A school district in the suburbs of Chicago has announced plans to rename two schools in honor of first lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama.
The suburb is Park Forest, Ill., according to The SouthtownStar.
The two schools, both located in Park Forest Chicago Heights School District 163, will be the Michelle Obama School of Technology and the Arts and the Barack Obama School of Leadership and STEM.
(STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.)
The school to be named after Michelle Obama is currently called Forest Trail Middle School. The school named after President Obama is currently called Beacon Hill Primary Center.
Both schools serve students in fourth through eighth grades.
The future Michelle Obama School will emphasize “theater, show choir and visual arts,” notes Eagnews.org.
The first lady’s namesake school failed to meet federal education standards in 2013, the Chicago Tribune reports.
School district officials said they chose to name the schools after the Obamas “because the values that the First Family models are unparalleled precedents and are values that our students strive to emulate,” according to The SouthtownStar.
“I believe we are the first schools in the nation to honor the First Family in this manner,” said District 163 superintendent Joyce Carmine in a press release.
Obama-named schools in the Chicago area are quickly piling up.
In April, the city of Chicago announced plans to build Barack Obama College Preparatory High School, a new selective enrollment high school which will open in the fall of 2017. The school will be located just west of the ritzy Gold Coast neighborhood and will cater mostly to wealthy white people on the Second City’s North Side. (RELATED: New $60 Million Chicago High School Will Be Named After Obama)
Schools named after presidents are, of course, common in the United States. There are also schools named after first ladies. There’s a Laura Bush Middle School in Lubbock, Texas, for example, and a Laura Bush Elementary School in Houston, Texas.
Houston is also home to Barbara Bush Elementary School.
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