SAN ANTONIO — The North East Independent School District voted in favor renaming Robert E. Lee High School to Legacy of Educational Excellence High School in a 5-2 vote. 

While the new name does away with the reference to the Confederate general, the acronym allows the school to go by Lee. The name change willnot go into effect unti the 2018-19 school year.   

For the past couple of months the NEISD board has been mulling what to rename. 

Of 2,443 public suggestions, only 542 met the board's criteria.

All this started in August after the NEISD board voted to strip the school's name in the midst of a local and national debate on Confederate monuments. The board agreed the school should instead be named after an idea, not a person - similar to the district's Academy of Creative Education.

NEISD asked the public to help think of names.

The public offered 1,900 submissions which contained offensive, inappropriate references, laced with profanity and racially charged statements.