Imagine this scenario: your student gets accepted into a well-known and prestigious high school. Your student works hard in order to get into a top college. And then years later, you find out that your student was recognized as a National Merit scholar – but the principal of the school deliberately kept that information quiet because she didn’t want to hurt the feelings of other students.

Welcome to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia, where the principal of the school, Ann Bonitatibus, and the director of student services, Brandon Kosatka, have apparently been doing this for YEARS in order to preserve the emotional state of students who didn’t earn a National Merit honor. As parent Asra Q. Nomani points out, the lack of notification to students or parents kept that honor off college admission applications, and is particularly damaging because of WHO was receiving those honors. And as she and Shawna Yashar (another TJ parent) discovered, this deliberate downplay or withholding of documentation had been going on for YEARS.

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 U.S. News & World Report ranks as America’s top school.”

But naturally, even a school as “prestigious” as Thomas Jefferson High School has fallen prey to the buzzwords of the day – “equity,” “inclusion,” “fairness,” and “equal outcomes.”

This scandal, hiding National Merit awards from kids, emerges as @FCPSSupt @FCPSNews board launches a plan for “equal outcomes for every student, without exception,” with “equitable grading,” giving students 50% just for showing up. @FFXParentsAssoc recently exposed the policy. pic.twitter.com/MPCZsRFKgV

— Asra Nomani (@AsraNomani) December 22, 2022

How do you have a magnet high school, with a rigorous admission process, and still serve the notions of “equity” and “equal outcomes”? Easy! Just don’t tell the students who earned honors – many of them Asian minorities – that they got anything!

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.”

Most schools make a big deal about National Merit awards. After all, it is a recognition of not only hard work by the student, but gives the school’s reputation a boost as well. Wouldn’t a school like Thomas Jefferson High School want to brag about how many National Merit recognitions it has gotten each year?

According to Director of Student Services Brandon Kosatka, NOPE. You see, that would hurt the feelings of other students who HADN’T earned such a recognition. Better to just not tell the kids that their hard work paid off in a recognizable award that they could use on their college admissions applications.

TJ admin Brandon Kosatka admitted to TJ mom Shawna Yashar they hide National Merit honors on purpose: “We want to recognize students for who they are as individuals, not focus on their achievements,” adding they don't want to “hurt” the feelings of kids who don't get the award. pic.twitter.com/z13WGXCBxg

— Asra Nomani (@AsraNomani) December 22, 2022

It’s always about FEELINGS.

Our bad, says the assistant superintendent, after Principal Bonitatibus and Director of Student Services Kosatka didn’t comment.

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.”

Fairfax County Public Schools isn’t Loudoun County Public Schools, but they have their own issues. The new superintendent, Michelle Reid, was not welcomed warmly by the school district, as she was literally chosen because she was the only candidate left. The district is dealing with lawsuits related to sexual assault accusations. Just because the district hasn’t managed to make national news on the level of firing and indictments doesn’t mean that there aren’t major problems in Fairfax County.

The ugliness of the woke concept of “equity” is on full display here. Thomas Jefferson High School is supposed to be tough and prestigious, and yet its administration would rather not draw attention to the students who prove just how good the school is, even if those students are minorities. After all, as we have seen in the current cases in front of the Supreme Court, Asians are no longer a preferred minority because they have become TOO successful. So the solution, according to Thomas Jefferson High School? Just don’t tell the kids or their parents that they’ve done anything worthy of recognition. No feelings hurt! Problem solved! At least, until they got caught.

Featured image via alamosbasement on Flickr, cropped, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)