now if that was the case.
Anonymous wrote:“Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts. “
Langley, McLean and Chantilly pyramids didn’t send the overwhelming majority of FCPS kids picked for TJ prior to the change??
Correct. Those three pyramids did not account for a majority, much less an "overwhelming majority," of the FCPS kids admitted to TJ prior to the Class of 2025.
In addition, in some years prior to the Class of 2025, the Oakton pyramid sent more kids to TJ than the Langley, McLean, or Chantilly pyramids.
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.
That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.
The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.
It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.
True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.
A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.
This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.
There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.
But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.
Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.
Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.
Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.
But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.
It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.
Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.
It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.
I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.
The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.
It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.
We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.
No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.
Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.
If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.
Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.
It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).
It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.
Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.
Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.
DP. You are grasping at straws here.
So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.
They're winning on this one.
No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.
The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.
The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.
The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.
Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.
This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.
The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.
That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.
So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.
There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.
Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.
It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.
U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.
In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.
1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.
2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.
There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.
Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.
To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.
Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.
There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.
If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.
Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem
Another lie. There have always been kids in the southern and eastern parts of the county at TJ, although the quota system boosts their numbers.
Otherwise, you're just confirming that the TJ admissions changes were done for political rather than pedagogical reasons. TJ is nowbasically a spoils system - a benefit to be allocated across pyramids like pork-barrel projects in a Senate appropriation bill - and no longer a school intended to serve the students with the most STEM aptitude and achievements.
However, given how few county students overall attend or benefit from TJ, it's fanciful to suggest voters from, say, the Mason and Mount Vernon districts, are going to turn out in droves to support Democratic candidates because there are now 13 kids from Glasgow in a freshman class at TJ rather than 3 or 4. The overwhelming majority of students will still be at other schools, some of which are struggling mightily yet largely ignored.
There have never been kids from the Lee or south county districts in any significant numbers prior to the change and it isn't fanciful to suggest that an area that generally feels ignored and neglected by county government (come out to any of our public hearings, and that is usually the main complaint) will vote for representatives who are doing something for the kids living in their district.
South County pyramid checking in: there’s no way in hell FCPS cares about this place. The schools are practically in free-fall over here while the district is fighting in court about this TJ BS.
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.
That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.
The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.
It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.
True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.
A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.
This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.
There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.
But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.
Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.
Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.
Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.
But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.
It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.
Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.
It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.
I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.
The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.
It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.
We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.
No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.
Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.
If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.
Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.
It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).
It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.
Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.
Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.
DP. You are grasping at straws here.
So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.
They're winning on this one.
No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.
The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.
The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.
The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.
Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.
This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.
The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.
That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.
So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.
There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.
Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.
It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.
U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.
In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.
1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.
2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.
There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.
Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.
To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.
Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.
There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.
If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.
Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem
Another lie. There have always been kids in the southern and eastern parts of the county at TJ, although the quota system boosts their numbers.
Otherwise, you're just confirming that the TJ admissions changes were done for political rather than pedagogical reasons. TJ is nowbasically a spoils system - a benefit to be allocated across pyramids like pork-barrel projects in a Senate appropriation bill - and no longer a school intended to serve the students with the most STEM aptitude and achievements.
However, given how few county students overall attend or benefit from TJ, it's fanciful to suggest voters from, say, the Mason and Mount Vernon districts, are going to turn out in droves to support Democratic candidates because there are now 13 kids from Glasgow in a freshman class at TJ rather than 3 or 4. The overwhelming majority of students will still be at other schools, some of which are struggling mightily yet largely ignored.
There have never been kids from the Lee or south county districts in any significant numbers prior to the change and it isn't fanciful to suggest that an area that generally feels ignored and neglected by county government (come out to any of our public hearings, and that is usually the main complaint) will vote for representatives who are doing something for the kids living in their district.
South County pyramid checking in: there’s no way in hell FCPS cares about this place. The schools are practically in free-fall over here while the district is fighting in court about this TJ BS.
In what way are schools in the South County pyramid in free fall? Genuinely curious. If nothing else both the MS and HS are relatively new and neither is overcrowded. Academics? Discipline?
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.
That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.
The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.
It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.
True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.
A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.
This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.
There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.
But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.
Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.
Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.
Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.
But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.
It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.
Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.
It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.
I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.
The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.
It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.
We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.
No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.
Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.
If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.
Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.
It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).
It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.
Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.
Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.
DP. You are grasping at straws here.
So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.
They're winning on this one.
No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.
The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.
The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.
The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.
Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.
This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.
The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.
That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.
So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.
There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.
Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.
It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.
U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.
In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.
1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.
2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.
There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.
Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.
To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.
Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.
There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.
If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.
Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem
Another lie. There have always been kids in the southern and eastern parts of the county at TJ, although the quota system boosts their numbers.
