Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here at the Navy Yard's Brooklyn STEAM Center alongside parents, students and partners who are helping us build the future of public education in our city. I want to acknowledge we have a number of leaders both inside and outside of City government here with us. We have our New York City Public Schools Chancellor, Kamar Samuels. We have a number of his leadership team that are here with us, both standing alongside us while seated here in the crowd.
We also have our Assembly Member Bobby Carroll, the chair of the Education Technology Committee, who is here with us. Our Council Member Rita Joseph, the chair of the Higher Education Committee. We have our Council Member Lincoln Restler. We are here in Council Member Restler's district. We are also here in State Sen. Jabari Brisport's district. And we are also here in Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon's district.
And we have alongside us our senior adviser for education, Ailish Brady, as well as our Brooklyn STEAM Center Founding Principal, Dr. Kayon Pryce, and Superintendent Michael Prayor, who's also here with us. Thank you all, to all of you.
Now, as parents and kids across New York City know, back-to-school season is a time of change and a time of challenge. It means the return of 6 a.m. wake-ups, the excitement of seeing friends again after a summer apart, and the perennial question for parents: How do we strike the right balance between screen time, extracurriculars, homework and time to just be a kid?
But in recent years, a new question has risen in the lives of students, parents and educators alike: how to navigate the advent of artificial intelligence in our society, and by extension, in our schools.
In just a few years, AI has gone from the pages of a sci-fi novel into something present in nearly every aspect of our lives. It is embedded in our maps and emails, in toasters and washing machines. It is present when we visit the doctor, when we cash a check, and when we settle down on the couch to watch a movie.
But just because technology is everywhere doesn't mean that it belongs everywhere. After all, each day when our children come to school, we teach them to ask questions, to challenge assumptions, to interrogate the premise, to ask, "Why?"
When it comes to AI in our schools, we hold an obligation to do the same. We must ask, what helps our children learn? How can we protect their developing minds? And how do we prepare them for a world in which new technologies will be increasingly built into it?
Today, I am proud to announce New York City's first-ever comprehensive AI policy for our public schools, City Hall's answer to those questions. It is the most comprehensive of its kind anywhere in the country, and it begins with a simple principle: Children need their teachers and human connection in order to learn and in order to grow. And they need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with their teachers, and wrestle with tough problems on their own.
The tech industry wants us to believe that AI in early education is not only inevitable but that it is necessary. We do not see it that way. I have yet to see a study showing that AI is beneficial for students in elementary and middle school, with the exception, of course, of research sponsored by the very corporations that stand to profit. So, beginning this school year, we will implement a one-year moratorium on generative AI for students in 2-K through eighth grade.
I want to thank Gov. Hochul for helping pave the way with her efforts to ban cellphones and social media platforms in our schools. This moratorium is a commitment to getting the future right. A 6-year-old child is too young to slice an onion, to fry an egg or to use a stove safely. But once that child is 16, that knowledge becomes something they are mature enough to learn. That same principle applies to AI.
Whether we like it or not, our teenagers are growing up in an AI-saturated world. We cannot pretend that that world does not exist. It would be irresponsible not to prepare our children for the fast-evolving technological future that lies ahead. So, in high school, we will teach our students about AI, its opportunities and its pitfalls, its building blocks and its biases. And we will pilot five rigorously vetted educational AI programs that teachers have vouched for, like the programs that I just had the pleasure of trying alongside students here at Brooklyn STEAM. But I want to be very clear. In no way, shape or form will AI replace student-teacher interaction. It is the foundation of our students' educational experience. That will not change.
These pilots will have defined learning goals. Their use will be limited to a maximum of 45 minutes per week under direct teacher supervision. And none of these programs are chatbots. This pilot is not introducing ChatGPT, Claude or anything similar into our curricula.
At the same time, we know that AI has already found its way into many educational products that are being used in our classroom, sometimes without meaningful guardrails or oversight. That changes today. As part of this policy, we will fully discontinue or disable the AI components of more than 38 previously allowed programs that do not meet our new safety and oversight standards.
