The city will create 20 new public schools and reinvent 20 more thanks in part to millions of dollars from the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs.

"I think it's going to be part of how we crack the code and come up with new models that are the vision of the future," Mayor de Blasio said.

The XQ Institute, an education reform organization co-founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, is kicking in $10 million. The Robin Hood Foundation is providing $6 million. And the city will provide the rest: $16 million.  

Each borough will get at least one new high school.

And some of the schools that emerge from the process may replace struggling schools set to close.

"I'd say re-engineering some schools in place, starting some new schools just to start new schools because we think, ‘Here's a need and a demand in some places.’ In some cases, it may be connected to closures, but that's not an assumption," said de Blasio.

Design teams of educators, parents, community partners and students will develop the proposals for the 40 schools. The Education Department will pick through the ideas and work with the design teams to refine them.

Makai Bryan, a senior at Orchard Collegiate High School on the Lower East Side, is on one of the teams.

"It's not important, but it's a necessity for kids to be a part of designing their education because they are the ones who are learning," he said.

Initial proposals are due November 6th.The first round of winning ideas will be announced next May.

The schools chancellor says anyone can organize a design team and submit a proposal.

"Rarely do we have in a public school system the funding  to be able to do that kind of design process and design thinking," Chancellor Richard Carranza said. "We truly are putting out the call to the entire community saying this is something you want to engage in, come find out more."

De Blasio has blasted private investment in charter schools, which are privately operated, but said he supports such investments to create traditional public schools.

"I think it shows that people sort of move toward each other and are willing to work together to go to where the need is greatest, which is in some of our traditional public schools that really need transformation," de Blasio said.

To learn how to form a design team go to schools.nyc.gov/imagine.