A Long Island high school student aced his Chemistry Regents exam and earned $100 when he beat his teacher’s 25-year challenge for the scrutinized state test.
Jojo Yawson shocked his teachers at Baldwin High School when his test was the final one to be graded and came back with a 100 on the end-of-year exam in June.
“When it came back with 100, my jaw almost hit the floor. Literally the last kid,” Yawson’s teacher, Anthony Simonelli, told CBS New York Friday.
Yawson’s achievement comes as the state transitions to a new exam and begins phasing out the high school diploma-required testing altogether by 2028.
Simonelli has pitted his students against the same challenge for the last quarter of a century — score a 100 percent on the final exam and be rewarded with a hand-delivered $100 bill at their front door.
The veteran educator gave his students the challenge as an incentive for the test, seen as the hardest Regents-level exam in New York State.
“I said, all right, here’s some motivation. I’ll give you 100 bucks. Any kid who gets 100,” he told CBS New York.
Yawson, a then-sophomore and motivated by the money, broke down the challenge to its core.
“I definitely believed it was possible,” he told the Long Island Herald. “You know, you just have to get all the questions right. Like, it’s not impossible.”
“It’s mostly about just being very careful and not making any mistakes,” he added. “That’s the hard part.”
After the test, Yawson returned home believing he did not do well.
“I thought I did terrible. I went home dejected. I thought, I don’t know, I thought I missed at least a few questions,” he said.
But despite his uncertainties, Yawson got a 100 on all parts of the exam, giving Simonelli the honor of delivering the prize, a signed $100 to his student.
“It did matter a lot. It wasn’t in the back of my mind, it was in the front of my mind,” Yawson said about the money, which was engraved with a “Thank you” and his teacher’s signature.
“Of course, it’s about the money,” Yawson added. “Getting a perfect score — if they gave me $100 for getting a 50, I would have got a 50. It’s about the money.”
Yawson had thoughts of framing the $100 bill but might just spend it because it isn’t his first 100 he got on a Regents exam.
During his freshman year, the brilliant student aced the Biology Regents
Yawson’s mother was proud of her son for overcoming the learning accommodations he needed for testing to get the perfect scores.
“I believe that it should really inspire students with accommodations and their families to recognize that having a learning difference can mean learning with excellence,” Ama Karikari told the outlet.
Simonelli revealed it might be the last time a student of his will have a chance to get a 100 on the Chemistry Regents as the exam is being redesigned to fit under the state’s P-12 Science Learning Standards.
“There’s no way that the last kid that I’ll ever have the chance to have a 100 literally did it,” he said.
Ex-Gov. George Pataki has ripped the change that dumbed down the state’s high school diploma requirements being phased out as the Board of Regents looks for alternative graduation requirements.
“Getting rid of the Regents is incredibly stupid,” Pataki told The Post last week.
“It seems like the Education Department’s main function right now is to disguise the fact that too many New York State schools are failing to educate our kids,” he said.
“So instead of doing the appropriate testing so that corrective measures could be taken to improve [performance], they simply get rid of the tests to hide their failure.”
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