Otherwise, you're just confirming that the TJ admissions changes were done for political rather than pedagogical reasons. TJ is nowbasically a spoils system - a benefit to be allocated across pyramids like pork-barrel projects in a Senate appropriation bill - and no longer a school intended to serve the students with the most STEM aptitude and achievements.
However, given how few county students overall attend or benefit from TJ, it's fanciful to suggest voters from, say, the Mason and Mount Vernon districts, are going to turn out in droves to support Democratic candidates because there are now 13 kids from Glasgow in a freshman class at TJ rather than 3 or 4. The overwhelming majority of students will still be at other schools, some of which are struggling mightily yet largely ignored.
There have never been kids from the Lee or south county districts in any significant numbers prior to the change and it isn't fanciful to suggest that an area that generally feels ignored and neglected by county government (come out to any of our public hearings, and that is usually the main complaint) will vote for representatives who are doing something for the kids living in their district.
South County pyramid checking in: there’s no way in hell FCPS cares about this place. The schools are practically in free-fall over here while the district is fighting in court about this TJ BS.
In what way are schools in the South County pyramid in free fall? Genuinely curious. If nothing else both the MS and HS are relatively new and neither is overcrowded. Academics? Discipline?
Combination of both, honestly. The middle school's curricular offerings are so-so and have gotten worse and there are almost no extracurricular offerings (there's MathCounts... Science Olympiad shut down during the pandemic, nothing else was offered to begin with). Can't speak as much about the high school since I don't have kids there, but I know DC in MS and their friends can no longer come to the football games without an adult because of safety issues (weapons, I think? something like that). Plus, like mentioned previously, FCPS doesn't really care about this place. It kind of feels like they just built the schools and walked away.
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.
That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.
The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.
It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.
True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.
A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.
This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.
There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.
But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.
Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.
Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.
Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.
But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.
It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.
Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.
It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.
I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.
The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.
It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.
We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.
No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.
Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.
If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.
Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.
It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).
It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.
Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.
Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.
DP. You are grasping at straws here.
So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.
They're winning on this one.
No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.
The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.
The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.
The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.
Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.
This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.
Exactly what is far-right about investigating why and how any high school could possible fail for years to provide the notification of commended National Merit Status on a timely basis? TJ is a VA governors school managed by FCPS. Located in Fairfax County VA. Notofication of that status anywhere in the USA has been provided for decades - even before the availability of digital communication. Standard operating procedure. Robinson press release with names for Merit semi-finalists, commended, AA, Hispanic. https://robinsonss.fcps.edu/features/national-merit-breakfast-recognition
So somehow FCPS thinks TJ should operate differently than any other school funded by local, state tax dollars? FCPS already operates facilities divergent from state law.
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.
That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.
The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.
It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.
True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.
A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.
This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.
There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.
But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.
Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.
Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.
Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.
But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.
It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.
Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.
It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.
I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.
The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.
It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.
We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.
No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.
Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.
If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.
Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.
It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).
It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.
Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.
Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.
DP. You are grasping at straws here.
So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.
They're winning on this one.
No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.
The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.
The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.
The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.
Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.
This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.
Exactly what is far-right about investigating why and how any high school could possible fail for years to provide the notification of commended National Merit Status on a timely basis? TJ is a VA governors school managed by FCPS. Located in Fairfax County VA. Notofication of that status anywhere in the USA has been provided for decades - even before the availability of digital communication. Standard operating procedure. Robinson press release with names for Merit semi-finalists, commended, AA, Hispanic. https://robinsonss.fcps.edu/features/national-merit-breakfast-recognition
So somehow FCPS thinks TJ should operate differently than any other school funded by local, state tax dollars? FCPS already operates facilities divergent from state law.
They DO notify the kids that got commended each year. The issue is imply that this time someone accidentally messed up by forgetting to hand them out right away when they came in. The fact that the college board screwed up first by not putting enough stamps on the package to TJ so it was a month delayed in getting to the school compounded this.
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.
That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.
The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.
It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.
True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.
A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.
This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.
There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.
But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.
Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.
Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.
Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.
But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.
It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.
Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.
It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.
I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.
The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.
It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.
We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.
No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.
Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.
If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.
Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.
It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).
It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.
Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.
Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.
DP. You are grasping at straws here.
So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.
They're winning on this one.
No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.
The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.
The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.
The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.
Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.
This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.
Exactly what is far-right about investigating why and how any high school could possible fail for years to provide the notification of commended National Merit Status on a timely basis? TJ is a VA governors school managed by FCPS. Located in Fairfax County VA. Notofication of that status anywhere in the USA has been provided for decades - even before the availability of digital communication. Standard operating procedure. Robinson press release with names for Merit semi-finalists, commended, AA, Hispanic. https://robinsonss.fcps.edu/features/national-merit-breakfast-recognition
So somehow FCPS thinks TJ should operate differently than any other school funded by local, state tax dollars? FCPS already operates facilities divergent from state law.
