Anonymous wrote:How many of you folks commenting on this thread actually have a kid at TJ?

TJ is one of 25 high or secondary schools in FCPS and educates the fewest students who live in the county. Lee is smaller but 30% of TJ lives outside of FFX.

Are you suggesting 3-4% of the students and/or 3-4% of the parents of high school students in the county should dictate FCPS policy? Sure sounds that way, and that's not right.

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the PP from several pages ago who said schools like TJ are important for the survival of our country. We need to be competitive with other countries like China, who are currently winning the tech race by a wide margin. You know what they say...he who wins the tech race rules the future.

I don't think having one high school out of 25 in a county with over a million people is going to have much impact. We need to aim higher and fairer if that's our goal. TJ is window dressing.

Anonymous wrote:PP do you really think these kids are dropping these extra- curriculars in middle school and then able to just jump back in? And at high levels? Serious question. I just don't think that's what's happening.

I know for a fact that is what's happening for many of them, yes. Most of them who jump back in are not able to come back at a high level - there are outliers, to be sure, but yes, there are absolutely a huge number of families every year who sell out to the TJ application process. Plenty who would start pursuing an extracurricular interest in middle school but never even begin due to a perceived need to beef up their Science Olympiad or Vex Robotics or Odyssey of the Mind credentials because their parents believe that doing so will get them into TJ. And a huge number of those kids don't even get into TJ in the first place. FCPS focuses all of its energy on the place itself, but almost zero energy on the impact that its existence (and current admissions process) has on the county as a whole.

And the Admissions Office could get rid of just about all of that if they would publicly place any value at all on achievements outside of STEM, in recognition of the fact that delivering a complete high school experience requires a school to have kids who are interested and capable in various different areas.

PP do you really think these kids are dropping these extra- curriculars in middle school and then able to just jump back in? And at high levels? Serious question. I just don't think that's what's happening.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many of you folks commenting on this thread actually have a kid at TJ?

I’m guessing not a lot. When they talk about their kid not giving up the hall or stage, I wonder if they realize that at least three members of the TJ bands are attending college next for... music performance. That TJ’s drama department under the new teach is picking up Cappies and VHSL trophies. That a recent graduate was a contender for the 2016 Us Olympic swimming team— just missed the cut. That a current student travels with the US rhythmic gymnastics team. That TJ racks up the national journalism award, and their advisor was named national journalism advisor of the year. That TJ sends recruited athletes to Ivy’s, MIT, Stanford, etc each year...

Yep - if you actually had a kid at TJ, you'd know that so many of these kids have a wide variety of interests and activities that they pursue while attending TJ. So too do a lot of base HS kids. Please stop thinking that all (or even many) TJ kids do nothing but focus on the grades.

Key to your quote is "while attending TJ". A lot of extracurriculars have revived over the last couple of years thanks to some excellent hires and an emphasis on balance from the new principal Dr. B.

The point is that there are tons of kids (many of whom don't end up getting accepted to TJ) who are at least temporarily giving up those passions during the formative middle school years in order to maximize the STEM component of their application. And they do this because the Admissions Office makes a huge point of indicating that they really don't care about any activities that aren't STEM-related. My point is simply that the Admissions Office (via guidance from the School Board) needs to drop the emphasis on "pre-existing interest in STEM" as part of the application process - there are plenty of ways to identify STEM aptitude in the process without forcing kids to streamline their resumes from such an early age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many of you folks commenting on this thread actually have a kid at TJ?

I’m guessing not a lot. When they talk about their kid not giving up the hall or stage, I wonder if they realize that at least three members of the TJ bands are attending college next for... music performance. That TJ’s drama department under the new teach is picking up Cappies and VHSL trophies. That a recent graduate was a contender for the 2016 Us Olympic swimming team— just missed the cut. That a current student travels with the US rhythmic gymnastics team. That TJ racks up the national journalism award, and their advisor was named national journalism advisor of the year. That TJ sends recruited athletes to Ivy’s, MIT, Stanford, etc each year...

