New York City is home to the largest school district in the nation.

The Office of Business Development at NYCPS was launched in July 2023. The mission? Build a strategy and an infrastructure to increase utilization of community-based small businesses doing business with our school system. The team developed innovative ways to bring owners of Community Based Small Businesses and decision makers at the school, district and central level together across the city.

The Office of Business Development secured partnerships with external stakeholders and internal NYCPS teams in order to further advance the mission of ensuring that there was an increase in the number minority and women owned enterprises who were doing business with NYCPS. There is now a robust network of partnerships and relationships that can be attributed to intentional programming, including the now iconic Small Business Expos and the specialized training provided by the facilitation team of the Expand-U program.