New York City Public Schools has confirmed a ban on student-facing generative AI for grades 2-K through 8 for the 2026-27 academic year, a moratorium that covers roughly 600,000 students, or two-thirds of the district's total enrollment. The policy, announced in September, prohibits preschool, elementary, and middle school students from using education software that relies on generative AI, including instructional programs and AI tutors. The district said the ban is a pause to study the technology's impacts, according to ABC News and the New York Daily News.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced in a statement that the city would halt student-facing generative AI for these grades and use the coming year to evaluate the technology's effects, ABC News reported. The move follows months of parent backlash and a letter signed by more than half of City Council members urging the mayor and Chancellor Kamar Samuels to pause AI use in schools. A petition for a two-year moratorium had gathered thousands of signatures, according to Chalkbeat.
High school students will have restricted access to generative AI. The policy permits use for AI literacy, career readiness programs, and five pilot programs at an unspecified number of schools. The Department of Education presentation states that high schoolers need guided preparation for a world and economy increasingly driven by AI, paired with instruction on how AI works, its biases and risks, and how to evaluate its outputs, Chalkbeat reported. Teachers are allowed to use approved AI tools for lesson planning, translation, and drafting communications, but are prohibited from using AI for grading, behavior monitoring, counseling, crisis management, or developing special education plans.
Exceptions to the ban include regular reading and math assessments administered on computers, assistive technology for students with disabilities and English language learners, e-books, coding assignments, and robotics, according to Gothamist. The policy also bars individual devices for students in preschool through second grade. It recommends limiting screen time on individual devices to 30 minutes for grades 3-5 and 45 minutes for middle school students. The DOE presentation says younger students need hands-on learning, social interaction, play, and teacher-guided instruction, and that routine individual screen use can crowd out those experiences, Chalkbeat reported.
Path to the policy
Chancellor Samuels ordered principals in early July to pause all education software purchases until the DOE finalized its AI guidance, citing the need for proper protocols on safety and privacy. The freeze caused concerns among principals about access to key software like electronic gradebooks for the start of school, Gothamist reported. The March 2026 preliminary AI guidance received nearly 6,500 public comments during a 45-day feedback window, and more than half of City Council members signed a letter urging a pause, according to Chalkbeat.
The DOE is creating a task force to offer input on the policy's implementation. Its existing guidance outlines a four-phase plan: publish initial guidance, activate stakeholder engagement, educate and evaluate, and co-design and publish a final AI Playbook. Before any AI tool can be used with student data, it must pass the Enterprise Request Management Application review process, which since December 2024 includes AI-specific standards requiring vendors to disclose AI capabilities and prohibit use of student data to train AI models, according to the DOE.
Comparative precedent
New York City has experience with AI bans that were later reversed. Under former Mayor Eric Adams, the district initially banned ChatGPT in 2023 before later permitting its use. Former Chancellor David Banks said AI could revolutionize how the school system functions but never released a clear student-use policy, Gothamist reported. The current moratorium follows that earlier cycle of reversal and permissiveness.
Nationally, labor support for restricting student AI access has grown. In May 2026, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called for a ban on student-facing AI in elementary schools, despite being an early supporter of AI use for teachers. Chalkbeat reported that the call signals a shift in the nation's second-largest teachers union toward stricter limits on student AI access.
Research evidence
The NYC Department of Education's March 2026 guidance states that it is developing differentiated grade-band guidance drawing on the American Academy of Pediatrics' 2026 research on developmental appropriateness, screen time, and the balance between AI-supported and independent work for K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 levels. The guidance also commits to building an AI Tool Evidence-Based Scorecard as part of a later phase, but no findings from that scorecard have been published yet, according to the DOE document. According to the DOE document, the grade-band guidance and scorecard are still being developed.