We will embrace new technology, but only when it serves our students. And at every step of the way, we will ensure that the challenge and struggle that are so critical for learning remain at the heart of our educational system. Kids need to learn to think for themselves. They need to work alongside their peers. They need to learn how to ask better questions. And they need to learn what it feels like to not know the answer. This is what learning is all about. And it is what city government is determined to protect.
This policy is not one that is set in stone. It is by design a finite one-year policy. Over the course of the coming school year, we will carefully monitor each of these programs and evaluate their impact and evaluate their success. And when the school year ends, we will sit down with teachers, parents, students and partners inside and outside our school system to determine what is working, what isn't working and what needs to change.
We know the purpose of AI companies. Whether they are making sports betting models or an education tool, it is to produce a profit. Here in our New York City Public Schools, our purpose is our students. It does not matter how profitable a product is. If it doesn't help our students learn and grow, we will not use that product.
New Yorkers deserve to know that their kids will receive a high-quality education. They deserve to know that their children's data won't be mined by big tech. And they deserve to know that their children's growth won't be compromised for a corporation's bottom line. Our job is to give every student the knowledge, the independence and the confidence they need to build a future of their own choosing. That means safeguarding the teacher-student relationship, refusing to surrender our classrooms to profit motives, and above all, it means protecting childhood.
I want to say thank you again to all of the New York City Public School staff, all of the New York City Public School leaders who are here today as well as beyond this room who helped us to develop this policy. It is a pleasure to stand here alongside so many leaders in this very conversation to institute a new policy to protect our students. Thank you.And with that being said, I want to pass it over to our chancellor, Kamar Samuels.
Kamar Samuels, Chancellor, New York City Public Schools: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you to NYC Public Schools, all staff, all our families who've helped us to get here today. Few issues in education generate as much buzz as artificial intelligence does. As chancellor of the nation's largest school system, a former teacher [and] a parent of three, here's what I know to be true.
Our kids learn best from great teachers. They learn best when they are wrestling with hard problems, when they're getting it wrong, when they're trying again and finally getting it right. That struggle isn't a flaw in the system — it is learning.
This is how a first grader sounds out a word. This is how an eighth grader learns to find “x”. Now, no app, chatbot or algorithm can replicate that productive struggle for a child. And the moment we let that happen, we take an essential part of learning away from our students. I don't want technology to do our students' thinking for them. I don't want new technologies introduced into classrooms where our parents and our educators do not understand them. And we don't understand what they're doing and what information they're collecting.
At the same time, our children are growing up in a world being transformed by AI. We need to prepare them to navigate and thrive in that world. Over the last several months, we've listened to teachers, families, students, researchers and community members across our city. And today, I am here to announce the results of those conversations.
For our youngest learners, from 2-K through eight, we are implementing a moratorium for student-facing generative AI. Our elementary school and middle school classrooms will remain centered on what children at that age need: strong instruction, human interaction, play, discussion, creativity and the chance to work through hard problems themselves instead of outsourcing it to a machine.
For our high schoolers, our responsibility is different. It is increasingly part of the world and workforce they are about to enter. So, this year, we are launching limited, carefully controlled high school pilots that involve five vetted, approved AI programs. These programs will be under the direct supervision of a teacher. Additionally, students will be allowed to use AI under a teacher's supervision if participating in career programs such as CTE and professional learning pathways in order to develop skills that they require, they will require for career readiness.
Alongside the pilots and career readiness, the third component of our high school program is AI literacy. Every high school student will be required to do an AI literacy course comprised of 45-minute modules twice per year. This is to ensure students understand the risk and misinformation, overreliance on what it means to protect their ability to think critically without a tool doing it for them. Students in pilots and career programs will be required to take a longer, more in-depth AI literacy course as well.
We know a single rule doesn't fit every student the same way, so there will be exceptions. For certain students with disabilities, including legally mandated IEPs and 504 plans, the support will look different — and for multilingual learners. In these cases, we will be providing individualized supports in order to expand access.
Over the course of this year, we will study the results, closely [monitoring them] alongside our technology in schools coalition with real monitoring built in from day one. What we learn will directly shape our plans for the following year.
