Mamdani halts student-facing AI in New York City public schools through grade 8 for a year
New York City's public schools are closing student-facing generative AI from 2-K through grade 8 for one school year, a moratorium reaching nearly 600,000 children. Chancellor Kamar Samuels and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced it on Wednesday for the 2026-27 school year. Companion chatbots are barred for every student, teachers keep the tools for lesson planning, and asking AI to grade assignments is forbidden.
Artificial Intelligence··Morning
The moratorium covers every grade from 2-K through grade 8
New York City's public schools are closing student-facing generative AI from 2-K through grade 8 for one school year, a moratorium that Chancellor Kamar Samuels and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Wednesday and that starts in the 2026-27 school year. Nearly 600,000 children sit inside that range. Companion chatbots are barred for every student, high schoolers included. Mamdani presented the decision as a defence of human connection in classrooms, saying children should build problem-solving and social skills with teachers and peers rather than with chatbots, and that the city embraces new technology only when it serves students. Governor Kathy Hochul said the state has led efforts to keep children focused on learning rather than clicking and scrolling.[1], [3]
Teachers, high school pilots and exemptions stay outside it
High schools are the exception. Up to 50,000 general-education students, about 5 percent of the student body, may join five supervised pilots built on Quill, Edia, Brisk Teaching, Playlab and Intel AI-Ready Schools, and no high school may run them in more than five classes. AI use lower down the grades is permitted only for narrow purposes such as learning about the technology itself, and companion chatbots offering psychological support are banned throughout. Teachers keep the tools to prepare lessons and write messages, but they may not ask AI to grade assignments. Assistive technology, multilingual learners and career-readiness programmes including computer science keep their exemptions. Screen-time guidance arrived with the rules: personal-device use stays restricted through grade 2, with a recommended daily cap of 30 minutes for grades 3 to 5 and 45 minutes for grades 6 to 8. The education department treats those caps as guidance rather than enforcement, and much student AI use happens outside school, leaving the monitoring question open.[1], [2]
The March framework drew a backlash, and ChatGPT was barred in 2023
The rules follow an initial framework published in March that sorted classroom tasks with a traffic-light system and let students use AI for research, exploration and creative projects. Parents and teachers read it as too lenient, and Chancellor Kamar Samuels said leaders had missed the mark in explaining it and that his office would review parents' feedback for later rules. Advocacy groups pushed for the moratorium, and more than half of City Council members signed a letter urging the mayor and the education department to stop expanded classroom AI use. United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew told ABC News that AI is a dangerous thing and that parents hear horror stories and are protective of their children. Teachers and parents have also warned about mental health, environmental damage, and an abdication of reasoning to software that researchers call cognitive surrender. In 2023 the school system forbade students from using ChatGPT and reversed that ban less than a year later. The district enrols roughly 900,000 students a year and its technology rules are watched across the United States. All high school students now receive twice-yearly lessons meant to help them think critically about AI before they come to rely on it, studies run through the moratorium year, and a coalition of educators, parents and elected officials then recommends next steps. A taskforce of teachers, elected officials, experts and union representatives is to report in April as the basis of the city's policy on AI in schools, and classrooms are keeping students off laptops and tablets through grade 3.[2], [3]
