Female teen mason invited to a different national competition

[oberliner]

Shania Clifford will compete on a national stage after all.

Despite placing first in the SkillsUSA Ohio Masonry competition, which should have guaranteed her a spot in the national leadership and skills conference, the 17-year-old from Scioto County was later told she took third because of a problem with the score sheets.

...

Since the story ran in Sunday's Dispatch, many have responded. The story, which has been read more than 300,000 times online, led to the Mason Contractors Association of America to step in and offer Clifford the opportunity to compete in its national convention next year. Clifford said she plans to attend.

"I figured it'd be a great opportunity to right a wrong," said Tim O'Toole, association spokesman.

She has received an outpouring of support on Facebook and on Dispatch.com and has even received a job offer. An online petition had garnered more than 800 supporters as of Tuesday afternoon.

Clifford called the response "overwhelming," adding that she is excited to have so many supporters.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/06/21/Masonry-competitor-invitation.html

Relates to this earlier thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7934376

[obamanut2012]

1. Yeah, they absolutely cheated to keep a girl away

from "their" competition. I'm not saying she should sue, but she would win if she did. Maybe she still should, because it's definitely a Title IX issue, at minimum.

Thanks for posting the update! I've been wondering about this.

[oberliner]

6. No they didn't

They screwed up the scoring and handled it extremely poorly.

I am glad that the publicity has led to good things happening for this girl.

[obamanut2012]

20. Wrong -- 100% no rpoof of that

What happened was sketchy.

[oberliner]

24. Yes, there is

The coach noticed that the initial scoring seemed really odd (He said there was usually only a few points separating the top competitors, this time it was 72 points). He also pointed out that something similar happened a few years ago (except it was a boy, not a girl, who was impacted). The Ohio Department of Education put out a statement explaining the error.

[Android3.14]

2. They screwed up on scoring and found themselves between a rock and a hard place

It wasn't about taking the win away from the girl, but about who actually made the better score.

This seems like a good solution to the dilemma.

[Lochloosa]

4. Read the original story. I'm not so sure about the explantation of scores being entered wrong.

from the story:

Larry Moore, her instructor, said the scores of the top performers usually vary by only a couple of points, but Clifford’s column for the state competition was exceptional.

“She had the best plumb there,” Moore said. “Two or three corners were perfect.” Plumb refers to how straight a vertical edge is.

Stan Jennings, superintendent of the Scioto County Career Technical Center, was notified by SkillsUSA Ohio that Clifford would no longer be competing. A vague explanation was given: “The scores were inappropriately put in.”

[oberliner]

5. Here's the full statement from the Ohio Dept. of Education

Haplin said actions are being taken to improve the scoring process. Below is her full statement, on behalf of SkillsUSA, to WSAZ:

"During the 2016 SkillsUSA Ohio masonry competition, student scores were entered into score sheets by judges. Those scores were then entered into a spreadsheet manually to calculate final scores. When student scores were entered into the final score spreadsheet, an error was made and some scores were inadvertently duplicated, causing some students to receive double the score that they actually received. This error affected results for several students and resulted in the rankings showing an incorrect winner of the competition.

"No errors were made in the judges' score sheets themselves, and the final corrected scores reflect the scores on the individual score sheets for each student. Upon discovery of the error through the regular review process, the duplicate scores were removed to show the actual winner of the competition. SkillsUSA confirmed that Ohio has followed all policies pertaining to the resolution of errors.

"The student who should have been awarded the gold medal at the competition will be the one to represent Ohio as the national competitor. The student who was incorrectly named the winner at the state competition is still invited to attend and observe the national competition. Corrective actions are being taken to improve the scoring process.

"Regarding the way the student was informed of the error, the Ohio Department of Education's policy is to communicate with each student's school district, rather than with the students themselves. As soon as the error was discovered, administrators from all affected students' school districts were contacted."

http://www.wsaz.com/content/news/Teen-girl-from-Scioto-County-bumped-from-national-masonry-competition-383877471.html

Incidentally, from that same article:

Larry Moore, Clifford's instructor at the technical center, says this is not the first time SkillsUSA has taken a title away from one of his students. He says in 2010, the same thing happened to another junior student of his, a boy. He says about two weeks after the boy won the state competition, his title was also taken away because of a scoring error.

[obamanut2012]

21. Nope, no proof that happened -- zero

[oberliner]

27. There is a preponderance of evidence that that is exactly what happened

For some reason, you don't want to accept that and instead are asserting a completely preposterous theory without a shred of evidence to support it.

[Android3.14]

31. More proof than you can shake a stick at that an error is exactly what happened

So many people are addicted to outrage.

[Hoppy]

3. Go Cynthia !

[Javaman]

7. I'm glad to hear this but...

the kid that was third and was sent to the nationals should have enough integrity to bow out.

but alas...

[oberliner]

8. The kid that was third was actually the winner

There was an clerical error with the scoresheets. There is absolutely no reason why he should have to bow out. He won.

That being said, the organizers handled this very poorly on numerous levels, from not carefully checking for errors before giving out the initial awards, to not communicating directly to the student and her family that they had made a mistake.

In the end, however, it looks like things are working out quite well for this girl.

[Javaman]

9. reading from the story, and correct me if I'm wrong...

but it was the miscounting that declared the other kid the winner.

when in fact he was third.

was it a matter of they found out the miscalculation AFTER he went to the nationals?