They DO notify the kids that got commended each year. The issue is imply that this time someone accidentally messed up by forgetting to hand them out right away when they came in. The fact that the college board screwed up first by not putting enough stamps on the package to TJ so it was a month delayed in getting to the school compounded this.
It seems like some posters are deliberately trying to spin this big nothing into something to push their far-right agenda.
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.
That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.
The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.
It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.
True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.
A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.
This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.
There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.
But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.
Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.
Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.
Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.
But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.
It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.
Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.
It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.
I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.
The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.
It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.
We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.
No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.
Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.
If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.
Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.
It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).
It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.
Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.
Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.
DP. You are grasping at straws here.
So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.
They're winning on this one.
No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.
The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.
The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.
The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.
Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.
This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.
Exactly what is far-right about investigating why and how any high school could possible fail for years to provide the notification of commended National Merit Status on a timely basis? TJ is a VA governors school managed by FCPS. Located in Fairfax County VA. Notofication of that status anywhere in the USA has been provided for decades - even before the availability of digital communication. Standard operating procedure. Robinson press release with names for Merit semi-finalists, commended, AA, Hispanic. https://robinsonss.fcps.edu/features/national-merit-breakfast-recognition
So somehow FCPS thinks TJ should operate differently than any other school funded by local, state tax dollars? FCPS already operates facilities divergent from state law.
They DO notify the kids that got commended each year. The issue is imply that this time someone accidentally messed up by forgetting to hand them out right away when they came in. The fact that the college board screwed up first by not putting enough stamps on the package to TJ so it was a month delayed in getting to the school compounded this.
It seems like some posters are deliberately trying to spin this big nothing into something to push their far-right agenda.
The allegation is that, according to the director of student services, the school delayed notifying commended students so TJ students who were not Semifinalists or Commended students would not have their feelings hurt.
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.
That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.
The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.
It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.
True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.
This is not a case of a "one off" where someone made a mistake. That, all would live with and move on. The investigation is taking place because the staff at TJ, under direction of the Principal, withheld notification for years. There are TJ graduates that were never notified. Never informed that they met this threshold where they were eligible to compete for several scholarships.
A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.
This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.
There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.
But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.
Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.
Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.
Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.
But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.
It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.
Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.
It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.
I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.
The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.
It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.
We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.
No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.
Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.
If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.
Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.
It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).
It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.
Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.
Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.
DP. You are grasping at straws here.
So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.
They're winning on this one.
No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.
The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.
The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.
The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.
Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.
This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.
Exactly what is far-right about investigating why and how any high school could possible fail for years to provide the notification of commended National Merit Status on a timely basis? TJ is a VA governors school managed by FCPS. Located in Fairfax County VA. Notofication of that status anywhere in the USA has been provided for decades - even before the availability of digital communication. Standard operating procedure. Robinson press release with names for Merit semi-finalists, commended, AA, Hispanic. https://robinsonss.fcps.edu/features/national-merit-breakfast-recognition
So somehow FCPS thinks TJ should operate differently than any other school funded by local, state tax dollars? FCPS already operates facilities divergent from state law.
They DO notify the kids that got commended each year. The issue is imply that this time someone accidentally messed up by forgetting to hand them out right away when they came in. The fact that the college board screwed up first by not putting enough stamps on the package to TJ so it was a month delayed in getting to the school compounded this.
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.
That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.
The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.
It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.
True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.
A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.
This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.
There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.
But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.
Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.
Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.
I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.
Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.
But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.
It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.
Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.
It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.
I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.
The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.
It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.
We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.
No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.
Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.
If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.
Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.
It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).
It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.
Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.
Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.
DP. You are grasping at straws here.
So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.
They're winning on this one.
No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.
The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.
The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.
The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.
Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.
This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.
Exactly what is far-right about investigating why and how any high school could possible fail for years to provide the notification of commended National Merit Status on a timely basis? TJ is a VA governors school managed by FCPS. Located in Fairfax County VA. Notofication of that status anywhere in the USA has been provided for decades - even before the availability of digital communication. Standard operating procedure. Robinson press release with names for Merit semi-finalists, commended, AA, Hispanic. https://robinsonss.fcps.edu/features/national-merit-breakfast-recognition
So somehow FCPS thinks TJ should operate differently than any other school funded by local, state tax dollars? FCPS already operates facilities divergent from state law.
They DO notify the kids that got commended each year. The issue is imply that this time someone accidentally messed up by forgetting to hand them out right away when they came in. The fact that the college board screwed up first by not putting enough stamps on the package to TJ so it was a month delayed in getting to the school compounded this.
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