North Wales Elementary tile mural taking shape, one piece at a time

As the sun slid behind the roof of North Wales Elementary School on a steamy afternoon, kindergartner Max Andrews and his mom Leah walked over to the most famous wall in town.

A few strokes of a paintbrush later, Max climbed a ladder, picked a spot, and placed a piece of what’s becoming a permanent fixture of his school.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” said Max, holding a tile in place on the wall, before high-fiving artist Laura Skidmore as he let go, and the tile stayed in its forever spot.

“You’re one of the first kids to put any tiles up there,” said Skidmore, as the two picked out the next tile to place, and Max gave a few seconds of whale sounds after attaching one to the wall. “This looks really awesome, thanks so much for doing it — it looks cool,” said Max’s mom Leah.

“We made a bunch of them in the classroom — so all this white’s going to be filled in?” Leah said, and Skidmore replied: “That’s the goal.”

Each tile is another piece of color, shape and texture for a project that’s been years in the making, according to Skidmore and parent Megan Forman. Forman is chair of the North Wales Inclusive Playground Initiative, a multi-phase effort that’s having a lasting impact on the school, including a mosaic mural now taking shape.

“We do have some staff helping, but it’s a completely volunteer project,” Forman said.

Years in the making

About two and a half years ago, parents started talking about upgrades to the playground area, including a mulch bed with slides and swings, a grassy patio with two picnic tables next to the school, and the wall that’s slowly being filled with a tile mural. Surveys of parents, staff and students helped develop the plans, and the district’s educational foundation has supported, with several objectives in mind.

“One of the focuses is that word ‘inclusion.’ A lot of times, we think about mobility access, which is crucial and something we’re absolutely hoping to address. The mulch is technically ADA accessible, but if you ask anyone they will tell you it’s not actually accessible,” Forman said.

Replacing the current mulch and wood chip playground would cost well into the six figures, before any upgrades to the playground equipment itself, so the school committee began looking at lower-cost upgrades and fixes to the playground area. The first few are already in place: a green plastic funnel ball hoop was installed in 2023, so kids can toss a ball and have it come down in any direction, as was a gaga pit for group ball sports.

For all kids

“Inclusion, a lot of times people assume means it’s just for kids who have a disability. But really, it’s so kids can play together, regardless of their differences in learning,” Forman said.

“At North Penn, nearly 20 percent of students receive some sort of special education services. I don’t think that was the case when this playground was built 25 years ago, so the point is to try to make it so there’s play equity, all kids have the right to play. And lots of skills are learned out here on the playground. It’s not just a recess upgrade, this is a space where kids can work at problem solving, creative thinking, group skills, gross and fine motor skills,” she said.

After that first round of upgrades came plans for more: the “grassy slash mud area” next to the school will become a sensory garden, Skidmore said, and two picnic tables there now will be removed to make way for a brick patio and native plants that can teach kids about nature, stormwater, and more.

“One of the beauties of this playground is that it’s so large and spacious. One of the drawbacks of that is it’s very overwhelming, for students who are on the neurodiverse scale or have ASD, or are overwhelmed by sensory experiences. At any given time there are 75 kids out here during the day, ’cause an entire grade will come out to recess together,” Forman said.

“The idea is a place that’s calm and quieter, and as far as my research can find this would be the very first sensory garden in a Montgomery County school,” she said.

That garden could help decrease stress and increase student focus and productivity, and kids inclined to run and play still can, while the garden will be a gathering space for kids on the quieter side. A local landscaper has already made plans to dig out the grass and plant the garden this summer, depending on weather, and the bricks have been a fundraiser toward the roughly $50,000 raised so far by the school committee.

    Area Scouts paint tiles destined for a mosaic mural on the wall of North Wales Elementary School. (Photo courtesy of Megan Forman)
  

Fundraising effort

“It’s probably the biggest fundraising campaign that North Wales has ever seen. It also is peanuts when you’re talking about playground equipment. We’ve got plans, and it’s going to be great, but it’s an improvement project and not a perfection project,” said Forman.

“Ideally, by the time the students return at the end of August, the mural will be done and the garden will be complete. And we’ll also have ordered the playground equipment,” she said.

While they’re planning for the installation of that playground, next on the to-do list is the mural: the wall facing the playground has been painted white with several circular rondels outlined, and each is being filled in, one tile at a time. Pink and purple whales, green squares, red flowers, yellow stars, even a Star Wars-themed tile have filled in the space so far, and more are being added each day.

