While Kamras did not give a stance, the school’s representative on the School Board and Mayor Levar Stoney both said they would support a change.

“If you look at the history of Cary, all things being equal, his background is very similar [to Stuart’s] so I wouldn’t have a problem with that,” said Patrick Sapini, the 5th District School Board member and the group’s vice chairman.

Cary was home to 264 students last year, state data show. Enrollment data for this year aren’t yet available. Eighty-one percent of the school’s population was black.

“African-American children should not be walking into schools that are named after those who did not want them to be educated,” said Stoney, who supported the change from J.E.B. Stuart to Barack Obama elementary. “That just adds to the agenda for the School Board to tackle.”

The board’s to-do list is lengthy, with goals to tackle rezoning, new state audit findings that revealed widespread course credit errors and a new strategic plan with 40 specific action items all before a budget process board members vowed to start earlier.