Jordan Chapman said her jaw dropped in incredulous disbelief the day she learned in her Hermitage High School history class about the late Harry F. Byrd Sr., the former Virginia governor, U.S. senator and avowed white separatist for whom H.F. Byrd Middle School in Henrico County is named.

“I learned that a school right down the street from where I live was named after a man who tried to keep schools segregated by shutting them down across the state,” Jordan, a 17-year-old senior, said during an interview Saturday at her Western Henrico County home.

There, she and four adults gathered to discuss with the Free Press their campaign — started by Jordan last fall — to have Henrico Public Schools rename the middle school at 9400 Quioccasin Road to rid it of the racist legacy of Mr. Byrd.

As a U.S. senator, Mr. Byrd was one of the chief architects of “Massive Resistance,” the fiercely backed, state-sanctioned policy to ignore the 1954 landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education ordering the desegregation of public schools because of inequities. Mr. Byrd met with members of the General Assembly to design the strategy to enact laws and policies that led to the closure of many public schools in Virginia between 1958 and 1964 rather than integrate.

Thousands of African-American children were denied a public education during that time, while state money was funneled to all-white private schools to support the education of many white students in places where the schools were closed.

During the next few years, state and federal courts eventually overturned most of the laws that fueled Massive Resistance, but aspects of the campaign against integrated schools in Virginia continued for decades.

“Why would you name a school for somebody who tried to stop some people from being educated?” Jordan recalled thinking.

The more she learned about Mr. Byrd’s efforts to deny public education opportunities to black children, the more she recoiled at the middle school’s name.

“It’s a moral issue to me,” she said. “It’s hard for me to believe that a school would honor someone like him. I think it’s time to change the name,” she said.

As an alternative, she offered the name Oliver Hill Middle School to honor the late trailblazing Richmond civil rights attorney who won numerous legal battles at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. He also was among the lawyers representing plaintiffs in the Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, the Virginia case that was heard with the Brown v. Board of Education case.

“It’s amazing to me,” Jordan added, “that a school would not want to be welcoming to all of its students” by having that name.

According to Henrico Public Schools spokesperson Andrew Jenks, 20.3 percent, or 203 of Byrd Middle School’s 999 students, are African-American.

Jordan, who lives about a 5-minute drive from Byrd, explained that she was zoned to attend Byrd, but instead attended the International Baccalaureate program at Moody Middle School.

The honor roll student now attends the Hermitage High School Center for Humanities and is undecided about where she will attend college.

In August, she emailed the five members of the Henrico School Board to inquire about renaming Byrd Middle School, “but I got no responses.”

She then asked Hermitage High School Principal Andy Armstrong what he thought of her idea and he said “it was cool for me to take the initiative and here are the next steps you can take.”

Jordan said her AP government teacher Jeannine Chewning also has encouraged her. Her parents also are supportive. The response from her classmates at Hermitage is “mostly positive,” she said.

Her campaign is gaining national attention, with articles about her campaign appearing in The Washington Post and The Huffington Post, among others.

The thoughtful teen also said she has received numerous posts on social media from people across the country praising her efforts.

Jordan has spoken at three School Board meetings urging members to change the middle school’s name. She was joined by a growing number of supporters at the board’s Jan. 28 meeting.

Henrico School Board members said they would learn and discuss the estimated cost for a name change at a board work session 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11, in the auditorium at New Bridge Learning Center, 5915 Nine Mile Road.

Henrico School Board chair Michelle F. “Micky” Ogburn of the Three Chopt District told the Free Press on Wednesday that the cost estimate would be discussed near the end of the meeting in order to allow parents and students to attend after school ends.

Neither she nor Henrico Schools Superintendent Patrick Kinlaw, who declined to discuss the issue with the Free Press, would disclose the estimate to a reporter on Wednesday.

However, Robert Voorhis, who lives in the Byrd Middle School district and is active in the name-change campaign, said a source estimated the cost at more than $120,000.

By comparison, Tommy Kranz, an assistant superintendent of Richmond Public Schools, told the Free Press on Tuesday it cost the city school district “less than $10,000” to rename Thompson Middle School last summer to Elkhardt-Thompson Middle School. That amount included changing the school signs, letterhead and the basketball court logo, he said.

Mr. Voorhis said he backs the name change because the school should not honor someone “who was not only a lead segregationist, but also kicked thousands of black children out of schools.”

The Free Press reached out Wednesday to Fairfield District representative Rev. Roscoe D. Cooper III, the lone African-American on the Henrico School Board and its newest member, to ask for his opinion.

“I will reserve speaking specifically about my opinion until after I have shared my position with my colleagues on the board,” he stated in an email response. “Once I share with them my position, I will gladly share it with you and explain why I feel the way I do.”

Ms. Ogburn provided no timetable for when the name-change decision would be made.

“The School Board members have yet to decide whether or not to support the renaming of Byrd Middle School,” she said. “We set forth a process that we would follow for the possible renaming of the school. We are dedicated to following that process.

“I can tell you that this will be a well thought out decision,” she said, “taking into account all of the views of our community. It may be a slower process than some people want, but it is my hope that during our Feb 11th and Feb. 25th meetings, we will announce the next steps.”

This is not the first time someone has sought to get the county to change the name at Byrd Middle School.

Pat Dodson, 74, said she was “shell-shocked” when she learned after moving from White Plains, N.Y., to Henrico County in 1993 that a school would be named for someone who led segregation efforts. Her son and grandson both attended Byrd and were among the few African-American students there at the time.

She said she repeatedly lobbied school officials to change the name, but, she said, “They smiled and said, ‘It’s a very nice thing you’re trying to do, but we have other things to do.’ They more or less humored me.”

Kathy DeShazo-Jackson said she was subjected to “appalling discrimination” from teachers and students as one of the few black students to attend Byrd when it first opened in 1971.

“One my teachers called me a black monkey in front of the other students,” she recalled. “None of those folks wanted us to be there,” she said.

She said she joined the campaign to change the Byrd name after Jordan and other members of the group seeking to change the name discussed it in front of the congregation at Quioccasin Baptist Church about a month ago.

“I was happy someone was looking at this,” she said. “It brought back all of my own experiences from when I was a student there. That name really needs to be changed.”

Melissa McKenney, a Byrd PTA member whose child is in the sixth grade, said the PTA has not taken a position on the name change. She said she and other parents at the school decided “we needed to embrace” the effort to change the school name.

“It’s the right time to do this,” she said.

Mr. Voorhis said regardless of the decision the board makes, he and others involved in the campaign are determined to push until the name is changed.

“We’re not going away,” he promised.