“Every tile you see has been hand made, hand painted, right here in North Wales. Most of it happening in the school, we’ve gone to the firehouse here in North Wales, the tree lighting, we have had at least 30 workshops, all volunteer-run,” said Forman.

Pieces of a puzzle

Each tile starts as a lump of clay, and cookie cutters and stamps have helped shape them, so kids in all 22 classrooms at the school have learned how to contribute their own tiny piece of the puzzle. Later this summer, spare tiles from the natatorium at North Penn High School will also make their way onto the mural, and other schools have pitched in, too.

“Every single tile you see: hand-painted by someone in our community, and fired in a kiln either here at North Wales, or several other schools have offered the use of their kiln, because we would never get through all of the tiles,” Forman said.

Teachers at Bridle Path, General Nash, and Inglewood elementary schools have helped by offering their kilns, and once the tiles are shaped, baked, painted, and baked again, they’re fixed onto the wall, high enough up from the ground that they’ll be visible behind the garden.

“Hopefully this will be here for decades and decades,” Forman said.

They don’t have an exact count, but best estimate is that roughly 10,000 tiles will be needed to cover the wall, and roughly 1,000 people will have helped by shaping or painting tiles, loading or unloading kilns, or helping out at those workshops.

    

    

    

    

    

Labor of Love

“When we say this is a labor of love, lots of labor — I’ve learned more about ceramics than I ever wanted to, but they understand the importance of it: the idea of being on a wall permanent, of being part of something, that you’re one piece of a puzzle, these are things they need to learn,” Forman said.

“There is a baby footprint, a six-month-old footprint, that will go on this wall. And he will come to this school one day, and say ‘That was my foot!’ And the sensory piece, they are textured,” so kids can feel the different patterns and shapes on each tile.

Those tiles have been made since September and started going on the roughly 500-square-foot wall on May 1. One father and daughter stopped by a recent workshop to say they walk to school every day, and have been snapping photos each day to show the mural taking shape.

“That makes my heart so happy, that people are looking at this, and getting excited about it,” Forman said.

As Forman set up brushes and bottles of different colors for painting, Skidmore pulled up with a car full of boxes of tiles, some painted and some not, all destined for the wall.

“All of these tiles were created in classrooms, kitchen tables, the firehouse, borough hall,” Skidmore said, and Forman added: “Laura actually went to the firehouse to work with the firefighters one night,” and their tiles will appear on the wall, too.

“We’ve had teachers, we’ve had the facility head, we’ve had the crossing guard, you name it,” Skidmore said. “We wanted to get as much involvement as we could, because that’s where the meaning is made. The idea here is that everyone’s going to come together, and have a part of this, and it’s going to be part of them.”

Kids may even pick up an archaelogy lesson or two in the process.

“When you make something out of clay, you’re creating something that’s permanent. So much of what we know about humanity is pot shards, and relics of ceramics. Everyone’s memories, everyone’s hand, is going to be made permanent here for generations,” said Skidmore.

“That is part of how we preserve things, and how we’re making meaning for our community. That’s part of what we want: This is not made by professionals, it’s made by the community. Kids come up here all the time and say ‘Here’s my tile, here’s my tile,'” she said.

Making it work

On the typical weekday, Skidmore will start placing tiles before school as kids arrive, then head to her day job and come back after school, when kids like Max can pitch in and contribute a few tiles at a time. The wall provides just enough shade to stay cool in the afternoon, and the circles will eventually disappear as grout is filled in between the tiles once they’re all in place.

“A lot of people think, if something’s going to be permanent, then it has to be just so. That’s really not the point here: there’s room for anybody and everybody who wants to participate in this, and to feel part of it,” Forman said.

“That’s where art brings us together, and art can build bonds and memories. Maybe they’ll come back with their kids. We have a gym teacher here who taught some of the other teachers, so maybe they’ll come back and say ‘When I was a kid, we did this mural here, I remember doing this in class,'” Skidmore added.

The Andrews family lives close by on Fifth Street, and said they’ve been watching Skidmore work every day as the kids walk to and from school.

“During Covid, this is how we met the whole neighborhood. We were all here, hanging out, and then we knew so many kids when they started going to school,” Leah Andrews said.

“Of course it’s about the students here, and the recess time and while they’re in school, but it’s just as much for the families. This is a real community gathering space for North Wales,” Forman said.

Another carefully selected tile, another few brushstrokes of adhesive, and another ten-second countdown later, Max and Skidmore had added another tile, as mom and Forman pictured the entire wall filling up.

“Each kid, when I was in there made six or seven (tiles) — now I see why you need so many!” Leah Andrews said.

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