Question: Re-vote on expensive mural project?

Our parent group voted to hire a mural artist and pay her $11,000 from PTO funds. There are many parents who are getting wind of this and are opposed to this decision. The PTO leaders claim that we are out of luck because we didn’t come to that meeting to vote. The parents know that a mural was in the plans, but we had no idea they were intending to dedicate $11,000 to the cause.
I am an active parent; last year I chaired the big family event for the school, I do Scholastic book orders for my son’s classroom, and I have volunteered as an evaluator for the science fair. Do I have any options, or is this, as they say, “show up or shut up”?

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Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Elly writes:

Well, if your group raises $20,000 a year, $11,000 is a lot of money. On the other hand, Elly knows of a group that spent $100,000 to put a new tile roof on the school so it would blend in better with the surrounding neighborhood. The point is, everything is relative. (By the way, that was a public school.)

The short answer to your primary question—do you have any recourse?—is that if a contract has been signed with the artist, probably not. It might still be possible to change the scope of the project, but that’s about it.

The bigger question is whether it’s worth the divisiveness that almost certainly will result if this becomes a big issue. Keep in mind that everybody shares the same core priority: helping the students. Will they benefit from a new mural? Yes. Could they benefit more from spending the money in another way? That certainly is something reasonable people can disagree about.

Elly suggests that your efforts might be better spent making sure the school gets the most it can out of this project. Is there an interactive element to it? Will the children get to suggest designs—or even splash on a little paint? Can some sort of art appreciation program run while the mural is being created?

One of the coolest murals Elly has ever heard about is in Lyme, Conn. Students—180 of them—created drawings representing town history. The drawings were projected onto panels and traced. Then the students painted the mural under the artist’s supervision. They used Q-tips to recreate the French impressionist style called Pointillism. The result was a great mural, a local history lesson, and some serious excitement about art. There are more ideas in the Academics & Enrichment article archive, including the article “Murals Teach Art, History.” Maybe you’ll find a little inspiration.

If you’re looking to make a long-term change, one rule Elly has seen used is to require allocations over a certain amount to be publicized before the vote. In other words, your meeting announcement and agenda would state: “Mural: Should we allocate $11,000 to create a mural?” or something similar.

Community Advice

district14 writes:
Hello, I'm a God fearing parent and a member of my local PTA. Coincidentally, I represent a variety of muralist and painters (NELAart.org) that would love to paint a project(your mural). I'm not sure the date of your post but if you haven't signed any contracts my organization will be more then willing to give you our honest appraisal and a bid to compete for your schools project. Thank you in advance for your time.