It’s known that Roosevelt is a fun, happy, and bright community, but does our building itself reflect that?

     Adding school murals has been a request by Student Council President Manny Sanchez  and other students here at RIS, recently. In fact, Manny has been working hard with Mr. Greenwood on getting some murals in the bland music hall, a place seen frequently by students and staff.

     Mr. Greenwood brought up the fact that our school used to have classroom doors and hallways full of murals, which have since been painted over. 

     “I used to do it with eighth graders, ” he said. “We did it for years. Then they [the remodelers of the interior of the school] wiped them all out. The only possible solution I see would be to do them on a hardboard that could be bolted on. I had Manny  ask me about the music hallway. My suggestion for that was to go back and research all of the plays we’ve done and do like playbills.”

     Mr. Greenwood and Manny have been trying to work out this goal. Manny is determined to get color in the music hallway..

     “I think it’s a good idea because Mr. Greenwood already painted a lot of the paintings of the playbills, so we were thinking of hanging them up and if we can do that then we will add murals to the band or chorus walls. Mr. Getchman approved it,” Manny Sanchez said. 

     In the past Mr. Greenwood said the eighth graders were a big part of the making of the murals. 

     While the playbill project in the music hall is already in the making, students could maybe be interested in future projects such as the ‘dead hallway’ in between classes 202 and 223. It’s clear that the hallway is called ‘dead’ for a reason: it’s lack of color and life. Adding color to the dead hallway would be a great way to add brightness and life to the walls.

     We asked students in 8th period gym class if they would be excited about school murals.

     Drew Goodhart said, “Yes! Our school looks like a dungeon on … the inside, so if we had something to liven it up, to add some color and happiness to our school, then maybe people will feel more excited to learn.  We can do sunsets and landscapes. And the art class could do student murals, like that’s the project.”

     Both the art teacher and the student agree on students being involved in the murals. 

     Overall school murals can bring so much to the wonderful school that is Roosevelt and could get the students involved from the past, present and future.