{"id":172685,"date":"2026-03-23T22:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T22:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/172685\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T22:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T22:15:07","slug":"as-schools-waited-for-nycs-ai-policy-some-crafted-their-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/172685\/","title":{"rendered":"As schools waited for NYC\u2019s AI policy, some crafted their own"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

By last spring, it had become clear to Manhattan Assistant Principal Joe Vincente that his school had an artificial intelligence problem.<\/p>\n

Staffers at East Side Community School were holding multiple meetings a week with students suspected of using AI inappropriately for schoolwork. AI platforms were multiplying at a dizzying pace. And the city Education Department had offered no formal guidance for schools.<\/p>\n

Navigating the moment without a policy felt unsustainable, Vincente recalled. \u201cThe need was reaching a fever pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the months that followed, Vincente convened a committee of staff members, gathered input from students and parents, hired substitutes so the committee could hole up in the library uninterrupted, and spent hours of his own time out of work hammering out a 12-page draft AI policy. They based their approach on a core tenet: \u201cAs a community dedicated to deep learning, we prohibit the unsupervised use of generative AI for all schoolwork and assessments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s Education Department is expected to release its own long-awaited<\/a> citywide draft AI policy for schools on Tuesday, more than two years since ChatGPT upended what students and teachers could do<\/a> with the click of a button. In that time, schools across the five boroughs have come up with a wide variety of approaches on their own, according to interviews with educators, parents, and students at 10 schools. The school-level efforts offer a preview of the complex task facing the Education Department as it seeks to chart a path forward at a moment when the value and role of AI in education is fiercely contested. <\/p>\n

Some, like East Side Community, have crafted comprehensive policies detailing acceptable and unacceptable uses of the technology, along with how the school should respond. Others have tried to keep AI out of classrooms altogether. Many, however, haven\u2019t broached the topic in a formal way.<\/p>\n

A growing chorus of educators and parents are calling for a full moratorium on its use in school<\/a>, pointing to the academic, environmental<\/a>, and mental health risks<\/a> of AI. Others argue it would do city students a disservice not to expose them to a transformative technology already deeply embedded in our economy and society. Those conflicts have burst into public view with increasing frequency in recent months in debates over whether to approve contracts with AI companies<\/a> and a new AI-focused high school<\/a> in Manhattan. (After the city releases its policy, the public will have 45 days to offer feedback.) <\/p>\n

Caught in the center of the swirl are schools and teachers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of extreme opinions, and I think somewhere in the middle is our responsibility as educators to wrestle with the tension of all of those things and then decide what\u2019s best for our students and our communities,\u201d Vincente said.<\/p>\n

At East Side, which is part of the New York Performance Standards Consortium that allows students to complete portfolio assessments rather than Regents Exams<\/a> to graduate, educators decided it was most important to nurture students\u2019 critical thinking skills \u2014 even if it meant curbing or supervising AI use.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we send them out in the world with all of these other really strong skills that we believe in, critical reading and strong writing, they\u2019ll be able to learn AI if they need to,\u201d Vincente said.<\/p>\n

NYC schools struggle to keep up with growing AI use<\/p>\n

Keeping up with the dizzying changes in AI has bewildered many city schools. The city Education Department\u2019s approach has swung wildly, from initially banning ChatGPT on school devices<\/a> in January 2023, to pledging in May of the same year to become a national leader in embracing the use of AI in schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s now a variety of chatbots capable of doing complex work, and AI is built into functions as basic as email and Google search, making it nearly impossible to avoid. Educators who spoke with Chalkbeat said they routinely encounter students using AI to shortcut writing assignments \u2014 and can\u2019t rely solely on online \u201cAI detectors\u201d to ferret it out.<\/p>\n

At many schools, administrators have kept their distance, waiting for the city to develop a clear set of guidelines and leaving it largely to teachers to handle the day-to-day instances of AI use.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s led to a frustrating two years for some educators, especially in humanities courses that rely heavily on writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love clear rules \u2026 and I feel that I do not have backup,\u201d said a Brooklyn high school English teacher who requested anonymity for fear of jeopardizing her job. \u201cThe administrators \u2026 do not recognize the extent of the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many English and social studies teachers have figured out their own ways to restructure the writing process, moving away from take-home essays and having students write their work by hand during class time in order to ensure students don\u2019t turn to AI.<\/p>\n

