RIVERSIDE, CA-Standing beneath the towering mural that now stretches across the east wall of the Riverside County Office of Education’s Colegate building in downtown Riverside, Juan Navarro looks up at his work and explains the idea that guided every brushstroke.

“I want young people to know that we see them.”

It’s a simple sentence, but it unlocks nearly every detail woven into the mural.

At first glance, the artwork appears to tell a familiar story. A student grows into a graduate. A graduate becomes a working professional. It is the kind of journey education hopes to make possible for every young person.

But Navarro wasn’t interested in painting a story that begins with graduation. He wanted to paint one that begins with childhood.

“I don’t think kids should feel like they have to wait until they’re adults to matter,” he said. “They matter right now.”

That belief became the foundation of the mural, commissioned through a partnership with the Riverside County Office of Education and community partners. While the finished piece celebrates learning and the opportunities education creates, it also serves as a reminder that students are far more than future graduates or future employees. They are thinkers, creators, and problem-solvers long before they receive a diploma.

For an organization that exists to support students, educators and school communities across Riverside County, that message feels especially fitting. Every day, classrooms are filled with young people discovering who they are, developing confidence in their abilities, and finding adults who encourage them to keep going. Navarro wanted those students to recognize themselves in the mural, not because it tells them exactly who they should become, but because it reminds them that they are already seen.

Navarro doesn’t begin with the graduate or the professional.

He begins with the child.

Rather than placing the student behind a desk, he surrounded the figure with building blocks, bright colors, and familiar symbols. “They’re all symbols from childhood,” Navarro said. “The smiley faces, the stars, the hearts. Those are things teachers draw on your papers. Those are things you remember.”

They aren’t there simply to make the mural playful. They represent encouragement.

For many students, the moments that stay with them aren’t always the lessons themselves. They’re the teacher who noticed their effort. The handwritten note in the margin. The smiley face on a paper. The adult who believed in them before they believed in themselves.

Those seemingly ordinary moments become part of a student’s story.

Navarro understands that because they became part of his.

Growing up in Riverside, he attended Bryant Elementary School, Central Middle School and later Ramona High School in the Riverside Unified School District. Like many students, he didn’t know exactly where life would take him. What he did know was that educators encouraged his creativity and gave him the confidence to keep exploring it.

Years later, as this mural took shape, one of those educators reached out.

Jenny Pietro, his former art teacher at Ramona High School, had seen the work and contacted him. More than a decade had passed since Navarro sat in her classroom, yet hearing from her immediately brought him back to those early years when someone first encouraged him to pursue art.

The conversation reminded him that teachers often leave a far greater impression than they realize.

“It wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for those younger years of having educators who were encouraging and believed in me,” he said.

In many ways, Navarro realized, his former teacher had become part of the very story he was trying to tell on the wall.

That memory became another quiet reminder of what the mural is about.

Education isn’t measured only by report cards, graduation ceremonies, or career milestones.

Sometimes its greatest impact is found years later, when an encouraging word, a creative opportunity, or a teacher’s belief continues shaping someone’s life in ways neither could have predicted.

Moving through the mural, the child begins to grow.

The playful exploration of the first figure gives way to a graduate, then to an adult at work. It would be easy to see the progression as a timeline of academic success, but Navarro gently pushes back on that idea.

“The mural isn’t about becoming one specific thing,” he said. “It’s about becoming who you’re meant to become.”

That is why the final figure isn’t defined by a particular profession.

Instead, the focus is on building.

For Navarro, the image reaches beyond construction or architecture. It represents the countless ways people use what they learned as children to contribute to their communities.

A teacher builds confidence. A nurse builds trust. An engineer builds solutions. An artist builds a connection. Every career begins with someone learning to ask questions, solve problems, and imagine something that doesn’t yet exist.

He points back toward the blocks scattered around the child.

What first appears to be a toy quietly returns as one of the mural’s central ideas.

“The blocks become buildings,” Navarro said. “You’re still building. You’re just building something different.”

It is one of the mural’s quietest transitions, yet it says something profound about education. The lessons learned through play do not disappear with age. They evolve. Curiosity becomes innovation, creativity becomes craftsmanship, and confidence becomes leadership.

For Navarro, learning has never been about reaching a finish line.

“I didn’t want it to feel like school,” he said. “I wanted it to feel like learning.”

There is a difference.

School has beginning and ending dates. Learning does not.

That philosophy shaped nearly every decision he made while designing the mural. Rather than emphasizing grades, assignments or academic achievement, he focused on discovery. The child isn’t memorizing information. They’re experimenting. The graduate isn’t portrayed as someone who has finished learning. They’re simply moving into the next chapter. Even the adult version of the child remains actively creating, suggesting that growth continues throughout life.

For Navarro, the real story unfolding across the wall isn’t about the destination; it’s about everything that happens along the way. Running beneath each stage of the journey is another piece of Riverside’s story.

The Victoria Bridge has carried generations of residents across the Santa Ana River, making it one of the City of Riverside’s most recognizable landmarks. Navarro could have chosen countless local icons to include in the mural, but this one carried a meaning that extended far beyond its history.

“It became a symbol of the foundation of knowledge given to us from previous generations,” he said. “Education is how grownups hand what we’ve learned in our life to our children.”

With that explanation, the bridge becomes the thread connecting the entire mural. Just as a bridge links two destinations, education connects children with opportunities they have not yet imagined. It also reminds us that no one crosses alone.

It is a fitting metaphor for the work taking place across Riverside County schools every day. While classrooms, communities, and experiences may differ, the goal remains the same: helping students build a foundation strong enough to carry them wherever their future leads.

Standing beneath the mural, Navarro smiles as he looks back toward the bridge stretching beneath the figures.

Like education itself, its purpose isn’t simply to support what’s above it.

Its purpose is to help someone else reach the other side.