I know there will be some who think, “Well, we didn't go far enough.” Or we didn't move faster with AI in schools. There are others who will think there's no place for AI in a classroom. I understand both instincts. But I don't believe either serves our students well. Instead, we need to protect the years when children need to wrestle with new concepts, think and learn from real teachers without shortcuts. And we need to prepare our older students carefully and deliberately for a world where AI is already a part of their daily life.
This is a standard I hold for my own children. It is a standard I held as a teacher and a superintendent. And it is a standard we will hold as NYC Public Schools because it is a standard all our students deserve. Thank you.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you very much, chancellor. I'd now like to invite Assembly Member Bobby Carroll.
Assembly Member Robert C. Carroll: Good morning. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. And let me commend Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels for this deeply thoughtful policy. Ensuring that children in K-2 through eighth grade are not interacting with AI, but instead receiving evidence-based instruction in foundational skills, is the exact right policy, while also making sure that high school students are being able to interact with the tools of the future in a controlled setting. This sets the perfect tone.
As the chair of the Libraries and Educational Technology Committee, I have legislation very similar to this. And I'm so glad that Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels are blazing a path not just for New York City, but for our entire state.
The only thing I must disagree with the mayor about is, let me tell you, Mr. Mayor, if you have a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, 6 a.m. wake-up calls happen all the time, not just during the school year.
But thank you so much for having us here together. I look forward to working with all of you on this deeply thoughtful policy. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the carve-out for students with disabilities is essential. And thank you for doing that as well. Thank you so much.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you. Please join me in welcoming Council Member Rita Joseph.
Council Member Rita Joseph: Good morning and thank you all for being here. I am Council Member Rita Joseph, chair of the Committee on Higher Education, a forever educator. But more importantly, today, I am a public-school parent. I want to commend Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels for listening to parents, advocates and community members who raised the alarm on how quickly AI was beginning to reshape education in New York — for New York students.You signed petitions. You filled our inboxes. Government listened. And this is how it's supposed to work.
I spent my entire career in and around classroom, and I know what learning looks like. It is a child sounding out a word for the first time and looking up to see if you noticed. It is the struggle, the necessary productive struggle that builds a mind. No algorithm can look at a 9-year-old in the eye and say, "I believe you can do this." This is the work of a human being.
I also understand the need for balance, promise of a new tool against harm that it can do. I was in the classroom during the rise of EdTech; I saw firsthand the mistakes we made when we moved too fast. We don't want to have to make those same mistakes again.
The policy announced today protects our youngest learners and prepares our high school students for the world they will graduate into. It is appropriately careful, and it's responsive to community voices. I look forward to working closely with the technology and school coalition to strengthen this policy, ensure accountability. The coming wave of technology will be led by young people. Their creativity will show the way. Our job is to build the guardrails so they can do it responsibly. Technology can be a tool; it will never be a teacher. Today's announcement is the first step, and I look forward to being your partner in this work. Thank you.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you so much. And now the prince of outdoor dining, Council Member Lincoln Restler.
Council Member Lincoln Restler: Thank you, sir. It is great to be with the mayor and the chancellor and my colleagues; such great leaders from the DOE and the Navy Yard; and Chancellor Dr. Lester Young, Bed-Stuy's own, the chancellor of the Board of Regents, thank you for being with us.
Last year, I got dozens of complaints from parents who were angry that their children were talking into AI programs to learn how to read. And the parents in the school didn't want it, the teachers in the school didn't want it, the principal in the school didn't want it, but there [was] a small faction within the DOE that was pushing this.
Next Thursday, on the first day of school, that all changes. Thanks to the leadership of the mayor and the chancellor, we are implementing the right, thoughtful, smart policy to essentially ban AI programs from 2-K through eighth grade. There are smart, tailored exceptions.
I really want to commend the chancellor, in particular. He didn't farm this one out. He deeply engaged with stakeholders all across our city to get to this right policy. I really appreciate you listening and caring, and this is the right approach.
