The site of Truman High School and the rest of Co-op City was originally home to the Freedomland amusement park. In the mid-1960s, when Co-op City was being constructed, the city proposed to construct a large high school in the development as well as Herbert H. Lehman High School and Adlai E. Stevenson High School in eastern Bronx, John F. Kennedy High School in western Bronx, South Shore High School in Brooklyn, and August Martin High School in Queens. Both Truman and Kennedy High Schools were planned as "educational parks", containing multiple schools in park settings, and integrating students from multiple areas and backgrounds to stave off de facto segregation within the school system. Truman's academic park was also called "Northeast Bronx Educational Park" or "East Bronx Educational Park", with a total of five schools planned in the complex to serve 10,400 students from both Co-op City and surrounding neighborhoods. The Northeast Bronx Park was funded by a grant as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and was to be the prototype for numerous academic parks in other parts of the city. The project was sponsored and developed by the United Housing Foundation and RiverBay Corporation, who also developed Co-op City.