In February of 2018, following years of work by the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) and partners, New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio launched participatory budgeting (PB) in all of the city’s public high schools. The City gives every high school $2,000 for students to allocate, to give young people a powerful new opportunity to learn and practice democracy, and to inspire lifelong civic participation.
Participatory Budgeting is a process where a group of people decide how to use a specific amount of money for a project that benefits them and their community. Stuyvesant’s two AP Government classes, led by Ms. Ellen Siegel, brainstormed several ideas that would improve some aspect of our school with the $2000. The vote took place on January 17th with both staff and students eligible to vote. Among the six options to vote on where hand sanitizer stations, charging stations in locked cabinets, water filling stations, printing stations (cloud printer), or printing stations (computer-based). Here are students, Charlotte Yee and Zijia (Jess) Zhang helping Ms. Siegel get set up for the Participatory Budgeting poster session. (photos courtesy of Ms. Suri)
