FCPS to investigate TJ controversy
Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid told parents with students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology that FCPS is investigating why the notification of “commended students” was delayed.
Reid spoke about the issue at an emotionally charged meeting at the school Jan. 3 that drew nearly 100 parents and a smattering of TJ students.
Since news about the delay surfaced in the media last month, the TJ principal, Ann Bonitatibus, has received anonymous death threats.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation designates high-achievers as “commended students,” which could help seniors get accepted into a top college and qualify for scholarships.
This year, however, TJ didn’t let students know about the designation until Nov. 14, after colleges’ Nov. 1 deadline for early decision or early action applications.
FCPS hired the Richmond law firm Sands Anderson to conduct an external investigation of the matter. Once the report is released, possibly by the end of the month, Reid promised to share the findings at another parent meeting. FCPS is still reviewing the scope of the investigation, so the timeline is uncertain.
Meanwhile, Reid said, counselors have been working with TJ seniors who were rejected or waitlisted for early decision. Staff contacted over 100 colleges with early action or early decision deadlines to let them know the lack of students’ commendation letters was not the students’ fault.
“We’re putting into place accountability loops,” Reid said.
The delay in notifying students about their “commended” status has been framed by the Coalition for TJ as a lack of concern for students’ academic achievement and has been rolled into their advocacy for a return to merit-based admissions.
The coalition was formed to oppose the TJ admissions process approved by the school board in December 2020 to increase diversity at the school. Opponents claimed that resulted in shutting out many high-achieving Asian students.
The issue has gained traction among conservatives across the state. On Jan. 3, Gov. Glenn Youngkin directed Attorney General Jason Miyares to investigate the delay, indicating the information might have been deliberately withheld by the TJ leadership.
One parent at the meeting called the issue with the delay “a Trojan horse to chip away at merit-based admissions.”
On the other side of the fence, Asra Nomani, a co-founder of the Coalition for TJ and parent of a TJ graduate, claimed there’s been a “pattern and practice of deception.” She said students did not receive letters letting them know they were commended scholars and there was no formal public announcement about those students.
“The trust is broken,” said the parent of a TJ junior, who called for a return to merit-based admissions. “The administration has betrayed us.”
Related story: Fairfax County school board adopts holistic admissions policy for Thomas Jefferson High School
Another parent expressed concern about the politicization of the issue, calling the attacks against the principal “really stressful for me as a parent.” She said counselors now have less time for other students. “This is a critical time. My student needs help.”
The parent of a TJ graduate complained about the focus on equity, claiming fewer students have gotten into the Ivies, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech. “Now we’re seeing the wolf in sheep’s clothing; it’s making it harder for top kids to get into top colleges.”
“We have the wrong people running the school right now,” a parent said, which is threatening the status of TJ as “a flagship school, a standard bearer for the rest of the county.”
Several people mentioned a resolution passed by the school board two years ago to establish policies for regional governing for TJ and complained that nothing has been done about it.
A parent who immigrated from China likened the de-emphasis on academic achievement to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The message students are getting is “We don’t care about what you achieved,” she said.
A TJ senior said the commendation certificate is not a big deal. The fact that it was delayed “hasn’t made a big impact on college decisions,” she said. “This doesn’t seem like something we should be wasting our effort on.”
Another member of the TJ Class of 2023 said, “This seems like a very overblown response to a small oversight by the administration.”
A former TJ student now studying electrical engineering at Stanford, urged “restraint before we understand what happened.” She reminded the audience, “This school focuses on fact and science.”
When asked whether academics is no longer the primary focus of TJ, Reid said, “it should be the primary focus of every school,” as well as TJ.
7 responses to “FCPS to investigate TJ controversy”
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TJ has an illustrious past, but its elitism and achievement is an embarrassment to the One Fairfax plan. Fairfax County is making sure TJ gets right-sized. No Supreme Court decision or Commonwealth’s investigation is going to course-correct TJ – it’s headed for mediocre obscurity.
Which is very sad.
The One Fairfax plan is a disgrace. You should be ashamed of yourself. Go woke, go broke.
Interesting that current and recent grads see this as an overreaction. Perhaps it could be that some kids who are used to always being first or getting what they want maybe didn’t this time? If other students’ admissions haven’t been impacted – maybe bc they have enough of the other attributes that unis look for during admissions to get them in – its just a matter of simply not measuring up. Is there a guarantee for TJ grads that they will be accepted into top tier schools? If wrong doing was done, I hope they get to the bottom of it and the kids get a fair chance.
This is all prompted by the fight over who attends TJ, which seems to be a never-ending battle, whether it’s the Fairfax NAACP filing a complaint with the DOE over the prior admissions policy or Coalition for TJ bringing a lawsuit over the new one. At what point might FCPS decided to improve STEM education in all its schools, and do away with the magnet STEM program at a single school.
If nothing else, it would mean that FCPS could bring down its legal fees and focus on things other than TJ for a change. Also, kids in the Edsall Park area would no longer need to cross both 395 and 495 to attend Edison, and school boundaries could be redrawn such that the poverty along Route 236 is no longer so heavily concentrated at Annandale HS.
It’s really about merit vs. welfare.
What happens to a society that stops enforcing laws to accommodate lawlessness, and lowers standards at elite schools?
Where are the think tanks with cost-benefit analyses on these sweeping socio-cultural shifts?
Doubtful FCPS would focus on substantially improving STEM in all its schools, as this would lead to disparate outcomes – not equity. A few kids out fo any grade are really good at math, physics, and chemistry (and a lot of them end up at TJ!) but not everyone is well suited to that rigor or even interested. Introducing the rigor resembling TJ into other school’s curricula would likely result in some achievement, but also cause struggle and some failure. And this would undercut the values and goals of One Fairfax.
Elections have consequences.