A Bunch of Politicians Visited Public School 123 in Bushwick Yesterday

Photo via Nancy Pelosi/Twitter

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio was joined Wednesday by a mayoral SUV's worth of national, state and city leaders to inspect a pre-K classroom at Bushwick's Public School 123 on Irving Avenue between Willoughby and Suydam — a PR event around which said leaders called on the U.S. government to take NYC's free, universal pre-K program nationwide.

Cute stuff ensued.

The following is a dispatch from the scene by Politico education reporter Eliza Shapiro.

Pre-K classroom visit at PS 123 in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Mayor Bill de Blasio tours a classroom with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Department of Education chancellor Carmen Fariña, deputy mayor Richard Buery and New York Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, whose district includes PS 123.

The group entered the classroom at 10:10, with de Blasio and Pelosi chatting. The group spreads around the large classroom and normal pre-K visit semi-chaos ensues, with kids banging together plastic toys, screaming jovially, playing with sand. De Blasio, Velazquez and Pelosi gather in a corner to chat and then Pelosi leans over a child playing on the computer and claps excitedly at his progress in the game. Around 10:20 the kids gathered on a rug. One child sat under de Blasio and put his hands on the mayor’s knees, eager for the book reading.

“OK everyone are we ready for a story?” de Blasio asks to cheers. De Blasio held the book aloft and as he read from it, he asked the children to identify objects on the page (“where’s the egg? where’s the moon?”)

He called the class “very engaged.” De Blasio then passed the book to Pelosi who read a few pages before passing it to Velazquez, who finished the tale. As Pelosi listed all the many foods the caterpillar planned to eat, a child (who wore a jacket and tie, with slicked back hair in anticipation of the occasion of important visitors) explained “he is going to be a big caterpillar!”

“That’s a good prediction,” de Blasio replied.

The children gave the adults a round of applause when they finished the book. Then the adults crossed the hall into a Kindergarten classroom to take questions from the press.