Veronica Guzman, co-president of the PTA at P.S. 230 (pictured above), has been named Citizen of the Week by New York City Councilmember Brad Lander's office. Congratulations on a well-deserved honor, Veronica!
"This week, our office is pleased to honor Veronica Guzman, whose contributions to PS 230 and the Kensington community have touched many lives in significant ways. Her commitment to helping children and their families makes her our choice for Citizen of the Week. Ms. Guzman strives to help parents be involved in their kids’ education, as she believes that good values, morals, and education start with parents at home and continue at school.
As PS 230’s PTA co-President, she represents the parents of the students and is their voice in the school community. Despite all of the work that being PTA co-President entails, her work at PS 230 goes above and beyond, affecting children’s lives in countless ways. She founded the Gallery Night event, where the students’ artwork is auctioned and sold to raise funds for library books. She also organizes parents to help translate parent-teacher conferences with parents who do not speak English. She is also a part of the PS 230 Brooklyn Children’s Theatre, an after school musical theater program dedicated to fostering creativity, self-expression and teamwork through performance art. She was recently honored with a certificate of recognition from Senator Velmanette Montgomery as well as an Outstanding Service Award from the Department of Education for outstanding service and dedication to the children of PS 230.
Ms. Guzman has a particular passion for working with kids with special needs. She wants to make sure that they find the right teaching and learning environment. Her goal is to collaborate with schools to identify children’s specific needs and provide each individual with the assistance they deserve. She is also a part of the Title One committee, which examines the effectiveness of assessment for disadvantaged children, as well as the impact of using standardized testing as a means of assessing schools and individual teachers and the research on alternative forms of assessing student performance.
Before being involved with PS 230, Ms. Guzman collected toys to donate to kids with leukemia at the New York Methodist Hospital and collected blankets for the homeless. Ms. Guzman and her son also founded a non-profit organization called Stand by Me to help others in any way they could. Stand by Me has taken her to courtrooms, hospitals, clinics, high schools and immigration offices, and through the organization she’s translated letters for people who cannot speak English and taught kids how to help their parents file taxes without overpaying. Currently, she is working on a project with her daughter and a special team of volunteers to prepare our community’s schools and local hospitals to help kids with the mental and emotional issues.
Ms. Guzman immigrated to the United States from Mexico with her parents, who always told her that they had traveled to this country for a better life and so that they could make education a strong priority. She graduated from the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico with a B.A. in Child Development/Child Studies, received a certificate in Culinary Arts from the Institute of Culinary Arts, and is a certified nutritionist from the Allied Health Institute. Ms. Guzman has worked as a chef for the Spence School in Manhattan and as a catering chef at the Clever Company. Ms. Guzman’s goal, to help every child in her community have access to the best education and care that is possible, is an extension on her parents’ (now realized) hopes for her. Ms. Guzman’s story, of an immigrant who finds success in the United States and then works to help others, is a quintessentially American one."
Veronica Guzman, co-president of the PTA at P.S. 230 (pictured above), has been named Citizen of the Week by New York City Councilmember Brad Lander's office. Congratulations on a well-deserved honor, Veronica!