I'm also very grateful for the restrictions on screen time. I have a 20-month-old. I don't put screens in front of him. And when he enters 2-K next year, or 3-K next year, I don't want the teacher to be doing the same.
This is the right approach for us to have precise amounts of time, limited amounts of time, that our young people are in front of screens. Kids learn and develop when they interact with their teachers and with one another. And these are the right policies for today and for tomorrow and for our young people. And I really want to commend this administration for being national leaders in what smart AI policy and what smart screen time policies look like in our schools. Thank you very much.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you. And now I would like to call up a former middle school math teacher, State Senator Jabari Brisport.
New York State Senator Jabari Brisport: Good morning, everybody. State Senator Jabari Brisport, former middle school math teacher. I also represent the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Brooklyn STEAM Center. Very pleased to be here with this new policy announcement from the mayor, from the chancellor. Thank you to the Brooklyn STEAM Center for hosting and for all the incredible work you do in our community, and congrats on the recent expansion in your space.
I'm very excited to be here this morning because I know that when we passed the cell phone ban at the state level last year, we had more than a decade of evidence and research of the adverse effects of smartphones and social media on our youth's development. And I'm happy that we're not waiting a decade again to address the rapidly evolving technology of AI in our classrooms.
And I was very excited to attend the demonstration program for math, actually, in the room behind us because I remember when Photomath came out in the late 2010s. This was an AI program that debuted about four or five years before ChatGPT was even a thing. It would allow students to take a picture of a math problem on their smartphone, and it would print out not only the answer, but also all the steps you need to write out to get to the answer. And teachers were left on our own on how to deal with that; there was no guiding policy from the DOE of how to respond to a rapidly evolving technology.
So, I'm very pleased that the administration is taking this approach to have guidance and to do pilot programs and to figure out a way to navigate a rapidly evolving terrain. So, thanks again for creating this policy to the mayor and the chancellor, all our partners and looking forward to the next year of this. Thank you.
Mayor Mamdani: Well, that is time for our final speaker. We do that at every presser, just to let everyone know. Our final speaker is going to be our Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon.
Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Chancellor Samuels. And let me just give a shout-out to our Regents chancellor, Lester Young, with whom I've been working very closely at the state level for years.
You know, people have talked about this policy. I would say one thing. It clearly is comprehensive; it clearly is thoughtful; and it clearly is the kind of policy that will allow and give us an approach to figuring out what to do next, because there is a what to do next.
I just met with about four teams of young people who were testing out these pilots. And one of the clear things that they said was they want to think critically. They don't want AI to give them an answer. But of course, for young people, they don't necessarily know the difference, right?
And so, I think that is a really critical element of this, that I have great confidence we're going to figure out what those answers are going forward and recognize that this is an evolving and rapidly changing field. And we'll have to keep coming back and revising and tweaking as we go along.
When I was in grad school, I was actually the EdTech graduate assistant. But we were moving from reel to reel to cassettes at that time. So, big changes, big changes. But also, you know, I'm another one of the former educators caucuses here, which is I taught deaf students and chaired the Dyslexia Society in New York State for years. And so, the focus on evidence-based practices, but also the focus on assistive technology for our students with disabilities and our students who are English language learners is so critical. So, thank you very much for all being here. And I'm going to turn this back over to the guy in charge, the mayor. Thank you so much.
Question: So, I was hoping to get some more information about the, I think it was the 38 contracts you said where you're going to disable some AI functionality. Does that include some of these big citywide contracts like Amira, the reading tutor; or Google Gemini, which is built into many students' Chromebooks; or even HMH, the big reading vendor, which has some AI capacity?
What does it look like to disable just the AI part of that when it can be pretty deeply embedded in the product? Are you canceling these contracts? And then, going forward, what can principals expect about how you're evaluating software that they're considering purchasing?
Mayor Mamdani: I think at the core of your question is our priorities. It is all too easy to inherit contracts, to inherit approaches and to say it's simply what it is now. And we wanted to take a step back to actually evaluate our responsibility to the nation's largest public school system, to the students who come every single day, to the teachers who make it possible and to the families who entrust us with that responsibility.
