elementary school in Brooklyn, April 8, 2002.
Council member Bill de Blasio and P.S. 39 principal
Anita de
Paz applaud with first and second grade artists,
at children's art exhibition, May 12, 2008
From
2002 to 2009, Bill de Blasio represented the 39th Council District in the
Council of the City of New York. The LaGuardia and Wagner Archives houses his
Council member papers, which consist of Constituent Correspondence, Departmental
Correspondence, Photographs, Committee Files, and Legislative Files on
education, housing, and land use. Most significantly, we have identified the
papers in his collection that document his dedication to improving the quality
of public education in New York City, epitomized by his role in building the
P.S. 160 Annex in Borough Park, Brooklyn. (Click here to view documents
related to the P.S. 160 Annex.)
In
2008, de Blasio, an education activist who earlier had been elected to his local
school board, responded to his constituents’ growing concerns about the
overcrowding of P.S. 160 in Borough Park. He rallied the Department of
Education, fellow politicians, and local residents to build an annex to P.S.
160. The school was originally built in
1904 for only 500 students, but by 2008 housed 821 students, or 137% of its
intended capacity. Built to be handicap accessible, the five story annex houses
labs, classrooms for the upper grades, an auditorium, a library, a gymnasium and
serves as a community center for the neighborhood.
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