The Salamanca City Central School District will introduce a humanoid robot named Sally into its high school STEAM program this fall, a deployment the district says is a first-of-its-kind pilot for the manufacturer and one that has drawn immediate opposition from the state's largest teachers union.
Sally, produced by Toronto-based Realbotix, cost the district $57,590, a figure the company's CEO described as a discounted rate. The robot has lifelike hair, facial expressions, and upper-body movement but cannot walk. It is the first humanoid robot the company has placed in a classroom. Realbotix is owned by the same company that manufactures RealDolls, a brand of lifelike sex dolls, according to the Times Union.
How the district says Sally will work
The district said Sally will work with students enrolled in Woz Ed STEAM courses and has been programmed exclusively with district-approved curriculum, instructional strategies, and historical information about Salamanca. The robot cannot search the internet and does not connect to an AI data center, district officials told WNYT. When it does not have an answer stored internally, the robot says I don't know and directs the student to research the answer elsewhere.
According to the district, Sally does not collect personally identifiable information, does not record audio or video, and does not transmit data back to Realbotix. The district also stated it has built in safety guardrails that redirect conversations away from inappropriate topics and back to educational content. District leaders have said repeatedly, per CBS6 Albany, that the robot will never replace teachers, staff members, or meaningful human interaction and is intended as a classroom tool to engage students, reinforce lessons, and introduce them to emerging technology.
Union opposition
New York State United Teachers President Melinda Person issued a statement objecting to the deployment. Person said a robot built by a company associated with sex dolls has no business in classrooms, and said students do not need robots but real relationships with caring adults. NYSUT pledged to explore every avenue necessary to protect human-centered learning in Salamanca and across the state.
The union also announced it will host a conference in September called Unplugged: Reclaiming Human-Centered Education, which it described as an event to examine evidence on the impact of AI and increased technology use on education and student mental health. The union framed the Salamanca deployment as occurring amid growing concern about overuse of technology in schools.
A district with a distinctive context
Salamanca is located in Cattaraugus County on the Seneca Nation reservation. It is the only incorporated U.S. city situated entirely on a Native American reservation. The district serves roughly 1,300 students, 32 percent of whom identify as American Indian or Alaska Native and 79 percent of whom are classified as economically disadvantaged, according to NewsNation affiliate MyTwinTiers. A local parent quoted by New York Focus objected to the deployment, citing existing community issues.
Other school robot pilots
The Salamanca deployment is not the first time a school has used a social robot for instruction, though the robots in prior cases were different models and carried different purposes.
In April 2024, Wolverine Elementary School in Michigan introduced the Moxie robot, made by Embodied, for social-emotional learning with students ages 5 to 10. That robot cost $700 for a one-time fee and was funded through a grant. The superintendent told the Cheboygan Daily Tribune that Moxie was not a replacement for adults and was used for socialization and emotion regulation, with parental permission and COPPA-certified local data storage. No published evaluation of that program's outcomes has been identified.
A teacher at Lake Asbury Junior High School in Green Cove Springs, Florida, also sought a Moxie robot for grades 6 through 8, requesting $1,229 through DonorsChoose to help students de-escalate emotional episodes and improve communication skills. That project aimed to serve about 50 students from low-income households.
What the research says about classroom robots
One preliminary study of the Embodied Moxie robot, published by the company's researchers on arXiv, found significant improvements in emotion regulation, self-esteem, conversation skills, and friendship skills among 12 children ages 5 to 10 with autism spectrum or related developmental disorders after a six-week intervention. The study also reported measurable gains in engagement, eye contact, and social language.
The authors described the findings as preliminary. The study had a very small sample, a single-site design, and no control group. The participants were a clinical population, not general-education students. The robot studied was the Embodied Moxie, not the Realbotix unit Salamanca will use, and the study focused on social-emotional skills, not academic instruction.