We’re on a need-to-know basis.<\/p>\n

Every weekday morning, Chalkbeat New York is bringing thousands of subscribers the news on public schools and education policy that they need to start their day. Sign up for our free newsletter to join them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have gone back to paper. For last semester, I did all in-class writing,\u201d said Jessica Radin, a social studies teacher at The Beacon School in Manhattan, which also shifted its admissions essay in-person last year<\/a> in order to avoid concerns about students using AI or paid tutors.<\/p>\n

There are downsides of shifting to in-class assignments, including shorter essays that eat up more instructional time. But Radin said she\u2019s been pleasantly surprised by how well she\u2019s gotten to know her students\u2019 writing this year.<\/p>\n

Adam Stevens, a social studies teacher at Brooklyn Technical High School, the city\u2019s largest with almost 6,000 students, knows he doesn\u2019t have the bandwidth to scour every assignment for signs of AI. So he makes the case that students will be putting themselves at a disadvantage in college by leaning on AI \u2014 and tries to pose questions with a personal component that students will find \u201ctoo important for them to feed into a chatbot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enterprising staffers take the lead<\/p>\n

At schools trying to take a more comprehensive approach to AI, it often comes down to having a staff member with the expertise and motivation to lead the charge.<\/p>\n

At Sunset Park High School in Brooklyn and John Bowne High School in Queens, teachers who attended professional development sessions sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers through a $23 million \u201cAI Academy,\u201d<\/a> brought back resources and helped launch faculty committees at their schools. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is it\u2019s here, and [students] are going to use it,\u201d said Jennifer Goodnow, an English as a Second Language teacher at Sunset Park High School, who attended the union-sponsored training. \u201cWe can\u2019t stop that but \u2026 our school can teach kids about the potential pitfalls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodnow said she was particularly concerned to learn some students are turning to chatbots to discuss mental health struggles, and she hopes the school can play a bigger role educating kids and parents about the possible risks and offering alternative outlets.<\/p>\n

Some schools have taken more aggressive measures to try to keep AI out of classrooms. At Williamsburg Charter High School, officials decided earlier this school year to ban ChatGPT on school devices, said Jeremiah Dickerson, an 18-year-old senior. (School officials didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.) But while Dickerson acknowledged some students misuse AI, he argued the school\u2019s approach isn\u2019t likely to be effective or productive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf AI is banned in my school,\u201d he said, \u201cand then I go to college and an AI is everywhere, how does that really effectively prepare me to use it?\u201d<\/p>\n

As schools develop AI policies, they dig into the gray area<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little disagreement that asking AI to generate an entire essay is a violation of academic integrity. But as schools develop their AI policies, they are digging into more nuanced scenarios \u2014 and finding the answers aren\u2019t always clear cut.<\/p>\n

Can AI be used, for example, to direct students to sources for a history paper? Or is there something valuable students would miss in the process of finding those sources in a different way?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not always obvious what consequences to apply: Sometimes it\u2019s unclear whether students even knew they were using AI, given its ubiquity online.<\/p>\n

At Brooklyn Collaborative School in Carroll Gardens, administrators acknowledge the rules might vary depending on the teacher and assignment. They ask educators to include a \u201ctraffic light\u201d on each task that outline a few clearly permissible uses of AI (green light), a few where students should exercise caution (yellow), and a few clearly impermissible ones (red), said Chrissy Prince, the school\u2019s data specialist.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not only student AI use that can grow murky. Educators are also experimenting with AI to craft lesson plans, create resources for students, and offer feedback.<\/p>\n

Vincente, who was part of a district-sponsored fellowship to learn how to use an education-oriented AI tool called Playlab, acknowledged the lines can be blurry and emphasized the importance of understanding the school\u2019s values while trusting teachers to carry them out. That\u2019s why East Side staffers decided to only endorse student AI use that\u2019s supervised by school staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust kids out there roaming in the wild of AI,\u201d he said, \u201cmore often than not, what they\u2019re going to do and experience with that is actually going to be a detriment to the learning that we want to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[22552,22553,11874,22554,22555,75,22556,9,24,56,63,65,64,10780,2585,5181,22557],"class_list":["post-172685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-class","tag-classroom","tag-high-school","tag-laptop","tag-learning","tag-manhattan","tag-new-design-high-school","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-school","tag-students","tag-teachers","tag-thalia-juarez-for-chalkbeat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}