Many describe the tax bill approved by Congress along partisan lines this week as President Donald Trump’s first major legislative achievement.

Until now, many of Trump’s actions seemed designed to undo the legacy of his predecessor, former President Barack Obama. In September, for example, Trump announced his intention to rescind, by March, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created in 2012.

The program grants protections to about 800,000 people who entered the country as minors. Unless Congress acts, those immigrants could face the threat of deportation beginning next year.

Earlier this month in Utah, Trump signed presidential proclamations to shrink the size of two national monuments designated by Obama and former President Bill Clinton. Earlier this year, Trump said the United States would withdraw from the 2015 Paris accord on climate change, an agreement the Obama administration supported.

With the tax bill’s provision to do away with the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, Trump is closer to unraveling the legislation more commonly known as Obamacare.

“Never ... have we seen a president so seemingly bent on reversing, negating, even obliterating his predecessor’s signature accomplishments,” CNN host Anderson Cooper said in October.

One thing Trump can’t undo, however, is Obama’s place in history as the first black president and his inspirational message to a generation of schoolchildren.

I sensed this spirit of Obama’s legacy during visits to various schools in the Southland. I’d often see an official portrait of Obama prominently displayed near a school’s main entrance.

I remember thinking how the portrait might have served as a daily reminder to some children that anything is possible. That in America, any citizen could hope to be elected to the nation’s highest office or pursue any career. The possibilities were endless.

I was reminded of the Obama portraits the other day when I read that the State Department notified staff members at U.S. embassies around the world that it planned to soon begin distributing official portraits of Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The White House released Trump’s official portrait on Oct. 31, nearly a year after he was elected president. It is customary for presidential portraits to appear in federal courthouses, military installations, national laboratories and other government offices.

I wondered whether portraits of Trump would replace pictures of Obama in local public schools, especially those that predominantly serve populations of African-American students in the south suburbs.

I couldn’t readily find any state law requiring public schools to display a portrait of the current president. The decision may be left to the discretion of a local school board, superintendent or principal.

I imagine that after Obama was first elected president in 2008, leaders at many Southland schools were eager to proudly hang a portrait of the nation’s first black president. With Trump, I imagine there is considerably less enthusiasm about displaying a portrait in many neighborhood schools.

I assume some awkward discussions took place. Should the portrait of Obama be left up? Should it be replaced with one of Trump? If Obama’s portrait was taken down, should the space on the wall be left blank, or perhaps be filled with a picture of a nonpresidential historical figure?

I expect questions of character might have come into play during such conversations. Many consider Obama’s personal behavior to be impeccable. Trump, on the other hand, said vulgar things about women in the “Access Hollywood” tape and faces accusations of sexual misconduct from several women.

One way to measure a president’s legacy is to consider the number of public schools named after that person. The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics provides a searchable database of public school names.

Citing the database, Time magazine reported last year there were 91 public schools nationwide named after former President John F. Kennedy and 73 named after former President Thomas Jefferson. At the time, 13 schools were named after Obama, Time said.

I checked the database Thursday and found 15 schools that bear Obama’s name. The database did not include a school in Jackson, Miss., where a school board in October decided to rename a school after Obama next year. The school currently bears the name of Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederacy.

Of the 15 Obama schools listed in the federal database, at least two are in the Southland: Barack Obama Learning Academy in Markham, part of Hazel Crest School District 152.5; and Barack Obama School of Leadership and STEM in Chicago Heights, part of Park Forest School District 163.

I left messages with principals at both schools Thursday but did not hear back before my deadline. I wanted to ask whether they could share any examples of how Obama’s presidency inspired children.

Many children who were 9 years old when Obama was first elected in 2008 would have been in fourth grade. They’re now 18, old enough to vote, and many are likely high school seniors getting ready for college or preparing to enter the workforce.

The database showed no schools named after Trump. I wonder whether there ever will be. I suppose it depends on the outcome of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The database shows there are at least two schools named after Richard Nixon, the man who resigned from the presidency in disgrace because of the Watergate scandal. There’s Richard M. Nixon Elementary School in Hiawatha, Iowa, and Nixon Elementary School in Landing, N.J.

“(Both schools) were named while Nixon was still in office, and they’ve both kept their names in the more than four decades since, despite occasional pushes for change,” Time said.

tslowik@tronc.com

Twitter @tedslowik