The DeKalb County Board of Education voted unanimously Monday night to name a new elementary school after President Obama.
The new school, serving Pre-K to 5th grade, will be known as the Barack H. Obama Elementary Magnet School of Technology and will be located in the former Terry Mill Elementary School in Atlanta.
It will be the first public school in Georgia to be named after the nation’s 44th president.
The 900-student facility will come at a total cost of $23 million, the Atlantic Journal Constitution reported. It it slated to open in January 2017 and is projected to serve 715 students in its first year of operation.
“President Obama embodies the values of a strong family, hard work, and education as the means of getting ahead,” Superintendent Dr. R. Stephen Green said. “These values are reflected in the DeKalb County School District and are the keys to college and career readiness.”
Dr. Melvin Johnson, chair of the DeKalb County Board of Education, said having Obama’s name on the school will remind everyone of the president’s “public career and his family commitment.”
There are a handful of schools around the country named after Obama, including the Barack Obama Charter School in Compton, Calif., and the Barack Obama Male Leadership High Academy in Dallas, Texas.
