NEW YORK — New York City Public Schools will bar more than 500,000 students from using artificial intelligence during the 2026-2027 school year, the district confirmed to ABC News.
The nation’s largest public school system said it will open the new academic year next week with a broad AI ban covering students from 2-K through eighth grade.
In a statement to ABC News, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the city is placing a moratorium on generative AI for children in preschool, or 2-K, through middle school while officials spend the next year “studying the impacts of this technology.”
Mamdani said, in part, that “the tech industry wants us to believe that A.I.-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary.”
“We do not see it that way,” he added.
The move follows growing calls from education advocates for clearer rules, stronger safeguards and formal guidance around the use of AI in schools.
District officials described the policy as the most far-reaching AI moratorium in the country, saying it will remove student-facing AI software and prohibit companion chatbots.
The New York City AI moratorium will not extend to high school students. Instead, the district said older students will receive AI literacy instruction twice a year, with lessons intended to help them “think critically” about the technology before they begin to “rely” on it.
The city’s public school system had also implemented a bell-to-bell cell phone last year limiting students’ use of devices during the instructional day. With the new AI change, city and district leaders are urging students and teachers to develop connections, build relationships and spark creativity without relying on generative AI.
New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said the measure will help restore the critical thinking skills students need to graduate.
“We’re standing firmly in our decision to not conflate innovation with more tech, and we’re going to lead over the next year with evidence and make sure technology serves learning — not the other way around,” Samuels wrote in a statement.
Meanwhile, the White House is pushing teachers to use AI responsibly in the classroom, as administration officials believe it can “revolutionize” education.
Teachers told ABC News they are using AI to develop lesson plans, organize data and give students feedback on assignments.
“I use AI for nearly everything in the classroom right now,” Texas teacher Lori Garrett said in a text message during the last school year.
Garrett said she also has her students use AI in class to “help themselves learn.”
At the same time, as tech companies issue urgent new warnings about the dangers of AI, the Department of Health and Human Services convened childhood experts Tuesday to discuss the harms of excessive adolescent screen use.
Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos, the director of health communications at the Office of the Surgeon General, stressed that all technology must be safe for children moving forward.
She touted guardrails for students’ use of social media and AI.
“There’s certain aspects of technology that are educational, and then there are certain ones that actually can be harmful,” Haridopolos told ABC News.
“We need to delineate between the two,” she said.
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