{"id":357212,"date":"2026-09-26T00:18:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T00:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357212\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T00:18:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T00:18:25","slug":"let-the-children-play-nyc-parents-demand-more-activities-less-tech-in-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357212\/","title":{"rendered":"Let the children play: NYC parents demand more activities, less tech in schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City parents and teachers, many of them who pushed for a pause on artificial intelligence in public schools<\/a>, are kicking off a new campaign: They want to reintroduce play in local classrooms that, advocates say, have been overtaken by education technology<\/a>, test preparation<\/a>, and reading curricula that push more short passages than whole novels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the coalition is organizing a \u201cplay-in\u201d<\/a> and press conference on the Lower East Side, featuring arts and crafts with clay and paper, and physical activities with jump ropes and hula hoops. While the pastimes range, they share a common thread: Children are not permitted to use digital devices.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s letter<\/a> calling on Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Kamar Samuels to \u201cprotect play\u201d in the younger grades had amassed more than 700 signatures before the weekend.<\/p>\n

The effort is part of a growing pro-play movement<\/a> emerging as the next phase of the ed-tech backlash<\/a> that gripped classrooms across the country, and spurred cellphone bans and screen time limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a national issue,\u201d said Lauren Monaco, a public school parent and veteran teacher of 26 years. \u201cThis is something that is also becoming more widely and deeply felt by parents in this city, especially when we see the encroachment of ed-tech and AI in our schools and mandated curricula.\u201d<\/p>\n

A public schools spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

This school year, Mayor Mamdani paused the use of AI for elementary and middle school students, and provided grade-appropriate bans or guidance on screen time. The policy followed Gov. Hochul\u2019s statewide school smartphone ban, which has been in effect since last September.<\/p>\n

Organizers are happy about the changes, but say they don\u2019t go far enough to return classrooms to the positive environments that support their children\u2019s education.<\/p>\n

When Monaco first enrolled her son in kindergarten, he attended a school that offered \u201czero play,\u201d even in the youngest grades.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe entered into kindergarten happy and cheerful and joyful, and in a matter of months, he was a completely different child,\u201d Monaco said. \u201cHe was melting down all the time. These meltdowns and sort of outbursts started sporadically, and then they grew in frequency, and intensity, and in duration. And it was heartbreaking to hear my 4-year-old come home from school and say, \u2018I don\u2019t know how to learn.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI pulled him out of that school, it was a huge shift. My child returned to us, and he became himself again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NicholasNicholas Gayles, 6, a student at P.S. 75, plays in the school’s playground on 95th St. in Manhattan on Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2012 in New York City. (AP Photo\/Bebeto Matthews)<\/p>\n

Monaco transferred her son to the Brooklyn New School, P.S. 146 in Carroll Gardens, over the winter break. With a December birthday at the end of New York\u2019s age cutoff<\/a>, he was able to repeat kindergarten the following year. Monaco\u2019s son, now 7-years-old and in the second grade, is learning through activities such as field trips to a marsh to study animals and the elements, or an at-school farm to learn about the life cycle of plants and pollination.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can get children to do a heck a lot more when it\u2019s fun and interesting, and meaningful and relevant,\u201d Monaco said.<\/p>\n

In some states, parents are winning time requirements on daily recess. An Axios analysis of Johns Hopkins data found that half of states mandate recess or other forms of play by law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In New York, there\u2019s a bill in the state legislature<\/a> that would require up to 30 minutes of recess in elementary schools, be held outside whenever possible, and not involve phones, laptops or tablets. The proposed legislation, however, stalled in committee at the end of last session. Currently, there is a 20-minute recess recommendation in the city\u2019s elementary schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Organizers want the bill in New York to go even further than recess and focus more broadly on play and projects where students learn real-life skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting to scratch the surface by having deeper conversations about tech in classrooms, but we\u2019re not talking about what\u2019s replacing that,\u201d said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a Manhattan parent of two public school students and also a neuroscientist.<\/p>\n

She pointed to research that play, far from being a distraction, can actually help promote learning more quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, that\u2019s always been the true definition of \u2018accelerated learning,’\u201d Salas-Ramirez said. \u201cHow do we create a learning environment where we need fewer repetitions? And the answer to that is play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City parents and teachers, many of them who pushed for a pause on artificial intelligence in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[67,85,267,9,24,55,54,264,12,56],"class_list":["post-357212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357212","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=357212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}