Prince George's education board to consider naming policy "I was hoping the school system would allow the president to make accomplishments first," Mickens-Murray said. Prince George's has more than 55 schools named in honor of individuals, including three other presidents (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Andrew Jackson and James Madison), literary figures (Robert Frost and Francis Scott Key) and Tuskegee Airmen (Charles H. Flowers and Henry A. Wise Jr). Naming school facilities has a tendency to stir emotions and can divide communities, and the Board of Education made seven such dedications last year. Faced with a flood of requests this year to name auditoriums, media centers, music wings and even the main entrances of schools after county residents, former educators and assorted dignitaries, the Board of Education has decided to revise its naming policy to be absolutely clear about who can receive similar honors. The proposed policy would institute new rules for honoring a person - living or deceased - with a monument on school grounds. Such naming would have to be endorsed by the school's advisory council or PTA and would have to go through the school system's chief executive officer to the Board of Education, which would have to give final approval. The board is scheduled to take up the policy at a meeting Thursday. Driving the debate, in part, is an effort by state Sen. Victor R. Ramirez (D-Prince George's) to obtain state funds to place a statue of Len Bias, a University of Maryland basketball star, at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville. Bias, a Northwestern alumnus, died in 1986 of cocaine intoxication less than two days after he was drafted second overall by the NBA's Boston Celtics. "Len Bias was a student athlete in Prince George's," Ramirez said. He moved the University of Maryland basketball program to new heights. He and Michael Jordan were the two best college players at that time, until he tragically died. . . . We can learn something from everything. The nation learned a lot from this unfortunate incident. Members of the county school board learned a lot about the procedures for naming schools, buildings and monuments as a result of the Bias request, which remains controversial. Mostly what they discovered was that there were no criteria for doing it, said Verjeana M. Jacobs (District 5), the former board chairman who initiated work on the new policy. Jacobs said she and the board have struggled with how to "determine or distinguish whether a particular person would have an educational benefit." Ramirez withdrew his legislation earlier this year after some concerns were raised in the community about the appropriateness of honoring Bias. Board members privately worried about the precedent that might be set were they to erect a statue in honor of Bias, whose death sparked a national discussion about drug use.