With less than a month before more than one million students return to NYC public schools, the city's Department of Education has not released updated guidance on AI use in classrooms. Parents and advocates say the delay leaves principals unable to plan for the school year and raises the risk of disruption when classes resume.
The DOE had promised a comprehensive "AI Playbook" by June, but delayed it after intense criticism of its preliminary guidelines released in March. The agency has not set a new release date, and parents say communication has been minimal since the original plan stalled. "We've heard nothing since then," said Craig Garrett, a Brooklyn dad on the steering committee of the AIM Coalition, a group of 15 organizations calling for a two-year moratorium on AI in public schools.
Garrett said the lack of clarity makes it impossible for school leaders to plan effectively. "Principals can't plan how things are going to go in September if they don't know: are the AI products that are part of the mandated curriculum going to be suddenly switched off?" he said. "It's going to be a lot harder basically to change once the school year is underway and all the kids are in seats and the teachers are in the classrooms."
The DOE's current preliminary guidelines use a traffic-light approach. "Red light" cases include using AI for grades, discipline, counseling, or surveillance, plus a commitment not to sell student data or use it to train AI models. "Yellow light" scenarios - like educators drafting critical correspondence or students using AI for research projects - require caution and adult oversight. "Green light" uses include non-critical communications, lesson planning, and data synthesis.
After releasing the initial guidance, DOE officials said they were reviewing the evolving national conversation and would consider more than 6,000 comments before "racing into a playbook." But as of late August, no revised document has emerged. Chancellor Kamar Samuels told principals in an email to hold off on purchasing education tech until further guidance arrives, according to advocates.
City council pushes for a moratorium
In June, 29 city council members signed a letter calling on Chancellor Samuels and Mayor Zohran Mamdani to impose a moratorium on AI in schools. The following month, a joint oversight hearing with the Committee on Education and the Committee on Technology saw council members repeatedly ask for an updated timeline, but the DOE would not commit to one.
"What changes are expected and when will we get that revised framework?" asked Council Member Virginia Maloney (D-Manhattan), a former tech executive. DOE First Deputy Chancellor Danielle Giunta responded: "We are working furiously through that. I cannot commit to a date, but we will be offering clarity on those exact items."
City Council Member Eric Dinowitz (D-Bronx), who chairs the Education Committee, said he met this week with Chancellor Samuels and DOE leadership to discuss AI policy. He still supports a moratorium. "I believe the best plans are ones that are fully thought through, and while the school year is fast approaching, I am confident the department is working toward clear guidance for schools," Dinowitz said. "I have pushed for a temporary AI moratorium, especially for our youngest students, and to hold our vendors accountable."
Parents feel left out of the process
Garrett said the agency did not prioritize parent and educator input when developing the initial guidance, and that pattern hasn't changed. "We used every opportunity to express our disappointment with it and our anger at the fact that parents and teachers largely our left out of the process creating the guidance," he said. "They haven't released the results of the survey. They haven't released anything about the conclusions that they drew from it."
The DOE did not respond to a request for comment from amNewYork.
For school leaders who need to prepare for whatever the DOE decides next, the challenges are more than logistical. A thoughtful AI policy requires consulting teachers, parents, and experts across the city - and that kind of process doesn't happen overnight. Until such as process is done, any guidance that appears at the last minute will see principals scrambling to adjust classroom practices, curriculum tools, and student privacy protections with less than two weeks before the start of school.
Why this matters for educators
Teachers and principals are the ones who will be caught in the middle when school starts without clear rules. Without updated guidance, educators can't know whether the AI tools they plan to use - or are required to use - will suddenly be switched off. They can't train their students on what's allowed, nor can they protect student data when vendors sell AI products that the district hasn't vetted. School leaders who have not yet started planning for AI use should move fast: check the latest DOE guidance on the DOE's website, review the traffic-light framework for what's allowed now, and look into professional development like the AI for School Principals Learning Path for school administrators on how to create a responsible AI strategy. In a school year, no guidance will create confusion by the first bell - and it's school staff who will have to figure out the rest. AI training in education can help schools stay on top of developments as they emerge.
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