How Fitting: Obama Elementary School to Close Due to Lack of Enrollment

Heartbreaking, isn't it?

The century-old Bangs Avenue School … renamed for President Barack Obama just a year ago … will be closed as a neighborhood school this summer, largely because of a steep slide in the district's total enrollment the past decade.

Bruce N. Rodman, the state-appointed monitor who oversees the district's finances, Thursday ordered that elementary students be reassigned to the city's two other elementary schools as of July 1.

According to a plan presented at a community meeting Monday night, all kindergarten-through-fourth-grade students living west of Comstock Street would go to Bradley Elementary School at 1100 Third Ave., and those east of Comstock would attend Thurgood Marshall Elementary at 600 Monroe Ave.

Fifth-graders would be moved to the middle school.

The Obama school closing is expected to result in 470 students enrolled at Bradley and 540 at Thurgood Marshall.

Look at the positive side: These kids won't be stigmatized for life for having attended a school named after American's Worst President.