School PTA spend £2k on queen Elizabeth mural

[User048261940582]

AIBU to think this is ridiculous?

My DD’s school’s PTA is great at fundraising but they’ve just sent a breakdown of how they spent the money they raised in the last year. They’ve spent 1/4 of the budget, or £2,000, on a mural depicting the late Queen. I feel really angry at this. That money could have gone to so many other things that benefit the school/pupils in other ways. And no I’m not on the PTA, so yes this probably makes me hypocritical blah blah blah.

Some of their budget was spent on a school mural but it was their primary school logo and local area themed so it included any landmarks close by. It was painted over by the time my child left.

I agree that's pretty crazy!

But I guess what you really need to check is how the decision was made, whether it followed agreed procedures, and whether those procedures are fit for purpose.Maybe that's what the school/head/teachers/governors said they wanted the money spent on??

I’m not sure there can be any good reason to fund murals in schools in this day and age, beyond basic materials costs. Even if there’s not a single person who could make a simple mural, most schools have projectors and it’s very easy to use this as the guide for a mural, which kids /teachers/ volunteers can paint like a paint by numbers type thing.
Seems a shocking waste of hard earned money. The artist must be a connection of someone in school surely?

Crikey, that seems like a lot of money on a very low priority item when schools are so desperate for resources!

Might it have been an art enrichment activity, e.g with a local artist ? Perhaps an area needed painting/remedial work, and rather than just employing a regular decorator they created an art project for the children?

That’s crackers. 2k for a picture of someone who just happened to born into extreme privilege? If they were going to pick role models to paint in the walls could they not have found someone from humble beginnings who actually worked their way to influence or success? Someone more relatable???
Here kids, you TOO can be rich and famous - just so long as your mummy and daddy already are…

I’m a PTA secretary and treasurer.
We spend our funds on book bags for reception starters, leavers hoodies, coaches and trips for each class throughout the year, books, iPads, equipment for the sensory room, a colour run, and so much more!
I would be so disappointed and I would write to the school and PTA to say so. Bear in mind the PTA may have been put under pressure by the school.

I would also be worried here about conflict of interest or fraud if someone on the PTa is connected to the artist. It’s the sort of thing where you might expect an arty parent to donate some time and the school provides the paint. Paying £2k doesn’t seem right at especially when that money could have been used to directly benefit the children.

I totally get why you’re angry—it’s completely outrageous! £2,000 spent on a mural of the Queen is such a ridiculous choice, especially when that money could have gone to things that actually benefit the kids and the school.

It feels like an example of elitism, where priorities are completely out of touch with what most parents and families are dealing with. The Queen wouldn't care about the mural, and frankly, a framed poster would have done the job just fine. She was quite a practically minded woman and I think she would have thought it silly also.

This kind of spending feels gross in a COL. It’s frustrating to see funds raised for the school go towards something like this, especially when there are so many other pressing needs in education that could have used that money.

It’s not about being anti-royal, but this choice feels tone-deaf and completely inappropriate in a school setting where the focus should be on supporting the students.

That’s nuts! They should have at least given parents the opportunity to be consulted.

I would be writing to the head and the PTA.

Chuck a tin of red paint over it?

That sounds better than a portrait of Q Elizabeth, although I don’t know why the PTA had to pay for it.

Perhaps the worst bit was that it was painted over so quickly. Was it badly done in the first place?

Can only conclude the £2k was paid to a friend or family of the PTA queen bee to paint a mural that should have been a donation.

I would actually be raging as a parent and make it clear to the school why I would no longer be supporting school fundraisers.

How very dare you refer so disrespectfully to our beloved late Brenda!

I loved the queen but even I think that’s crazy. All the glue sticks you could get for that!

This was years ago but the PTA at our old first school spent more than double that on some decorational wooden sculptures to go in the playground. Just to look at. And £1k on window cushions. They raised huge amounts for the school but I thought that spending was outrageous.

I can guarantee you that 90% of parents would not have attended the meeting so wouldn’t work

I was going to say this too.

It sounds like something you'd get in North Korea - where resources are sparse to breaking point and buildings all crumbling, but you still have the shiny new no-expenses-spared obligatory portrait of the Dear Leader in prime position.

They've seriously shot themselves in the foot now. However fluffy and abstract the concept of 'fundraising' may be, it's people's actual hard-earned money that they've been encouraged/guilted into giving. The PTA could not have chosen a more useful excuse for anybody they ever ask to donate money again.

I thought legally anything done had to be seen to benefit all the children. What benefit is there in a mural?

Our (really lovely) PTA funded play equipment and a trip to the pantomime for all children with their funds raised from the cake sale and Christmas fair. Although there are lots of monarchists in the school I can’t imagine a mural going down well, especially when so many parents are suffering financially.

I’d think this was mental too.

There are genuinely hundreds of other things to spend £2K on that would be better than this.

I seriously doubt that the choice was put to the kids of what to spend it on, and the majority chose a portrait of the late Queen.

If anything, they'd be more likely to choose a sculpture of Freddie Mercury than that!

My first though as with others, was that whoever painted it wasn't just picked out of teh phonebook at random by the head of the PTA or whoever's ultimate decision it was, they know them, which makes it so much more worse, I would ask what relationship the artist had to the PTA members.

My first thought is that someone known to the PTA has been paid to do the mural.