The former Stonewall Jackson Middle School and Lee-Davis High School will remain unnamed for a few more weeks after arguments and criticisms led the Hanover County School Board to delay the renaming until at least October.

The board initially was set to approve the new names – Mechanicsville Middle School and Twin Rivers High School – at its Sept. 16 meeting. The names were recommended by a School Renaming Committee after weeks of public input following a board vote to change the Confederate names.

However, disputes over the recom- mended names proved so contentious at the meeting that neither name was approved.

Dr. Carol Cash, a retired former princi- pal of the former Lee-Davis High School and Hanover High School and a member of the renaming committee, detailed the rationale behind selecting the two names, neither of which received the most votes in a community poll.

Residents favored Mechanicsville for the high school’s name, but “the committee ignored them,” said School Board member Norman K. Sulser of the Cold Harbor District. He pushed the board to approve Mechanicsville for the high school’s new name and decide on a new name for the middle school at a later time.

Summer Miller, a senior at the former Lee-Davis High, was critical of how long the renaming process has taken. She said the lack of a name for the school has created a roadblock for her applications to colleges and for scholarships. She urged the board to approve the names during last week’s meeting.

“I’m asking you, please, to move it along,” Miss Miller said. “You’re wasting seniors’ futures.”

A Hanover County Public Schools spokesman said in an email that a temporary remedy to that problem is in progress.

“Staff at the school and in the division are working to update organizations and institutions with the temporary name of HCPS High School so that students can move forward with their college and scholarship applications,” the spokesman stated.

Robert N. Barnette, president of the Hanover County Branch NAACP, noted how the concerns of the county’s African- American population were absent from the meeting discussions. But he said the organization, ultimately, has no issue with the new names recommended by the committee.

“We’re just hoping they’ll get through this issue, rename the schools and move on because they certainly have a lot more to do than argue about the names of the schools,” Mr. Barnette said.

A vote on the new school names likely will be held during the board’s Oct. 13 meeting. The board said it will gather more public input before then.