Barack H. Obama Elementary to close

Barack H. Obama Elementary to close

The Barack H. Obama Elementary School in Asbury Park, N.J. will be shuttered this summer, largely due to low enrollment, the Asbury Park Press reports.

Bruce N. Rodman, the official who oversees the district's finances, determined that it was necessary for one of the district's elementary schools to close and the Obama school's enrollment had dropped 35 percent in the past 10 years, the newspaper reports.

The Bangs Avenue School elected in 2010 to change its name to Barack H. Obama Elementary.

At the time that the school acquired its new name, administrators took a lot of flak for ostensibly focusing on the name change instead of the plight of its students. But the city resident behind the movement, Myra Campbell, believed it would "send a subliminal message" to the students.

"Every time they walk through the school doors, there's going to be a certain amount of pride in where they go to school," Campbell told the Star-Ledger in 2009. "We now move forward in trying what we can to improve the academic skills of the students and also the social skills." At the time, another New Jersey school had already been renamed after the president.

About 1,000 students will be reassigned to local schools in the fall.