Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Wednesday that he had requested Republican state legislators to introduce a new bill to “require Virginia schools to inform students and their parents about National Merit Scholarships and other awards.”
“In Virginia, parents matter, and the legislation I’ve asked Senator Dunnavant and Delegate Freitas to introduce today will ensure that merit and accolades are celebrated in the Commonwealth. We will not allow our students and their parents to be left uninformed of their hard-earned recognition in what we now know was widespread across more than a dozen schools in multiple school divisions,” he added.
The legislation specifically mentions national merit recognition associated with high Preliminary SAT (PSAT) scores. Such recognition opens doors to special scholarship programs and may differentiate an application from another.
Since December 2022, 16 high schools in Fairfax (seven), Loudoun (five), and Prince William (four) Counties in Northern Virginia have reported delays in notifying their students of national merit awards, qualified by students who have PSAT scores among the top 3 percent nationwide.
These high schools include the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST), currently ranked No. 1 in the country, and Langley High School, ranked No. 2 in Virginia. Both of these schools are located in Fairfax County.
Civil Rights Probe
At Youngkin’s instruction, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced a civil rights investigation on TJHSST on Jan. 4 and expanded the probe to the entire Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) a few days later, as more schools reported the same problem of withholding students’ merit awards. Miyares said that if the withholding of merit awards was based on race, national origin, or any other protected status under the Virginia Human Rights Act, it was unlawful.The number of affected FCPS students is over 300, and the seven FCPS schools with notification delay findings are about a quarter of the district’s total number of high schools.
AG Miyares also started an investigation on TJHSST over its admission policy. “Using race, national origin, or any other protected class under Virginia’s Human Rights Act as a factor to determine admission to one of our top high schools is wrong. It is unjust,” he said at the press conference on Jan. 4.
“As a child of an immigrant, I know that education is the doorway to the American Miracle. It is supposed to create equal opportunities for our students—not equal outcomes at the expense of others. While my office continues our civil rights investigation into Fairfax County and looks into potential violations at additional school systems, I applaud the governor for introducing legislation that would prevent this from happening again,” said AG Miyares in a press statement today.
Reid also denied that equity goals lowered standards. “Equity is not lowering expectations. It’s about maintaining high expectations and providing high support,” she told parents at Langley. “[E]quity has nothing to do with delaying or not getting [award] certificates on time.”