We tried to collect every New York school district’s AI policy. Most didn’t have one

This article was originally published by New York Focus.

Last month, New York City Public Schools announced a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative artificial intelligence through eighth grade — making it the highest-profile example of a school district policy governing AI in the classroom. But what are the rest of New York’s school districts doing about AI? 

Without statewide standards, there’s 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. 

New York Focus built an AI crawler to scrape AI policies from all of the state’s 678 school districts’ websites and third-party school board platforms. A reporter manually fact-checked the outputs, summarized policies, and reached out to every district for which the tool found no policy. Those responses are summarized in a table at the end of the story.

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 “responsible AI use” to improve instruction. 

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.

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. (Information on districts that reported having other AI guidelines is included in the table at the bottom of the page.)

Districts without formal policies often still use AI regularly. For example, Nassau County’s Rockville Centre Union Free School District does not have a board policy, but at a board meeting last spring, a principal presented the district’s 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. 

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’s initiative on AI and education. He said that approach makes sense given how quickly the technology is changing, but it can also confuse staff. 

“I think part of the challenge is it’s not always clear where the AI ends or where it doesn’t really apply, because companies are integrating AI into so many things,” said Lee. 

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.

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. 

“It’s a really hard place for public education to be right now,” Hochreiter told New York Focus. 

Albany is among dozens of districts that have adopted policies using sample language from the New York State School Boards Association, which encourages “responsible and effective use of GenAI” to support academics and district operations. Hochreiter believes the state should develop standards outlining acceptable AI use by grade levels, but shouldn’t go as far as banning it because that will set districts “further behind.” 

Several districts told New York Focus that they were waiting for more guidance from the New York State Education Department. 

In a statement, the agency said it is working to engage educators, stakeholders, and experts to guide its approach. “The governor has signaled that she is focused on the responsible use of digital tools,” NYSED Spokesperson Karen Male wrote. “Meanwhile, the department continues to develop comprehensive statewide guidance to support emerging technologies in schools.” 

It’s not just New York. Across the country, school district AI policies “are all over the place,” 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 “explain the strategic nature of why they’re making these policy shifts before explaining the policy,” she said. 

Dusseault said New York should set procurement standards and help school districts evaluate AI vendors in an oversaturated market.

One nationwide report found that the districts have access to an average of nearly 3,000 different tools. “I think the state has a role to play to help improve the quality of AI tools by setting clear parameters around what’s permissible.”

Introduced in August, state Senator Andrew Gounardes’s 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’t include distracting features, and have been proven by at least one independent study toy improve student academic performance. 

But for some superintendents, it’s 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. 

“I’m all for pausing if that’s what makes sense, but what’s 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.

“Banning it is the easy way out because it doesn’t force us to have tough conversations.”