A Long Island high school student has conquered one of New York’s toughest Regents exams—and collected a $100 reward after ending his teacher’s 25-year challenge.
Jojo Yawson stunned his teachers at Baldwin High School when his Chemistry Regents exam became the last paper graded in June—and came back with a perfect score.
“When it came back with 100, my jaw almost hit the floor. Literally the last kid,” chemistry teacher Anthony Simonelli told CBS New York on Friday.
Yawson’s accomplishment arrives as New York transitions to a redesigned science exam and moves toward eliminating the Regents testing requirements for a high school diploma by 2028.
For the past quarter-century, Simonelli has offered his students the same incentive: earn 100% on the final exam, and he will personally deliver a $100 bill to the winner’s front door.
The veteran teacher created the challenge to motivate students preparing for what is widely regarded as New York’s most difficult Regents-level exam.
“I said, all right, here’s some motivation. I’ll give you 100 bucks. Any kid who gets 100,” Simonelli told CBS New York.
Yawson, then a sophomore, was especially focused on the cash prize and approached the challenge in straightforward fashion.
“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.”
Even so, Yawson left the exam convinced that his performance had fallen short.
“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.
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His concerns proved unfounded. Yawson earned a 100 on every section of the test, allowing Simonelli to fulfill his promise with a signed $100 bill.
“It did matter a lot. It wasn’t in the back of my mind, it was in the front of my mind,” Yawson said of the reward. The bill was engraved with “Thank you” and signed by his teacher.
“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 considered framing the bill, though he may ultimately spend it because this was not his first perfect Regents score.
As a freshman, the high-achieving student also earned a 100 on the Biology Regents.
Yawson’s mother said she was proud of her son for overcoming the learning accommodations he receives during testing and achieving two 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 said Yawson may be the last student to have the opportunity to win the Chemistry Regents challenge, as New York redesigns the exam to align with 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.”