And one of those responsibilities is the privacy of these students. Another responsibility is to ensure that we're actually teaching these students to learn, to grow and to ask questions. So yes, we did disable more than 30 of these products that were previously in use. I'll just call up Ailish, our senior policy adviser, to give some more additional details to that, she can provide that.
Ailish Brady, Senior Advisor for Education: To your specific question, yes, AI products, including those embedded in Tier 1 curriculum where the AI can be turned off, will be turned off. So that includes Amira and any HMH products you mentioned. If a product cannot have the AI turned off, then that will be taken off the board entirely in our schools.
Mayor Mamdani: Just one additional point before we go to the next question, which is that we have a rigorous set of standards that we are going to apply for any educational tool. And we do not care how big that company is, how profitable it is, how long we have been working with them. They need to meet the same level of standards. And if they do not today, that doesn't mean that we won't work with them to get there, but it does mean that those standards have to be followed.
Question: Mr. Mayor, back in March, this was obviously already a hot-button topic in education, but the DOE's plan for AI on its website listed things that, at that point, the school system was okay with AI being used for; things like brainstorming, organizing, refining communications, translation. I'm curious how involved you were directly with how we went from that to this today.
Mayor Mamdani: I want to credit Chancellor Kamar Samuels for leading this process [and] his team, for ensuring that we did not confuse speed with progress. And the announcement that was made earlier in the spring was intended to be the beginning of a conversation. As we heard from Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon, even today is not the end of that conversation; this conversation will continue.
However, the intent of it is to deliver for our students, and we cannot do so without also hearing the reflections from parents, from students, from educators, in the time that followed that announcement, where we intentionally looked to carve out time, forums, platforms for us to engage with that. Today is a reflection of that, and it's a reflection of Chancellor Kamar Samuels' leadership.
Question: This addresses AI use in schools, but there's a problem with students using AI at home, right? I mean, let's be real. They're using it to cheat. They're using generative AI to write for them, to answer problems. I mean, is there any tools we can give teachers to combat that, to spot writing that's been done with AI?
And then I just have one separate, more specific question for the chancellor. I guess I'll just ask you now. There's been a lot of complaints from students about the OMNY cards. Can you talk about why they're not being offered OMNY cards for express buses and commuter rail? And also, they're being deactivated Aug. 31, which leaves a gap before the start of the school year.
Chancellor Samuels: Let's take the OMNY card question first. That is a very big topic in DOE and with so many of our students. And we are in a partnership with the MTA on OMNY cards. We are considering a pilot that is going to make a lot of those OMNY cards digital. We are considering many ways to make them more durable, which is one of the things our students complain about. And so, this is an ongoing conversation. As the mayor said, I've been engaging directly with young people on this, and we're working very closely with MTA to get to a process that's going to work long term for young people.
Mayor Mamdani: On the first question, do you want to add anything [about that]?
Chancellor Samuels: What was the first question again?
Question: Cheating.
Chancellor Samuels: Oh, yes. So, this is something we've actually been obviously dealing with for quite a few years. The idea around this policy is to make sure that we get to limitations. I think we ought not to forget that last year there was AI usage in our school. This policy seeks to limit that and seeks to expand our teachers and our understanding of how to combat the external use of AI when it's used at home.
So, we'll be continuing to support our teachers in that way. But I will tell you, the ongoing conversations with our parents is really important. As we've seen with our cell phone ban, this sparks really strong conversations about best practices and how we manage our students at home.
Question: Just building off of that, can you talk about how the course of the year, talking to different teachers in different classrooms at different ages, what is their reaction to this? Is it positive, or are they hoping to — there are AI elements and things that may not be as public, like using a chatbot or things like that. I guess, are they confident in being able to teach and learn and be able to do what everything they need to do as well, if these are being limited?
Mayor Mamdani: I think what we've heard time and again, no matter who we're speaking to, is the importance of the teacher-student interaction. We are seeing artificial intelligence become more and more a fact of life, and there are conversations across the country where people have put forward ideas that this could perhaps replace that interaction. We want it to be very clear that it is not going to replace that interaction here in New York City Public Schools.
