Washington, D.C., September 2, 2026 – The National Parents Union (NPU) is calling on New York City Public Schools to pause its new ban on generative AI for elementary and middle school students, name every “centrally approved instructional program” exempted from it, and rebuild the policy around what families asked for: children who are protected and children who are prepared.
The policy bars roughly 600,000 students from AI until high school while exempting “centrally approved instructional programs” in every grade. The Department has not published the list of those programs, which programs use generative AI, what they do with student data, or who approved them.
“Which ones?” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. “The Department banned AI for two-thirds of its students and exempted an unnamed list of software in the same sentence. Do those programs generate content for a third grader? Do they collect student data? A parent cannot answer one of those questions today. That is restriction. It is not protection. Protection means a parent knows what is on the device, what it does, and where our kid’s data goes.”
The policy also leaves one of the biggest risks in the building untouched. Teachers may use AI to write lesson plans, translate materials, and draft messages to families, with no training requirement the Department has disclosed. An untrained educator pasting a prompt into a chatbot and handing the output to a classroom is an AI risk to students, whether or not the students ever touch the tool.
“This is a political mess,” Rodrigues continued. “Parents were promised a voice and got a policy handed to them after the fact. “Nearly eight in ten New York City students are economically disadvantaged, and they’re the ones this policy will hit hardest. Families want their children protected and prepared. Both. A policy that exempts the software, exempts the adults, and shuts kids out does neither.”
Last year, NPU partnered with the Department’s Office of Digital Learning and Innovation to train New York City parents on AI, student privacy, and school accountability. Parents consistently asked for transparency about how AI is used in schools, how student data is protected, and how students will be prepared for a future shaped by these tools. NPU polling found that 88 percent of parents want to know when their children interact with AI, while nearly eight in ten want a seat at the table in AI policy decisions.
NPU is urging Chancellor Samuels and Mayor Mamdani to disclose the AI tools currently used in classrooms, provide transparency around student data practices, require disclosure when educators use AI on students’ behalf, and convene families before the policy takes effect.
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