[oberliner]

10. Check out the statement from the Ohio Dept of Ed representative

I posted it upthread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027940506#post5

It seems that they initially announced this girl as the winner, but then discovered the error and communicated to the school that the other student actually won and would be going to nationals.

[LisaL]

11. No, you are wrong.

The kid who was declared third was the actual winner.

[neohippie]

12. I think you're getting this confused

The girl was declared the winner, and then later the person they are saying was the actual winner, went to nationals, and the error was caught before the nationals event took place

What I don't understand is first of all if it's not normal for someone to win but by a few points and then suddenly this girl won by 74 points, shouldn't that have instantly been a reason to double check all the scores.

Second, if there are X number of judges who give scores and you're using spreadsheets to enter the scores, one would assume that there would be an equal number of rows that the scores would be entered into, so if one person had duplicate scores entered wouldn't it be immediately obvious that something was wrong with the total score, because the person who had the duplicate scores entered would have a column with more rows than all the other people.

Something about this just seems odd

[LisaL]

14. Sounds like this organization should have caught the error.

So they are in fault, not the kids. The actual winner was cheated of being declared the winner. The girl thought she won but actually didn't. All because somebody didn't add the scores correctly.

[cojoel]

33. I blame Steve Harvey

OK not really

[Javaman]

35. Thanks!

you explanation clears up a lot.

as Jerryhill, down thread stated, the article is poorly written.

[jberryhill]

30. The story is written very poorly

The reports on this always lead with a factual statement that she had "won". The Ohio Dept. of Education, which is blazingly more aware of Title IX than any of us will ever be, made a poorly worded statement to the effect that the scores were incorrectly tabulated at the competition, and that another student had actually won.

This is like being called safe at first when the video shows otherwise.

To believe otherwise raises the odd question of "Where is the #2 finisher?"

If, as posed, they did this "because she was a girl", then why did they go three deep in the stack if the person declared the second place winner was not also a girl?

[Javaman]

34. Thanks! yours and another reply upthread makes it clear now.

yes, I agree, the article is indeed poorly written.

Cheers!

[LisaL]

13. Why would he bow out if he was the actual winner?

Sounds like organization is at fault for not making sure they had entered the correct scores before announcing the winner, not the kid.

[hughee99]

15. Anyone else find it a little funny in that

A competition largely based on precision was fucked up by a scoring problem from the "experts"?

[IronLionZion]

16. Best of luck Shania Clifford

I'm glad they're having her compete and move forward. I guess the media attention shed some light on the scoring mistake.

[dembotoz]

17. you would think math skills would be important to a mason

what ever to reason i wish her all the luck in the world

[blackspade]

18. This wasn't a 'problem with the scoring sheets'

She was cheated out of the national competition by a bunch of misogynist assholes.

[oberliner]

19. Yes it was

She wasn't cheated out of anything by anyone. It was a scoring error, and it had happened before.

Larry Moore, Clifford's instructor at the technical center, says this is not the first time SkillsUSA has taken a title away from one of his students. He says in 2010, the same thing happened to another junior student of his, a boy. He says about two weeks after the boy won the state competition, his title was also taken away because of a scoring error.

[obamanut2012]

22. Bingo -- this didn't come up until MONTHS later

And, they refuse to produce the scoring sheets, and everyone was shocked the girl was better than the boy who "had it in the bag."

Apologists galore in this thread.

[oberliner]

25. That's not true

They reported the error to her school district just a few weeks after the competition (which was April 26). Unfortunately, that message did not get communicated to the student until early June (just two and a half weeks before nationals).

You honestly think people deliberately changed scores because a girl won? And then decided to move the third place person up to first, rather than the second place person? And the Ohio Department of Education is in on this, to the point that they would be willing to issue an false official public statement blaming the situation on a clerical error?

[dsc]

23. I find the math error very hard to swallow

It would be one thing if there was a swing of a couple of points but this sounds off the charts. I fail to see why someone didn't say, hey these numbers have to be off. I have audited for a competition (this was a pagent) in the past and if one girl was winning by double digits it would be an immediate red flag. It sounds like this competition should have had a similar red flag.

[oberliner]

26. You find someone deliberately changing the scores after the fact easier to swallow?

You think the Ohio Department of Education would release a complete fictitious statement blaming the situation on a clerical error to cover for the fact that they actually just wanted to change the results so that a boy would win rather than a girl?

Doesn't that seem kind of far fetched?

[The2ndWheel]

32. One story is human error

The other is a conspiracy to cheat a far superior girl, whose score was so high that it's apparently rarely, if ever, seen. There's an exciting story, and there's a boring story.

There's a chance they went after this girl because she's a girl, which is kind of exciting in a movie way, but, it's more likely that it's the boring story. As you pointed out, this same thing apparently happened to a male student at some other competition they had. Did that make the news? Not in any meaningful way. However, in a fun twist, because she's a girl, this became a story. Even though, more likely than not, this is a very simple and boring spreadsheet error story.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. I'm Using Your Logic To Come To The Opposite

They could manipulate a few points, but if they actually double counted some scorecards, it explains the huge disparity.

So, i'm agreeing with your logic, but taking it the exact opposite.

BTW: The immediate "red flag" thought you expressed: I couldn't agree more. If nobody has ever won by anything close 70+ points, that should have triggered an investigation right then and there.

[DesMoinesDem]

29. If they invited her, when she placed 3rd, I hope they also invited the kids that placed 1st and 2nd.