When the news broke in late December that Ann Bonitatibus, the principal of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ), had withheld National Merit commended-student awards from those who had earned them, Fairfax County superintendent Michelle Reid blamed a “one-time human error.” After more principals started confessing to the practice of withholding awards — in up to 18 schools in Virginia’s Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, and Stafford counties — Reid shifted the blame to “staffing” issues. In a recent missive to parents, she insisted that there “is not a war on merit.”
However, 2,000 pages of emails obtained in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests — reported here for the first time — reveal that TJ staffers and administrators, seemingly motivated by the pursuit of so-called equity, willfully engaged in a deliberate pattern and practice of withholding awards, devaluing their worth, and deceiving parents in the process.
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