District Renames Schools for Barack and Michelle Obama

The president and first lady, in an official White House photo. | Michelle Obama School, formerly Forest Trail.

Park Forest-Chicago Heights School District 163 has renamed two of its schools for the president and first lady. The Barack Obama School of Leadership and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math replaces what was Beacon Hill School, the district said Friday in a news release. And Forest Trail school is the Michelle Obama School of Technology and the Arts.

“The Obama name was selected for the two schools because the values that the First Family models are unparalleled precedents and are values that our students strive to emulate. I believe we are the first schools in the nation to honor the First Family in this manner,” District 163 Supt. Joyce Carmine said in the release. Students from the fourth through eighth grades attend the schools.