A Jackson elementary school will change its name from one that honors Confederate leader Jefferson Davis (left) to one that honors former President Barack Obama.
An elementary school in Jackson named for the president of the Confederacy will be renamed after the nation’s first black president next year.
Davis IB Elementary School PTA president Janelle Jefferson told the Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees at a meeting Tuesday night that the community voted to change the school’s name to Barack Obama Magnet IB Elementary School.
In September, the board approved a policy that gave the PTA and community the option to rename Jefferson Davis, George and Lee elementary schools. Davis is named after Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.
The current board policy on naming schools states they must be named “for persons of good character and prominence who have made outstanding contributions to the school
system,” and a “facility named to honor a person shall not be renamed except for compelling reasons.”
“Jefferson Davis, although infamous in his own right, would probably not be too happy about a diverse school promoting the education of the very individuals he fought to keep enslaved being named after him,” Janelle Jefferson told the board during the public comment portion of the meeting.
During the 2016-17 school year, the last for which enrollment figures are available, JPS’ student population was 96 percent black.
Jefferson said the PTA solicited requests for names during a Sept. 21 meeting. Parents, students, and staff submitted ideas to the PTA via email. The Davis community had two weeks to submit their suggestions, and voted for their candidate of choice on Oct. 5 using paper ballots, she said.
Before the vote, students from each class at the school gave presentations on the name they most preferred.
“We really wanted to know what they thought,” Jefferson said. “They could relate to Barack Obama because of his achievements, because he looks like them.”
The PTA made the final decision on Oct. 6, she said.
Board counsel Dorian Turner said the new name will not go into effect until the 2018-19 school year.
The PTA and school district need to work out how and when to change signs, websites, and fundraise to put all the changes in place.
“You won’t see anything happen in terms of a formal name change until next year,” Turner told reporters after the meeting. “They’ll spend the rest of this year doing the formal work to make it happen.”
Interim board president Camille Stutts-Simms said she approved of the change and described it as a “monumentous move.”
Poster Comment:
#1: Tooconservative To: Willie Green (#0)
; )
Tooconservative posted on 2017-10-19 09:52:54 Reply Private Reply
#2: misterwhite To: Tooconservative (#1)
A what move? It may be a monumental move. It may even be a momentous move. But a monumentous move?
Gotta love it when blacks try to talk like an intellectual.
misterwhite posted on 2017-10-19 10:58:53 Reply Private Reply
#3: no gnu taxes To: misterwhite (#2)
I guess they all look alike according to this woman.
no gnu taxes posted on 2017-10-19 11:19:26 Reply Private Reply
#4: Tooconservative To: misterwhite, Vicomte13 (#2)
With a lot of monuments and schools and other public facilities, we hear a lot of noise. The truth is that many, probably most, of these Confederate monuments or facilities named this way are strictly modern, not anything traditional. Most of them came about in the wake of the 1964 Voting Rights Act. Sort of a Dixie Now, Dixie Forever thing. It was the petty revenge of Southern Democrats (and the entire South was hardcore Yellow Dog Democrats back then when you had presidential candidates like George Wallace). So across the South, monuments were built, buildings and public facilities named after Confederate leaders.
So let them rename that school. Jefferson Davis was a truly miserable and uninspiring leader to begin with. And why would black kids want to attend a school named after him?
What would be far more "monumentous" would be if that school board worried a lot more about test scores and academic achievement of their students than about what their pubic skrool is called.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-10-19 11:22:45 Reply Private Reply
#5: no gnu taxes To: misterwhite (#2)
It's a combination of the 2 words that is often used by black journalists. It has been done for more than a decade.
I get "motor hotel" becoming motel. I don't see any need for creating this word.
no gnu taxes posted on 2017-10-19 11:35:01 Reply Private Reply
#6: misterwhite To: Tooconservative (#4)
Replaced by another truly miserable and uninspiring leader. What's the point? Will this improve race relations?
If it does, then we should start naming streets after, say, Martin Luther King.
misterwhite posted on 2017-10-19 12:10:17 Reply Private Reply
#7: misterwhite To: no gnu taxes (#5)
Un-huh. Forming a non-word. That's just fantabulous.
misterwhite posted on 2017-10-19 12:12:51 Reply Private Reply
#8: Tooconservative To: misterwhite (#6)
But we do. And we always have a hideously unrecognizable statue of him somewhere along it.
Strangely enough, about 95% of the streets and avenues named after MLK are crime-ridden roads to urban hell.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-10-19 12:14:15 Reply Private Reply
#9: misterwhite To: no gnu taxes (#3)
Hmmm. Can't relate to white Presidents, huh? So I guess race makes a difference to this woman. Isn't that racist?
misterwhite posted on 2017-10-19 12:17:16 Reply Private Reply
#10: misterwhite To: Tooconservative (#8)
Yep. You see a street sign that says Martin Luther King Blvd, you are in deep doo-doo.
What a tribute, huh?
misterwhite posted on 2017-10-19 12:19:34 Reply Private Reply
#11: no gnu taxes To: Tooconservative (#8)
Even black comedians have made jokes about this.
I have traveled a lot in the past, and i saw this everywhere I went.
no gnu taxes posted on 2017-10-19 13:12:19 Reply Private Reply
#12: Tooconservative To: no gnu taxes, misterwhite (#11)
It's funny even with French subtitles.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-10-19 14:46:48 Reply Private Reply