Click the link above to read about the mural at Whittier School.
Prescott School Missoula is featuring this article as it illustrates the value which Missoulians place on their public schools, many which have housed our citizens for generations, such as Prescott and Whittier. As one will read, citizens were not happy with the lessee's plan to change the interior mural artwork which was created by students in the '70's.
In November of 2011, Scott Reed,the district's maintenance and operations Director, gave permission to Missoula International School to make several renovations to Prescott School and the playground without any Board or public participaton. So one administrator has all the control regarding such issues? This is not the manner in which a public entity is supposed to do business. Something is not right at MCPS.
The attachment to keeping traditions which are inherent to a school building, in this case Whittier School, can also be transferred to Prescott School. Both Prescott and Whittier are leased to other entities. Just as citizens were upset with the thought of losing the mural, so to are citizens when the interior of the Prescott building is being re-constructed to suit the needs of the private school leasing it, Missoula International School.
Did the Head Start director have permission from Scott Reed to paint over the mural? Did Scott Reed know about the plan to "whitewash" the mural? psm wonders if School Reed had a role to play in this isue.
Something needs to be done about the transparency with which changes are taking place within our schools - the public has a right to know and participate in discussions about any proposed changes to our school buildings, whether the schools are leased or not, before decisions are made final.
Some quotes from the above article follow:
"The wizard of Whittier is getting whitewashed."
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"The wizard, along with a few American Indians, a trapeze artist, a centaur with a devil's face, a human-saddled dinosaur and a giant snake were painted by the students at the school when it was filled with Missoula County Public Schools students in the late 1970s."
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"On Monday, those creatures and humans are getting a makeover.
Actually, it's a paint-over, and more than a few people are taking great exception to the decision by the director of the Head Start program - run as Child Start Inc. - to erase the second-floor murals, which run along the length of each side of the court."
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"The school's nighttime custodian even refused to do the job himself."
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"It's not like it's 100 years old or anything, but I don't think we should just cover up something semi-historic," said Spencer Bryant, who likes the murals."
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"There are numerous things on the mural that are inappropriate for 3- and 4-year-olds," said Skelton, who was hired to run the Head Start program last summer. Skelton left a similar position in Racine, Wis."
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"Wow, that is sad," said Jen Harrington, a Whittier student in the 1970s who worked on the project with her classmates more than 30 years ago. "That's a sad thing to hear."
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"It was around 1978 or 1979 - Harrington can't quite remember - that she and her Whittier classmates began painting the mural, a project involving the entire school back in the day when it was filled with first- through eighth-graders."
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"I still enjoy it," said Harrington, who now lives in Clinton. "It brings back memories."
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"Harrington said many of her classmates who still live in Missoula - including some on the North Side - will be irked when they find out about Skelton's plan."
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"The Head Start program has been run out of the building for 20 years. The building is still owned by the MCPS district, but leased.
Bryant will continue to clean the school, even though he considers the paint-over an injustice."
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"We just seem to live in a culture that likes to get rid of something old to replace it with something new," he said."
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