SIMI VALLEY : School Mural Will Honor Late Principal

A mural of a sycamore tree, its leaves the handprints of elementary school students from Sycamore School in Simi Valley, will be painted as a memorial to the school’s principal, school officials said Tuesday.

The principal, Robert Chall, died Monday after suffering a heart attack in his office.

Although a crisis team of psychological counselors was at the campus on Tuesday, most students spent the day doing their usual work, said acting principal Elroy Peterson.

“We’re trying to run the school as normally as possible,” Peterson said.

Nan Mostacciuolo , whose son is a first-grader at the school, said she painted a mural on an outdoor wall of the school in 1986, during Chall’s first year as principal there.

“He was the backbone of the Sycamore family,” she said.

The memorial mural Mostacciuolo has sketched includes the words “acceptance,” “involvement” and “family” as parts of the tree. Above the tree, in the daytime sky, is a star.

“That will be dedicated to Bob Chall. He’s shining down on us still,” said Mostacciuolo, a former president of the school’s Parent-Teacher Assn. who has sent all six of her children to the school. She has painted three murals at the school.

Funeral arrangements for Chall, at Mt. Sinai Mortuary in Los Angeles, were still incomplete late Tuesday afternoon.