Mississippi school sheds old name to ‘Obama’

Davis International Baccalaureate Elementary School in Jackson, Miss., photographed on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017, is shedding the name of Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s only president and will instead be named for Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the United States. In a move proposed by parents, the school with 98 percent African-American enrollment is slated to be renamed for Obama, starting next academic year. The PTA president announced the planned change at a school board meeting on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Emily Wagster Pettus)

JACKSON, Miss. – A school in Mississippi is shedding the name of the Confederacy’s only president and will instead be named for the first African-American president of the United States.

Davis International Baccalaureate Elementary School in Jackson was named decades ago for Jefferson Davis.

The school with 98 percent African-American enrollment is set to be renamed for Barack Obama in the next academic year, in a move proposed by parents and approved by a majority of students, parents, faculty, and staff members.

The PTA president, Janelle Jefferson, announced the planned change at a school board meeting on Tuesday.

“The students had overwhelming support for President Obama,” Jefferson told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Jefferson said a three-week process led to the vote.

According to her, all stakeholders at the school offered suggestions for new names. Students in each class – from kindergarten through fifth grade – conducted research and presented it at a school assembly, as fourth- and fifth-graders oversaw an election with students, teachers and staff casting paper ballots at school.

Parents could vote on campus or by absentee ballot, she also said.

“We wanted to be very inclusive and transparent in the process to be fair, to make sure everybody felt like they had a voice,” Jefferson noted.

The school has an admissions process based on testing, and it offers a rigorous curriculum. State rankings released on Tuesday showed it was the top academic performer of all elementary and middle schools in Mississippi for 2016-2017.

About 96 percent of students in Jackson Public Schools are African-American.

School board member Jed Oppenheim said people have been asking for years why three schools in a majority African-American district are still named for Confederate personalities.

In mid-September, the board authorized the PTA at each of the three schools to set new names. The change from Davis to Obama is the only one approved.

George Elementary is named for James Zachariah George, who signed Mississippi’s secession ordinance and drafted the state constitution that denied voting rights to black citizens. Lee Elementary is named for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Jefferson said the PTA will do “some very aggressive fundraising campaigns” to pay for new signs, stationery or other items needed for the name change to Obama. The school is near the state Capitol building, and most of its students were born during the eight years Obama was president. Obama assumed the presidency in 2009 and ended his term early 2017.                 /kga