And what we have also heard is the importance of protecting childhood, and what I mean by that is allowing students the opportunity to ask questions, allowing them to engage, allowing them to fail in whatever it is that they might be doing so that they can learn from that.
I even think back on the advice that my father gave me when I was going to college. He didn't instruct me to go after one particular subject. He told me, anywhere that I felt excited by learning, those were the kinds of courses to take, because my job was to learn how to learn. And I think in many ways, that's what our job is also, to ensure that students still have that possibility in front of them.
Question: And then one follow-up for the chancellor. Can you just reiterate the ban on cellphones or how that's being used in the classroom or personal laptops, things like that, and if that's been changed at all in this new policy?
Chancellor Samuels: So, there's no change to the cell phone ban. As you know, that's a statewide ban, and we've done really good work with that. We saw a huge increase in conversations happening, certainly at recess and in the cafeteria. And so, the only thing that is impacted by this is for K to 2, for 2-K to 2, there will be no one-to-one device use. And our recommendation is 30 minutes for grades 3 to 5 and 45 minutes for grades 6 to 8.
Mayor Mamdani: And Matthew, just before you ask also, I'm just saying to any of the electeds who'd like to step forward and respond to any of these questions, please also feel free.
Question: I have a question about the strength of this policy. There's exceptions that are outlined in it. There are — you mentioned several times; it's just a one-year moratorium. What should parents expect? Could these be loosened next year, or is this sort of the foundation going forward that K through 8 is going to have these strict limitations, or could there be a loosening of this next year or in the coming year?
Mayor Mamdani: What parents should expect is that we will make our decisions not with the profit motive in mind, but instead with the fulfillment of our purpose, which is to teach our students, to ensure that they can grow, they can learn, that they can question and that we are making evidence-based decisions.
One of the things that I mentioned earlier in my remarks is studies. So often the studies that are put in front of you that showcase the beneficial aspects of generative AI for our youngest students happen to be sponsored by the companies that you would then contract with to provide those same students those kinds of tools. We want to ensure that we are actually providing tools to our students that we know to be beneficial, as opposed to tools that we know to be profitable.
Question: I'm just wondering how you guys plan to enforce this rule in classrooms? Will there be some sort of punishment if students do decide to use artificial intelligence?
[Crosstalk.]
Mayor Mamdani: As with any of our policies, our implementation is going to begin with those who know our schools best, our principals, our superintendents [and] our teachers. And as you've heard, whether from Assembly Member Simon or from State Senator Brisport, while we are speaking about the technology of today, we are also speaking about transitions that teachers have faced in years past.
Whenever there's been a shift, teachers have had to be at the forefront. And I remember when I was in school, it was Google Books and Turnitin.com. These were at the forefront of those conversations. And so, we trust that teachers, principals [and] superintendents will be there. And what we also trust is that if there is any conversation about the procurement of education technology, it will go through our new New York City Public Schools procurement systems.
And that comes with an adherence to a rigorous set of criteria that is looking at the privacy, that is looking at the efficacy, that is looking at ensuring that these tools are actually beneficial for our students.
Question: And is there any reason why the union wasn't here today?
Mayor Mamdani: No, I think this is a policy that has a broad coalition behind it. We've seen, I think, just this morning that the head of the National Union, Randi Weingarten, issued a statement of support as well.
Question: I wanted to follow up on Morgan's question about enforcement. She asked about the students. She asked about the teacher's union. Is there anything in enforcement here that would hold teachers accountable for what's being used in the classroom? And my other question is really just about what is being used in the classroom. We heard during the City Council hearing earlier this summer that the central was collecting what exactly are the AI products that are in schools currently — is there a list going out about what's going to be revoked now? What does that look like?
Mayor Mamdani: Yes, there is a very clear set of specific guidelines for our entire public school system. And as we said earlier, we are discontinuing the use of close to 40 different products that were in use in prior years that did have AI at the heart of those products.
And the point of that is also that in putting forward a comprehensive policy like the one that we are putting forward today, we are finally creating a policy for the entirety of our public school system, whereas prior to that, it was operating in the absence of central guidance around that.