Yep - if you actually had a kid at TJ, you'd know that so many of these kids have a wide variety of interests and activities that they pursue while attending TJ. So too do a lot of base HS kids. Please stop thinking that all (or even many) TJ kids do nothing but focus on the grades.

Anonymous wrote:How many of you folks commenting on this thread actually have a kid at TJ?

I’m guessing not a lot. When they talk about their kid not giving up the hall or stage, I wonder if they realize that at least three members of the TJ bands are attending college next for... music performance. That TJ’s drama department under the new teach is picking up Cappies and VHSL trophies. That a recent graduate was a contender for the 2016 Us Olympic swimming team— just missed the cut. That a current student travels with the US rhythmic gymnastics team. That TJ racks up the national journalism award, and their advisor was named national journalism advisor of the year. That TJ sends recruited athletes to Ivy’s, MIT, Stanford, etc each year...

When Amazon was choosing their HQ2 location, TJ students were interviewed in the selection process. Companies want access to this type of high quality talent.

How many of you folks commenting on this thread actually have a kid at TJ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's ranked as the best public high school in the United States. Obviously the county is doing something right. Kudos.

I cannot believe that magnet schools are ranked against regular ole public schools. If every 3 counties in the U.S. pooled their best students into one school, the result wouldn’t be much different.

You should share your opinion with US news (which does the ranking). I don't think they are reading this forum.

It's actually the fact that US News started included very small charters with magnet programs that knocked TJ down in the US News national rankings frequently in recent years. Those small charters are frequently in urban school districts that allowed charters in a last-ditch effort to retain families (or certain families) in their systems. US News crunches their numbers the same way they crunch the numbers of much larger open-enrollment schools.

FCPS, of course, was not in a similar situation when it opened TJHSST. It was opened because there was a temporary dip in student enrollment in the mid-80s (due to nation-wide demographics) and the Republican supervisors thought a "science and tech" school sounded like a good marketing strategy to woo the East Coast lobbying arms of West Coast defense contractors to suburban office parks in Fairfax. It seemed like a win-win at the time, but it came back to bite FCPS in the ass when enrollments went back up and TJ's demographics eventually no longer even remotely resembled the demographics of the county as a whole.

So what's the problem with that? Since when is academic merit distributed in a way that "resembles the demographics of the county?"

I agree with the PP from several pages ago who said schools like TJ are important for the survival of our country. We need to be competitive with other countries like China, who are currently winning the tech race by a wide margin. You know what they say...he who wins the tech race rules the future.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's ranked as the best public high school in the United States. Obviously the county is doing something right. Kudos.

I cannot believe that magnet schools are ranked against regular ole public schools. If every 3 counties in the U.S. pooled their best students into one school, the result wouldn’t be much different.

You should share your opinion with US news (which does the ranking). I don't think they are reading this forum.

It's actually the fact that US News started included very small charters with magnet programs that knocked TJ down in the US News national rankings frequently in recent years. Those small charters are frequently in urban school districts that allowed charters in a last-ditch effort to retain families (or certain families) in their systems. US News crunches their numbers the same way they crunch the numbers of much larger open-enrollment schools.

FCPS, of course, was not in a similar situation when it opened TJHSST. It was opened because there was a temporary dip in student enrollment in the mid-80s (due to nation-wide demographics) and the Republican supervisors thought a "science and tech" school sounded like a good marketing strategy to woo the East Coast lobbying arms of West Coast defense contractors to suburban office parks in Fairfax. It seemed like a win-win at the time, but it came back to bite FCPS in the ass when enrollments went back up and TJ's demographics eventually no longer even remotely resembled the demographics of the county as a whole.

Parents of non-Asians increasingly do not want to send their kids to TJ, not because they're on their asses and screens, but because they're on the ballfields or the stage - and they correctly understand that in order to have the best chance to get into TJ, they will have to give those passions up (which have incredible value both inside and outside the classroom) to maximize their test prep and STEM activities.