DeKalb County School District Superintendent Steve Green stood behind a lectern Thursday morning, flanked by members of the district’s board, beaming with pride.
“You only get one chance to be first,” he said to raucous applause from the more than 100 people in the auditorium at Barack H. Obama Elementary Magnet School of Technology in Atlanta. “This is the first school (in Georgia) named after … the first African-American president in the United States.”
The school opened for students in the fall at a temporary location, and moved into its permanent building on Jan. 5. Thursday morning, district officials, parents, students and community leaders gathered at the school for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“This is truly a wonderful new beginning, despite all the challenges of our students face,” Obama Elementary Principal Angela Thomas-Bethea said.
DeKalb County Board of Education Chairman Melvin Johnson told the audience the school was the result of the district’s collaboration with the community to provide a state-of-the-art experience for the students. The school’s name also came from a community recommendation.
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase,” he said. “Now, not only do we see the staircase, we see the future for many students who will walk through these doors and shape their destiny.”
Johnson recalled that the board approved the new school, at 3132 Clifton Church Road just away from Flat Shoals Road where the Gresham Park and Panthersville neighborhoods intersect, in March of 2015. The board voted to approve the name last July.
The school is billed as a multicultural technological school that provides a complete education through academic, social and emotional learning. It also includes a Spanish-language immersion program.
Obama Elementary includes interactive display panels and wireless access points in each classroom. All teachers received laptops with docking stations. Students received Chromebook laptops.
“We are going to do the kind of things and build the kind of technology (and) the kind of hope that President Barack Obama stood for as he commanded this country for eight years,” Green said. “It’s an honor and a pleasure to be part of the legacy.”
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