(TNS) \u2014 Last month, New York City Public Schools announced a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative artificial intelligence through eighth grade \u2014 making it the highest-profile example of a school district policy governing AI in the classroom. But what are the rest of New York\u2019s school districts doing about AI?<\/p>\n
Without statewide standards, there\u2019s a wide range of answers, from outright AI bans to policies that encourage integrating the technology into classroom instruction. Many districts have avoided addressing it altogether.<\/p>\n
A New York Focus analysis of roughly 680 school district websites and school board manuals found that more than half lack formal, board-adopted AI policies. Around 270 have formal AI policies, most of which support \u201cresponsible AI use\u201d to improve instruction.<\/p>\n
The analysis offers the first comprehensive look at how school districts across the state are creating and enforcing AI standards in the classroom. New York Focus reached out to the roughly 400 districts for which the tool found no formal AI policy online. More than 70 confirmed that they did not have a board policy in place, 39 of which said they planned to develop one during the current school year.<\/p>\n
Some districts without formal board policies do have internal guidelines for students and teachers. A board-adopted policy, however, establishes an official districtwide rule that carries greater authority and tends to be more enforceable.<\/p>\n
Districts without formal policies often still use AI regularly. For example, Nassau County\u2019s Rockville Centre Union Free School District does not have a board policy, but at a board meeting last spring, a principal presented the district\u2019s efforts to integrate AI across all of its schools. Elementary school students at the meeting shared how they were using the technology in the classroom, including programming an AI chatbot to take on the persona of Amelia Earhart so they could ask it questions.<\/p>\n
School district AI policies tend to focus on broader principles like upholding academic integrity rather than outlining specific uses, explained Victor Lee, professor and faculty lead for the Stanford University Accelerator for Learning\u2019s initiative on AI and education. He said that approach makes sense given how quickly the technology is changing, but it can also confuse staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think part of the challenge is it\u2019s not always clear where the AI ends or where it doesn\u2019t really apply, because companies are integrating AI into so many things,\u201d said Lee.<\/p>\n
Few issues are reshaping education as rapidly as the rise of AI. Since the pandemic, school districts have poured millions of dollars into purchasing AI-powered tools designed to automate administrative tasks, personalize learning for students, and generate lesson plans.<\/p>\n
Overlaid on an AI-generated image of a humanoid robot interacting with students in a classroom setting, the text of Senate Bill S10671, which \u201crelates to humanoid robots and artificial intelligence avatars in instructional settings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joseph Hochreiter, superintendent of the City School District of Albany, said district leaders are caught between competing perspectives: those of parents who remain skeptical of the technology and are encouraging districts to pause their use of AI, versus a business community that argues students need to learn how to use it in order to be competitive in the workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really hard place for public education to be right now,\u201d Hochreiter told New York Focus.<\/p>\n
Albany is among dozens of districts that have adopted policies using sample language from the New York State School Boards Association, which encourages \u201cresponsible and effective use of GenAI\u201d to support academics and district operations. Hochreiter believes the state should develop standards outlining acceptable AI use by grade levels, but shouldn\u2019t go as far as banning it because that will set districts \u201cfurther behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several districts told New York Focus that they were waiting for more guidance from the New York State Education Department. <\/p>\n
In a statement, the agency said it is working to engage educators, stakeholders, and experts to guide its approach. \u201cThe governor has signaled that she is focused on the responsible use of digital tools,\u201d NYSED Spokesperson Karen Male wrote. \u201cMeanwhile, the department continues to develop comprehensive statewide guidance to support emerging technologies in schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just New York. Across the country, school district AI policies \u201care all over the place,\u201d said Bree Dusseault, principal and managing director at the research organization Center on Reinventing Public Education. They range from just a few sentences embedded into existing handbooks to entirely new standalone documents. Some are highly technical and largely inaccessible to parents, students, and teachers, while others are more thoughtful and \u201cexplain the strategic nature of why they\u2019re making these policy shifts before explaining the policy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dusseault said New York should set procurement standards and help school districts evaluate AI vendors in an oversaturated market.<\/p>\n
One nationwide report found that the districts have access to an average of nearly 3,000 different tools. \u201cI think the state has a role to play to help improve the quality of AI tools by setting clear parameters around what\u2019s permissible.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a classroom, three students read and write by hand at a table. In the background, several other students work and talk.<\/p>\n
Introduced in August, state Senator Andrew Gounardes\u2019s FOCUS Act would require ed tech companies to register with the state attorney general before offering products to school districts. To be approved, they would have to demonstrate that their products are in compliance with state and federal education laws, don\u2019t include distracting features, and have been proven by at least one independent study toy improve student academic performance.<\/p>\n
But for some superintendents, it\u2019s important for any statewide standards to strike a delicate balance. Yonkers Public Schools Superintendent Anibal Soler Jr. thinks that the state should still grant districts flexibility in how they address AI use within their communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m all for pausing if that\u2019s what makes sense, but what\u2019s our goal? Are we going back to teaching cursive and writing? and if we are, is the world going back to cursive and writing? Soler said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBanning it is the easy way out because it doesn\u2019t force us to have tough conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 the Press-Republican (Plattsburgh, N.Y.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(TNS) \u2014 Last month, New York City Public Schools announced a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative artificial intelligence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-374588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374588","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=374588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}