The count just keeps growing.
Marshall High School Principal Jeremy Litz just sent parents an email, telling them that “it has come to light that Marshall High School students designated as Commended Students this past fall were notified later than we would have hoped.”
This brings to 17 the number of high schools in Fairfax County, Loudoun County and Prince William County that have admitted to withholding awards. Many other Fairfax County high schools haven’t yet released the results of their reviews.
This list is of schools that failed to notify “commended students.” The demographics of that group doesn’t seem to be available yet but the Fairfax Times investigated and found that 75% of the National Merit semifinalists (one notch above commended students) are Asian. So it’s likely that the majority of commended students are also Asian despite Asians making up about 20% of Fairfax County.
Despite this, some local officials have been dismissing this story as fake news. Last week the Fairfax County Parents Association sent a letter blasting the response of those leaders:
“You should hang your heads in shame,” the parents’ group, a nonpartisan volunteer grassroots organization, wrote in a letter published late Saturday morning…
In its letter, the parents’ group asked state and local leaders, “How dare you tell students that their hard work doesn’t matter? How dare you pretend that students who manage to be in the top 3% academically among seniors nationwide have not achieved an accomplishment of which they should be enormously proud? How dare you tell these students – most of whom do not come from wealth – that it doesn’t matter whether they are able to note this achievement on college applications, or applications for academic scholarships that could help pay for college?”…
“The students earned these recognitions through hard work. They deserve to be notified and deserve the chance to decide whether to include this recognition on their college and scholarship applications,” the Fairfax County Parents Association said in its letter. “Our elected officials and the school system bureaucracy should never withhold or delay the recognition.”…
“This is not one school making a ‘one-time mistake’ by not notifying or delaying notification,” the group said in its letter. “This is a pattern that speaks to a school system focused on creating an illusion of equity by either punishing students who worked hard to achieve high academic performance and recognition, or one that has so little regard for academic achievement that it cannot be bothered to prioritize it. As schools race to issue almost-identical press releases clearly coordinated by FCPS central administration, families must wonder if that coordination also speaks to an effort to downplay, or ignore, the achievements in the first place to push high-achieving students to the side in the pursuit of the equal outcomes ‘equity’ narrative.”
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/01/19/number-of-virginia-high-schools-who-failed-to-inform-students-of-merit-awards-rises-to-17-n524995