Jordan Middle School, other schools now up for renaming

What began as one Jordan Middle School seventh-grader's research project on the questionable history of the school's namesake, David Starr Jordan, has now given way to a commitment to review not only that school's name but those of all schools in the Palo Alto school district.

The school board expressed support Tuesday night for the creation of a district committee that would take a closer look at the history of the people whose names the district's 17 schools bear.

The issue came to the board through Lars Johnsson, the father of the Jordan student, who started in November a petition to rename the school. Johnsson was shocked to read in his son's book report last year that Jordan was an "early, lifelong" leader in the eugenics movement, an early 20th-century science that promoted the reproduction of genetic traits of particular races over others.

Johnsson's petition has since collected more than 300 signatures from individuals and also received official endorsements from several parent groups in the school district, including Parent Advocates for Student Success (PASS), which represents parents of...