So, we are putting these forward. And when it comes to the question of enforcement, we trust that our teachers, our principals [and] our superintendents will be abiding by this. And the reason we have been so specific is because this is where we have our confidence for what is beneficial for our students.
When we're talking about these core five pilots, we're talking about pilots that at a maximum a student could engage with for 45 minutes in a week. And when we're talking about the close to 40 educational tools that were previously in use, we're talking about ones that did not meet our standards. But the specifics of those tools will be sent out.
Chancellor Samuels: Just to speak to teachers for a second, our guidance to teachers hasn't changed. It stands where we were in March, where teachers can use AI products [for] teacher-facing for planning. They can't use it for grading and assessment and so on.
Question: I just want to make sure; do you have a list now of what AI products are being used in schools? Because that didn't exist earlier in the summer.
Mayor Mamdani: We have cataloged a list of those that will both be discontinued and the five that are allowed to be used.
Question: Can you just list some of the examples specifically of the exemptions for students with disabilities and I think English language learners? What are some examples of the kinds of tech that can be used in these cases?
Mayor Mamdani: So, one, I'll just underline that some of these exemptions are also to adhere to state law around what we have to provide to a number of specific sets of students. I'll just bring up our senior adviser, Ailish, to speak to that.
Brady: So assistive technology is a core part of a student's individualized education plan. So just a couple of examples you could use. Students with ALS or severe cerebral palsy may use eye-tracking software. So that's where a camera is watching their eyes so they can type; students write whole papers using that eye-tracking technology.
So, in that case, they'd be exempt from the screen-time limit, right? So, we wouldn't say 30 minutes or 45 minutes for those students. They would have all the time they need in order to meaningfully participate.
For English language learners, the DOE has created an ERMA-approved app called “Hello!” App that supports the translation between students and teachers and between teachers and students' parents to support that ease of communication. That would be an example of an exemption there.
Question: And just a real quick follow-up. So, for students with disabilities, does it have to be in their IEP, written into their IEP? Or can teachers use some discretion for students with disabilities?
Brady: So, it can be in their IEP. It also could be in their 504 plan, which is an alternative non-IEP support. I think if there are other assistive technologies that they think would benefit students either with disabilities or students with 504 plans, they can discuss that with the IEP coordinator at their school.
Chancellor Samuels: And I think one final important point that we've heard in engagement, if it's an assistive technology that can help them to communicate with their parents, for example, that also would be allowed.
Question: So, I have two questions. So first, can you speak to what made you decide to go with a one-year moratorium versus the two-year moratorium that parents and advocates were asking for? And then separately, with respect to your recent reporting on your network of influencers pushing city initiatives, have your lawyers cleared your government staff to use Signal to communicate with these influencers? And how can it be legal under FOIL laws, given that Signal self-deletes?
Mayor Mamdani: So, with the first question, we wanted to make sure that we are putting forward a policy that both is fulfilling our responsibility to students, to parents, to teachers and giving us a time period to evaluate the results of this policy. If we find over the course of this year that this policy needs to be extended, then we will extend it. If we find over the course of this year that there are amendments that need to be made, we will amend it.
All of it will be driven by the results that we are seeing, the feedback we are receiving from principals, from teachers [and] from students. And again, too often, many of these larger-scale policy decisions are not being driven by those kinds of factors. They are being driven by questions of profit. They are being driven by an attempt to be as quick as possible.
And yet we know that the responsibility we hold is an immense one to our students. And we have to ensure that we are confident in whatever policy we're putting forward. This is a policy that we are confident about. We will revisit it at the end of this one year.
And then to your other question, we also know that New Yorkers get their news in a wide variety of ways. And it is our responsibility to ensure that we communicate information from City government directly to the people of this city, whether that means to all of you, to TV, to radio, to social media, to content creators and so on and so forth.
And my administration will always strive to fully comply with all legal requirements, including those that relate to the preservation of city records. And if there are any departures from what is legally required, my administration will look into it immediately and take corrective action. Thank you.
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