In Summary
Seven schools named after slaveholders or people with ties to racist practices may be renamed by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.A school district in Cleveland is considering renaming a handful of schools that have the names of slaveholders or people who have a legacy of racism, NBC News reported.
If approved by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Board of Education, five elementary schools and two high schools will be renamed.
According to NBC News, the elementary schools are named after Albert Bushnell Hart, Louis Agassiz, Luis Muñoz Marín, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. If approved by the board, the schools will have a new name by the 2022-23 school year.
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While the high schools are named after James Ford Rhodes and John Marshall, the names for the high schools will be changed at an unspecified date. The board is also proposing that 11 other schools be renamed pending an “additional review,” per reports.
Cleveland’s City Council passed a resolution in 2020 that pressured the school district to change the names.
According to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s site, 64.1% of the over 37,000 students enrolled are Black or African American, 16.7% are Hispanic/Latino, 15% are white and 4.2% are other.
Despite the Board’s proposal for a name change, it will hear from the public in January and February and make a decision by March, NBC News reported.
“We’ve made it clear to the public that the board won’t make any changes without getting feedback from the community,” district spokesperson Thomas Ott told NBC.