New York City has barred students from 2-K through eighth grade from using generative AI for one year, in what Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels called the broadest such policy in the country.

The moratorium covers nearly 600,000 students—two-thirds of the city's enrollment—and takes effect in the 2026-27 school year. All software with student-facing generative AI is prohibited, and companion chatbots are barred in every grade, high school included.

The move marks a sharp turn for the nation's largest school district, which banned ChatGPT in 2023 over cheating concerns only to reverse course months later over worries that students were missing out on AI literacy and that the restriction could widen gaps in tech access. Other districts nationwide have since wrestled with the same tension between classroom safeguards and workforce readiness, and the city's coalition recommendations are likely to be watched as a reference point elsewhere.

Mamdani said the tech industry wants people to treat AI-powered early education as inevitable and necessary. "We do not see it that way," he said, adding that "Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow."

Teaching AI literacy

The city will spend the year studying AI's impacts, Mamdani said, with the city taking a cautious approach to the technology.

Up to 50,000 high school students, roughly 5% of the system, will use vetted tools in a maximum of five classes per school. Text analysis tool Quill goes to English classrooms for no more than 15 minutes a week, math coaching platform Edia for 20, and IntelAI-Ready Schools runs one period a week on semester-long projects. Brisk Teaching and Playlab take the remaining slots, with Playlab capped at two assignments a marking period.

Every high schooler will also complete two 45-minute AI literacy modules a year, covering what the technology is, along with bias, risks, ethics and career impacts.

Teachers retain access to AI for lesson planning and operational work where tools meet the city's safety standards. Exceptions also cover assistive technology for students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and career readiness programs such as computer science.

Screen time will be tightened as well. Students in second grade and below face restricted one-to-one device use, with recommended caps of 30 minutes a day in grades three to five and 45 minutes in grades six to eight.

Every technology tool in city schools now faces review and will be dropped if its functionality is judged not mission-critical to learning. A new Technology in Schools Coalition of students, educators, parents, unions, advocates and elected officials will assess the moratorium and the pilots, then publish recommendations for later years.

Julie Samuels, who leads the trade group Tech:NYC and sits on the coalition, welcomed the career-readiness access and recommended expanding it beyond an hour a week in the future, citing a recent report that New York City now has more tech jobs than the Bay Area.

Classes resume September 10.

Source: Decrypt