New York City has told its youngest students to put the chatbots away for a year, and its oldest to study them. The city announced on September 2 a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI in public schools from 2-K through eighth grade, starting this school year and covering about 600,000 students, two-thirds of the system. The order bars all software that puts generative AI in front of students, companion chatbots are banned in every grade, and teachers can keep using AI for planning and operational work if the tools meet the district’s safety standards. Students with disabilities, multilingual learners and students in career programs like computer science are exempt.
High school gets the opposite treatment. Not a ban but a requirement: two 45-minute AI critical-thinking sessions a year on what the technology is and isn’t, bias, risk, ethics and careers. The same order caps screen time at 30 minutes a day for grades 3 to 5 and 45 for grades 6 to 8, and a coalition of students, teachers, parents and experts is to study the year and publish what it finds.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s line: “Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow.” Chancellor Kamar H. Samuels called it guardrails to protect the human connection, curiosity and creativity that help children grow.