Chicago Public Schools is considering renaming three elementary schools.

Chicago Public Schools plans to adopt new names for three elementary schools named after controversial people.

The three elementary schools are named after a slave owner, a Supreme Court justice who enforced racial segregation laws, and Christopher Columbus, whose role in American history is the subject of a ongoing debate.

Melville Fuller Elementary School on Grand Boulevard – named for the Supreme Court justice whose 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld racial segregation – will be renamed for civil rights activist James Farmer Jr., who in 1942 staged a civil rights sit-in at Jack Spratt Coffee House, once located in South Texas Chicago. Christopher Columbus School in Ukrainian Village — whose namesake has been the subject of criticism in Chicago for years — plans to change its name to Ruth Bader Ginsburg Elementary in honor of the second female Supreme Court justice. And James Monroe Elementary School – named for the fifth U.S. president, who, according to historical records, was known for enslaving 178 people and calling for an end to slavery, will become Logan Square Elementary School.

The district proposed the name changes to the Board of Education Tuesday in anticipation of a vote at its June 27 monthly meeting.

In 2023, the district adopted a new policy to rename schools so that all school names are “culturally responsive, anti-racist, anti-bias, and promote diversity and representation within the district’s learning environments.” .

Schools led and approved the name change process, according to Rachel Parnell, equity program manager for Chicago Public Schools. Each school held four parent-community meetings, received approval from their local school boards, held sessions with students, and ultimately asked school community stakeholders to rank the proposed names.

“The emphasis on equity in each of these processes was inclusive partnerships: parents, communities, students and staff nominated and engaged in the renaming process to choose a name that reflects their school community,” Parnell said during 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.