I’ve walked past Chabot Elementary School on Patton Street countless times, but last year I noticed it looking a little worse for wear. What followed was an unexpected community project that turned a neglected wall into a colorful celebration of Chabot and the Rockridge neighborhood.
The story of the mural began a year earlier, when a well-meaning parent removed a collection of painted wooden sea creatures from the wall for some much-needed upkeep. Unfortunately, years of deferred maintenance revealed that the beloved pieces were too damaged to be reinstalled. Pockmarked and weathered, the wall sat empty for the remainder of the school year while the school considered what might come next.
The old mural was badly in need of a makeover, so the entire fifth grade gifted the school a new one.
As graduation approached, outgoing fifth graders were inspired to give the school a new mural as their parting gift. As a local artist and Chabot alum-mom, I was asked by the school to paint them a new mural. I was already well-versed in beautifying neglected sites, having donated several murals to help abate graffiti along College Avenue.
Funding the project became a community effort, too. Through numerous bake sales, our fifth-grade families raised enough to cover painting materials, while I donated the many hours of design and painting needed to bring the students’ ideas to life.
The fifth graders gathered for several brainstorming sessions, imagining a nature-inspired mural filled with elements that reminded them of their years at Chabot and their experience of the Rockridge neighborhood. Their ideas included native plants, local wildlife, the changing seasons—and one very specific neighborhood celebrity: Kevin, Rockridge’s resident peacock.
Chabot Fifth graders brainstormed ideas, which included their favorite neighbor, Kevin the Peacock.
Their enthusiasm and creativity became the foundation for the design; I imagined the mural from a child’s perspective, looking up at the natural world. I divided the long, narrow wall into four sections, each representing a season. The mural begins in fall, when the school year starts, moves through winter and spring, and arrives at summer—the season of graduation and the end of the school year.
After spending much of the summer working on the mural, I completed it just in time for the first day of school.
“What a gift this mural has been to Chabot,” says Carlin Thomas, Chabot PTA President. “The fifth-grade team turned a chipped, neglected wall into something alive: seasons, native plants and critters, even a quirky tribute to Kevin, the neighborhood peacock. That specificity is what makes it feel like a time capsule—a little window for kids twenty years from now into who made it and when.”
Thomas adds, “Parents, kids, and the wider community have loved it. An eyesore is now a true reflection of last year’s fifth graders, and a beautiful example of how much our families pour into this school.”
And the response was immediate. “The families at school are just in awe!” I heard from Jen Daskal, fifth-grade room parent. “So many first-day pictures have been taken in front of the mural… a Chabot legacy for sure!”
What began as an empty, weathered wall has become something much more meaningful to our community: a colorful record of one fifth-grade class, their school, and the Oakland neighborhood surrounding it.
(Article photos by Rachel Perls)
