Top school principal hides students' academic awards in name of 'equity'

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://nypost.com/2022/12/23/top-school-principal-hides-academic-awards-
in-name-of-equity/

For years, two administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science
and Technology (TJ) have been withholding notifications of National Merit
awards from the school’s families, most of them Asian, thus denying
students the right to use those awards to boost their college-admission
prospects and earn scholarships. This episode has emerged amid the school
district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without
exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an
“equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade
of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for
assignments not turned in. It’s a race to the bottom.

An intrepid Thomas Jefferson parent, Shawna Yashar, a lawyer, uncovered
the withholding of National Merit awards. Since starting as a freshman at
the school in September 2019, her son, who is part Arab American, studied
statistical analysis, literature reviews, and college-level science late
into the night. This workload was necessary to keep him up to speed with
the advanced studies at TJ, which US News & World Report ranks as
America’s top school.

Last fall, along with about 1.5 million US high school juniors, the Yashar
teen took the PSAT, which determines whether a student qualifies as a
prestigious National Merit scholar. When it came time to submit his
college applications this fall, he didn’t have a National Merit honor to
report — but it wasn’t because he hadn’t earned the award. The National
Merit Scholarship Corporation, a nonprofit based in Evanston, Illinois,
had recognized him as a Commended Student in the top 3 percent nationwide
— one of about 50,000 students earning that distinction. Principals
usually celebrate National Merit scholars with special breakfasts, award
ceremonies, YouTube videos, press releases and social media announcements.

But TJ School officials had decided to withhold announcement of the award.
Indeed, it turns out that the principal, Ann Bonitatibus, and the director
of student services, Brandon Kosatka, have been withholding this
information from families and the public for years, affecting the lives of
at least 1,200 students over the principal’s tenure of five years.
Recognition by National Merit opens the door to millions of dollars in
college scholarships and 800 Special Scholarships from corporate sponsors.

I learned — two years after the fact — that National Merit had recognized
my son, a graduate of TJ’s Class of 2021, as a Commended Student in a
September 10, 2020, letter that National Merit sent to Bonitatibus. But
the principal, who lobbied that fall to nix the school’s merit-based
admission test to increase “diversity,” never told us about it. Parents
from earlier years told me that she also didn’t tell them about any
Commended Student awards. One former student said he learned he had won
the award through a random email from the school to a school-district
email account that students rarely check; the principal neither told his
parents nor made a public announcement.

On September 16 of this year, National Merit sent a letter to Bonitatibus
listing 240 students recognized as Commended Students or Semi-Finalists.
The letter included these words in bold type: “Please present the letters
of commendation as soon as possible since it is the students’ only
notification.”

National Merit hadn’t included enough stamps on the package, but
nevertheless it got to Bonitatibus by mid-October—before the October 31
deadline for early acceptance to select colleges. In an email, Bonitatibus
told Yashar that she had signed the certificates “within 48 hours.” But
homeroom teachers didn’t distribute the awards until Monday, November 14,
after the early-application deadlines had passed. Teachers dropped the
certificates unceremoniously on students’ desks.

“Keeping these certificates from students is theft by the state,” says
Yashar. Bonitatibus didn’t notify parents or the public. What’s more, it
could be a civil rights violation, says local parent advocate Debra
Tisler, with most TJ students in a protected class of “gifted” students,
most of them racial minorities, many with disabilities, and most coming
from immigrant families whose parents speak English as a second language.
“It’s just cruel,” says Tisler.

In a call with Yashar, Kosatka admitted that the decision to withhold the
information from parents and inform the students in a low-key way was
intentional. “We want to recognize students for who they are as
individuals, not focus on their achievements,” he told her, claiming that
he and the principal didn’t want to “hurt” the feelings of students who
didn’t get the award. A National Merit spokeswoman said that the
organization’s officials “leave this honor exclusively to the high school
officials” to announce. Kosatka and Bonitatibus didn’t respond to requests
for comment. In a rare admission, Fabio Zuluaga, an assistant
superintendent at Fairfax County Public Schools, told me that the school
system has erred not telling students, the public, and families about
awards: “It was a mistake to be honest.” Zuluaga said it also isn’t enough
just to hand over a certificate. “We have to do something special,” he
said. “A commendation sends a very strong message to the kid, right? Your
work is meaningful. If you work hard in life, there are good benefits from
that.”

On Monday, December 12, after getting caught, Kosatka sent an email to the
parents of Commended Students, notifying them of the “important
recognition” and saying, “We are deeply sorry” for not sharing the news
earlier. He claimed school officials would contact college admissions
offices to correct the record.

Bonitatibus still hasn’t publicly recognized the students or told parents
from earlier years that their students won the awards. And she hasn’t yet
delivered the missing certificates. The war on merit is a war on our kids.

Reprinted with permission from City Journal.

Comments:

Cathy S
1 day ago

My youngest daughter, now 35 and a licensed architect was a National Merit
Scholar whose entire first four years were paid for thanks in a large part
to her National Merit status. Since Florida pays for college tuition for
their students in varying degrees depending on the student's GPA she
already had full coverage of tuition and some books so the scholarships NM
got her as well as a smaller one from Boeing paid for her living expenses
as well as a computer and some spending money. If she had not gotten that
award letter it would have cost us hugely. I hope Bonitatibus goes to
prison for the theft she did.


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