School spends $8,000 on new murals

The school finished painting two Falcon murals in front of the school and by the boys’ locker room at a cost of around $8,000, according to assistant principal Kevin Mount. The newly added murals and signs were finished March 10. 

The school hired an artist named Steve Hosuce from the company Stoke’s Signs in Santa Cruz. Hosuce has painted murals for other schools in the past.

The newly painted murals added the school’s name to add to previously painted Falcons.

“The administration believed the school’s name needed to be more visible upon entering the parking lot,”said Mount. “We also thought the falcon in front of the gym looked pretty lonely all by itself on that big wall.” 

Principal Paul Robinson said that the purpose of the murals is to identify Saratoga as a school.

“Our school is a really nice school, but when you drive up from the outside, it’s hard to tell whether it is a school or just a bunch of buildings out front,” Robinson said. “We had these great big blank canvases sitting out in the front, and thought we need to something that really identifies who we are.”

Sophomore Gabriel Fong thinks the murals are a great addition.

“[The murals] enhance the overall beauty of the school,” Fong said. “Now it is not just a boring blank wall.”

Others questioned the value of spending thousands of dollars on the new murals.

“I think the murals look good, but I don’t really see the point of it,” sophomore Harrison Yang said. “The money spent on the murals could’ve been used in classrooms or something else.” 

If voters in the district pass a general obligation on the June ballot, Robinson expects the school to add many renovations in the near future.  

“Over the next 10-15 years, there’ll be a lot of renovations to the school to bring it up to the technological standards that need to met or exceeded,” Robinson said. “[It’ll] also make things even more energy efficient besides making things [nicer].”