Chicago Public Schools plans to adopt new names for three elementary schools named after controversial individuals.
The three elementary schools are named after an enslaver, a Supreme Court Justice who upheld racial segregation laws and Christopher Columbus, whose role in American history is subject to ongoing debate.
Melville Fuller Elementary in Grand Boulevard – named after the Supreme Court Justice whose 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld racial segregation – will be renamed after civil rights activist James Farmer Jr., who, in 1942, staged a civil rights sit-in at Jack Spratt Coffee House formerly located on Chicago’s South side. Ukrainian Village’s Christopher Columbus School – the namesake of which has been the subject of criticism in Chicago for years – plans to change its name to Ruth Bader Ginsburg Elementary after the Supreme Court’s second female justice. And James Monroe Elementary School – named after the fifth U.S. President, who, according to historical records, was known to have enslaved 178 individuals and to have called for the end of slavery, will become Logan Square Elementary.
The district proposed these name changes to the Board of Education on Tuesday in a preview to a vote at their monthly meeting on June 27.
In 2023, the district adopted a new policy for renaming schools so that all school names will be “culturally responsive, anti-racist, anti-bias, and promote diversity and representation within district learning environments.”
The schools led and approved the name change process, according to Rachel Parnell, equity program manager for Chicago Public Schools. Each school facilitated four parent-community meetings, received approval from their local school councils, held student sessions, and ultimately had school community stakeholders rank the proposed names.
“The equity focus in each of these processes was inclusive partnerships: parents, communities, students and staff nominated and engaged in the renaming process to pick a name that was reflective of their school community,” said Parnell at the June 18 agenda review meeting.
Parnell described the demographics of these three schools: Christopher Columbus is a majority-white school, Melville Fuller is majority Black and James Monroe is majority Latinx.
Additionally, the district plans to designate three schools – Collins Academy, Thomas Chalmers and James Weldon Johnson – as Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics schools, as part of the North Lawndale STEAM Partnership.
