At the second meeting of the New Middle School Naming Committee on Oct. 27, the 13 committee members present whittled a list of seven possible names for the fifth middle school in the Cupertino Union School District down to three. All will likely be submitted to the school board for consideration, but the committee will meet one more time to rank the selections and fine-tune the details.

Linwood Acres, Louis Mariani and Samuel Lawson are the three names that remain. Their selection came after two rounds of voting—one that narrowed the list down to four, and another that removed the Andrew Garrido option.

Discussions preceded each round of voting, which prompted committee members to rank their favorites. Jeremy Nishihara and two district employees tallied the votes.

Then committee members discussed several concerns about the three remaining choices. Linwood Acres refers to the neighborhood surrounding the Collins site where the school is being built, but several members said they had spoken to longtime residents in the neighborhood who had never heard of the name.

The Samuel Lawson choice was also called into question—the board's recently adopted naming policy states that names should not be duplicated within the district. A former gymnasium at Cupertino Middle School carries Lawson's name, but committee member Wendy Armstrong went to the school for a bit of investigation.

"It was a gym, but now it's a cafeteria. There's just a plaque above the door," she said. "None of the kids even knew about the name."

Nishihara said he would check on the particulars of the policy and how it would apply in this situation. Committee members were encouraged to contact those who nominated the three choices to learn more.

At the next meeting, on Nov. 4 at 6 p.m. in the Cupertino Union boardroom, the committee will review the attributes of the three remaining nominees and rank them in the order the committee will submit them to the school board. The public is welcome to observe.

Cupertino Union's boardroom is in the district office, located at 10301 Vista Drive.