And the winner is …

Elkhardt-Thompson Middle School.

The Richmond School Board unanimously voted Monday to give that name to a “new” middle school on South Side.

The school will open in September in the building that housed Thompson Middle School at 7825 Forest Hill Ave. Its student body will be comprised of students already at Thompson and those from Elkhardt Middle School, which closed in February because of mold.

Elkhardt students were sent across town to the old Clark Springs Elementary School in the Randolph community, where they finished the school year.

In choosing the hyphenated name, the board passed over 16 other suggestions, including Oliver W. Hill Sr. Middle School.

After about a half hour of discussion, the board voted 8-0 to go with the Elkhardt-Thompson name.

The new name was proposed by board member Shonda Harris-Muhammed, 6th District, who said students she met with from both schools expressed no trepidation about combining the two schools in one name.

She suggested, “We keep the two names (for now), then open up the discussion again” later for a new name.

RPS officials said moving the former Elkhardt students to the new school is only a temporary fix. They hope to build a new middle school building at the site of the former Elkhardt school at 6300 Hull St. by July 2018 to meet the needs of the burgeoning student population on South Side.

Because Elkhardt-Thompson Middle School is deemed to be new by the Virginia Department of Education, the school will receive conditional state accreditation in its first year.

Previously, Thompson was denied accreditation by the state and used a state-approved turnaround partner to boost student achievement to try to regain accreditation. Elkhardt was accredited with warning, which is one step from being denied accreditation.