Stuyvesant Participatory Budgeting Results in New Lounge Chairs

This year, Stuyvesant High School received $3,500 from the New York City Department of Education in participatory budgeting funds. Stuyvesant students had the chance to vote on an improvement for the school using this money. Participatory budgeting was organized by history teacher Ellen Siegel’s AP U.S. Government classes; they came up with five ideas for what the money could go towards. The proposals were installing a new water bottle refilling station; buying a new printing station; buying lounge furniture; having a better organization system for the lost and found; and having more work stations around the schools. Voting occurred on January 15 through a ranked-choice system, and the winning proposal was to buy lounge furniture for the school. 

Each student in Siegel’s AP U.S. Government classes proposed ideas for what the $3,500 might be used for; the proposals were then narrowed down to the five included in the final public round of voting. The process took several weeks because ideas had to be approved by Principal Seung Yu before continuing. When narrowing the options down, students tried to take into account the opinions of the general student body. “Every student from class surveyed about four students from different grades. We included [the ideas students liked] in the final voting form,” senior Prothoma Mitra said.

The students also made an effort to spread news about the voting and encourage as many Stuy students as possible to participate. This was a success, since many students engaged in the process and voted on their preferred proposals. “We created flyers for each option. We even set up a table near the scanners to encourage students to vote, offering free shirts [as prizes] to those who entered their name into the raffle after voting,” Mitra said. “I was surprised about the voting results because almost 800 students voted, which was a lot more than what we anticipated. The results showed that students read the flyers; care about improving Stuy; and want to use their voice by voting.”

Siegel’s students also found the assignment to be enjoyable, both in coming up with ideas to improve the school and also conducting the surveys. “I think it was an enjoyable activity because it was a team effort, and it’s nice that the student body has a say in things around the school,” senior Betty Jiang said. “We don’t really get many opportunities to decide how money is spent or the things that we get to have at school. I know that the printing stations are a huge hassle, so it’s great that we got a chance to vote for better ones.”

In addition, the students learned a lot from this unique experience, including how to identify issues and get people engaged. “It taught me how to reach a consensus by combining ideas and designing flyers to attract people to vote. I also learned what makes a good survey question and how to approach people effectively when surveying,” Mitra said.

Many also learned about the challenges with polling and how to get past them. “Coming up with the questions about the proposals and issues around the school for polling took a while. We wrote all the questions on a Google Doc and discussed which questions to include. The questions were put into a Google Form, and we asked a lot of people to fill out the Google Form. It was pretty tedious because a lot of people weren’t willing to fill out the form,” Jiang said.

While lounge furniture for the school was the winning option, there were obstacles to initially implementing it. “From what we understand, students voted to use participatory budgeting funds for lounge furniture in other areas of the building, but it wasn’t allowed, so Ms. Siegel approached us to ask if this was something we would be interested in doing in the library so the students’ votes could be honored,” Stuyvesant librarian Mary McGregor said.

Despite these challenges, the new chairs are a welcome addition to the library. “[The chairs] are upholstered and padded, so they are soft. Additionally, they have high sides and backs, so in addition to being comfortable to lean on, they provide a little bit of sensory blocking. It feels a little quieter and calmer in those seats,” McGregor said.

Overall, participatory budgeting was a positive experience for many Stuyvesant students, whether students played a part in crafting the proposals or just voted on them. “This activity benefits Stuy students because they get to decide which areas could get more materials. Although not everyone voted, it still gave those who voted a voice in how to make the school better for them,” Mitra said.