Supplanting the Evans City elementary and middle schools, the new Seneca Valley school in Cranberry Township is poised to share its predecessor's initials.

Seneca Valley School District directors on Monday moved one step closer to bestowing an official name on the K-through-6 school being built on Ehrman Road: Ehrman Crest.

The directors formally placed onto next week's agenda the official naming of the Ehrman school.

With the schools sharing the same initials, board president Eric DiTullio said, it is a way of honoring the past while forging ahead into the future.

“It sounds silly, but the acronym, ECE (Evans City Elementary) and ECM (Evans City Middle School), would be able to continue on, almost bringing some of that legacy from Evans City back and keeping it in the building,” DiTullio said. “(The other suggestions) were all great names, but that just sort of pushed that one over the top for me.”

Ehrman Crest was the top choice among community members, too, having received the most points of all choices presented to the community in an online survey on the Seneca Valley School District website.

Community members were then asked to rank their top three choices. In sum, more than 2,600 votes were cast for the survey that ended in mid-March.

Rounding out the top five were Wolfe Creek, Hilltop, Oak Crest and Trailblazer, according to district communications director Linda Andreassi.

Board vice president Jim Nickel said while Ehrman Crest wasn't his first choice, he likes the name and is happy to go along with the community's choice.

“As we think about a name for this building, it's important to closely listen to and really hear our constituency,” Nickel said. “The one name that's above and beyond the rest and has a high point total — even, again, (though) it wasn't my first choice, I think it's a good choice. My sense is that's what I would support, which is the best representation I have of what our community is looking for.”