Could there soon be a Barack Hussein Obama Middle School in Tacoma? There’s talk of that – but it might be only that. Talk. Plenty of other names are in the running for the campus under construction on the city’s East Side.
School Board member Kurt Miller raised the subject during a meeting Monday afternoon, calling Obama’s Nov. 4 election a historic moment worth memorializing.
But his four elected colleagues didn’t immediately jump on the name-a-school-for-Obama bandwagon.
Board member Debbie Winskill said there’s a reason that Tacoma district policy requires people to be dead at least two years or have already served a presidential term before they earn a school name. Obama’s not even president yet, and no one knows what his performance will be, she pointed out.
Superintendent Art Jarvis asked the board to consider altering the policy to put Obama’s name in the running.
The board plans to make a decision Dec. 11 about the policy and the school name.
Miller said he’d talk to a number of people before deciding whether to carry his idea forward at that meeting.
Miller said the election of Obama as the nation’s first black president is a signal event in a nation that has wrestled with the abolition of slavery, the desegregation of schools and the extension of voting rights and civil rights to a huge segment of society.
“When kids at this new school enter the door of Barack Obama Middle School, that tells them they can be anything they want,” Miller said.
The $50 million campus under construction on Portland Avenue is set to open next September. The 850-student facility will combine the student bodies of the aging Gault and McIlvaigh middle schools, which will close.
A committee of school officials, staff and community members recommended the names Eastside Academy Middle School and First Creek Middle School to the board last month. But board members, not immediately taken with either suggestion, asked for a longer list of possibilities.
The committee added Salish, Jane Russell and Cesar Chavez to its list, the latter two names honoring longtime Tacoma philanthropist Russell and farm workers organizer and champion Chavez.
Obama’s name came up in initial discussions, but it was rejected because of the district’s naming policy.
About half of Tacoma’s 29,000 students are minority, but only two of the district’s 55 schools are named for people of color.
Jerry Meeker Middle School is named for an American Indian from Browns Point who played a role in the city’s early history.
Helen B. Stafford Elementary honors the longtime advocate for civil and women’s rights who was long regarded as the matriarch of Tacoma’s black community. She was once denied a teaching application in the city because of her race.
If the board did vote for Obama, it wouldn’t be making history.
A school board in Hempstead, N.Y., already decided to rename an elementary after the nation’s 44th president.
Kris Sherman: 253-597-8659
Other suggested school names
Here’s the list of names proposed by a committee of school officials, staff members and community members for the new Tacoma middle school on Portland Avenue.
• Eastside Academy Middle School
• First Creek Middle School
• Salish Middle School
• Jane Russell Middle School
• Cesar Chavez Middle School
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.