How many K-12 public schools are still named after JFK?
May 29 marks what would have been the 100th birthday of President John F. Kennedy. The day will include tributes and remembrances, but when those are over, this honor will remain: his name on schools.
There was a time when it was popular for K-12 public schools in the United States to be named after presidents, a reflection, perhaps, of a community’s civic vision. Today, schools are often named after things found in nature. There are, for example, 18 elementary, middle or secondary schools in Florida with the name “manatee” (and they aren’t all in Manatee County), and 11 have “cactus” in their names in Arizona.
There still are plenty of schools named after presidents, with the most popular probably being Abraham Lincoln, according to the National Center for Education Statistics search tool, which allows you to find information about individual public schools, including their names.
I say “probably” because the results of a name search depend on the terms you enter. For example, if you put in “Abraham Lincoln,” 46 public schools come up. If you put in “Lincoln,” 620 schools turn up.
There is, for example, East Lincoln High School in Denver in North Carolina’s Lincoln County. That county was not named for Abraham Lincoln but, rather, for Benjamin Lincoln, a major-general in the Revolutionary War who was in command of the Southern armies, according to this history of the county. But in Lincoln, Ill., there is a school called Chester-East Lincoln Elementary School that was indeed named in part after Abraham Lincoln but doesn’t appear in a search for “Abraham Lincoln.” Lincoln Elementary School in Lakewood, Ohio, is in a district with a number of schools named after presidents.
A search for “George Washington” turns up 77 schools, but some are named after George Washington Carver, a prominent African American scientist, and not the first president of How many K-12 public schools are still named after JFK? - The Washington Post: