Mural Honoring Principal Isn’t So Simple : Simi Valley: A project memorializing Bob Chall, who died Monday, will have to abide by what parents feel are frustrating school district regulations.

It seemed a simple, compassionate idea: Paint a mural on the wall of Sycamore elementary school in Simi Valley as a memorial to the principal, who died in his office Monday of a heart attack.

School officials said they would be happy to consider it, although the parents would have to follow a few rules.

But some parents don’t like those rules. “I’m afraid we’re running into bureaucracy with the school district,” one of them, Nan Mostacciuolo, said.

If the project is approved in concept by school officials next week, it will then require an OK from the union representing district painters.

Then, the district’s top maintenance official must sign off on the design, and a deputy maintenance official has to approve the paints “so that we don’t have anything hazardous to the children,” Mostacciuolo said.

Finally, she said, a district official has to inspect the wall itself before it is painted.

Parents said the bureaucratic hurdles are frustrating and illustrate a larger point about problems with public education.

“We don’t need all these administrators,” Mostacciuolo said. “Look at the ridiculousness of all this, just to paint a simple picture on a wall.”

Said Colleen Duncan, the parent of a fourth-grader and a sixth-grader attending Sycamore: “This district is choking itself in policies and procedures. It’s gotten beyond ridiculous.”

School district officials said the controls are necessary and not particularly burdensome.

“We want to be sure the mural will be lasting and appropriate,” said Mary Beth Wolford, superintendent of the Simi Valley Unified School District.

Randy Crouse, president of the union that represents the school district’s painters and maintenance workers, said union approval is necessary any time volunteers take jobs away from unionized workers.

Devon C. Bell, maintenance manager for the district, said that after Sycamore School officials fill out a “site modification form,” someone will inspect the wall to make sure it is in good condition for painting and will review the paints to be used.

“It’s not that you want to restrict people from doing things,” Bell said. “We want to make sure that things are safe and they are aesthetic and it’s not something that’s going to be outrageous to the public. You’d be surprised at some of the things that people would put up.”

In truth, it could be worse. Saticoy School in Ventura recently had to submit its mural plans to the school board for approval by elected officials.

And in Thousand Oaks, a volunteer painter daubed the walls of the Wildwood School auditorium as an Eagle Scout project. But with an apparent lapse of technical supervision, he realized midway through that he was using glossy paint instead of flat paint and had to start over, Principal Linda Spellman said.

The Sycamore parents, who have created six other murals at the school since Principal Bob Chall arrived there in 1986, said they can be trusted to make a mural that lasts and is in good taste. And they said the delays were prolonging their children’s grief.

“We’d like to get it finished just so our kids can stop mourning,” Mostacciuolo said.

In the meantime, Acting Principal Elroy Peterson has opened discussion among the school’s staff and students about the best way to replace the current temporary shrine of flowers and chalk messages that now serve as Chall’s memorial.

In Milissa Albertson’s sixth-grade class at Sycamore on Friday afternoon, there was strong support for a mural, but there was also strong support for an annual “Mr. Chall Day”--a day off from school. Students also suggested turning the fallen principal’s office into a museum or having a drawing contest, with the person to draw the best picture of Chall winning one of the late principal’s trademark “funny ties.”

Peterson told students at an assembly that “Mr. Chall would like it to be a fun day and like him to be remembered as a fun person.”