Overview
- City education officials presented a draft this week that would pause student-facing generative AI through eighth grade, affecting about 600,000 students.
- The plan would bar individual devices for most preschool through second-grade students and recommend daily screen-time caps such as 30 minutes for grades 3–5 and 45 minutes for middle school.
- High school use would be limited to curated AI literacy, career-readiness programs and a small number of pilot sites while teachers could use approved AI for lesson planning, translation and communications but not for grading, behavior monitoring, counseling or special-education planning.
- The policy includes exceptions for centrally approved instructional programs, computerized assessments and assistive tools for English learners and students with disabilities, and city officials are forming a task force to advise on implementation though enforcement details remain unclear.
- The move responds to sustained parent and City Council pressure and could force the district to renegotiate contracts with vendors that have embedded generative-AI features while shaping how other large systems regulate classroom AI.