Students in the Class of 2016 at Encinal High School (EHS) continued a student body tradition this year, just in a slightly different format. Since the mid-1990s graduating seniors at EHS have created tile mosaic murals with tiles designed seperately by each student. This year, around 88 percent of the student body voted to create a tile mural that presented a message from the entire class.

Student artist and designer Brandon Edquilang led the effort with help from Ibrahim Balde and faculty coordinator Christina Craig-Chardon. The 2016 Black Student Union and senior class dedicated the mural to EHS. The mural was unveiled at a ceremony Tuesday.

“This is a school tradition, but no class worked on a collective mural until now,” said Balde.

Some 67 students contributed funding to the project to help purchase the tiles, glazes and glaze pens used to create the final presentation. 

“Our class wanted to make a statement about police brutality and oppression,” said Equiland. “We do care about that and we wanted to show the diversity in our school.” Edquilang added that the class wanted to leave “a landmark” behind at EHS.