The new high school in the state's largest school district will be named Little Rock Southwest High School if Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key accepts the recommendation of the superintendent and the Community Advisory Board.
Superintendent Michael Poore announced his recommendation for naming what will be a 2,250-student, 400,000-square-foot campus at Thursday's meeting of the Community Advisory Board. The advisory board voted 4-0 to support the recommendation that now goes to Key for approval.
Key serves as the school board for the district that has operated under state control without an elected school board since January 2015.
Poore also recommended that the school's media center be named for William Harry Fowler, who in 1967 became the district's first black assistant superintendent for personnel.
He further recommended that the school's technical education wing be named for Milton P. Crenchaw, an Arkansas native and Tuskegee airman who trained pilots for the federal government during World War II.
Poore said more than 140 names were proposed for the new high school, the first high school to be constructed in the district since Parkview High was built in 1966.
The new school at Mabelvale Pike and Mann Road is to open in August 2020.
Metro on 12/15/2017