New York City and Los Angeles Unified have each imposed moratoriums on student-facing generative AI, with NYC's policy covering roughly 600,000 students in pre-K through eighth grade2,5 and LAUSD blocking AI tools on district-provided devices for approximately 378,000 students3. ANALYSIS Their near-simultaneous moves create a policy signal from the nation's two largest school districts that smaller districts will find difficult to ignore.
Why it matters
New York City's policy, announced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, was described by the mayor's office as "the most expansive prohibition in the country". Schools will halt the use of about 40 educational tools currently deployed in city classrooms14. Companion chatbots, designed to offer students emotional or mental health support, are banned across all grade levels, including high school9,12. Teachers are barred from using AI to grade assignments but may still use it for lesson planning, scheduling, and translation6.
The big picture
The restrictions go beyond AI. New York City will prohibit individual devices for students in pre-K through second grade entirely. Screen time for grades three through five is capped at 30 minutes per day; for grades six through eight, 45 minutes. ANALYSIS The layered structure, tiered by age and device type, treats generative AI as one node in a broader concern about technology exposure for younger children rather than as an isolated problem.
Mamdani framed the policy in explicitly adversarial terms toward the technology industry. "The tech industry wants us to believe that A.I.-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way," he said. He added: "New Yorkers 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". "We know the purpose of AI companies, whether they are making sports betting models, or an education tool, is to produce a profit," Mamdani said. "Here in our New York City public schools, our purpose is our students".
LAUSD's approach arrived with less fanfare. The district "quietly imposed" its moratorium on student use of generative AI on school devices for the current school year, a move that came to light at a school board committee meeting examining AI8. Unlike New York's policy, LAUSD's moratorium applies only to district-owned devices; there is not yet a district policy on what students can do on non-district devices, an official said.
ANALYSIS The two policies differ in scope and enforcement mechanism, but their timing and direction are aligned. New York's ban covers all student-facing generative AI regardless of device; LAUSD's is limited to district hardware. New York paired its moratorium with structured high school exceptions: twice-yearly AI literacy classes for all high school students and pilot programs allowing a small number of high school classrooms to use approved AI platforms under educator supervision. LAUSD's review is still underway, with no comparable high school framework yet disclosed.
The carve-outs in New York's policy reveal where the district drew its lines. Assistive tools for students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and students in career programs like computer science are exempt. High school pilots will be limited to up to five classes in a small number of schools. The AI literacy curriculum will cover determining what is and is not AI, impacts on careers and future skills, and AI-related biases13.
New York City previously imposed a temporary ban on ChatGPT soon after its rollout in 2022, then reversed course and replaced the restriction with a custom AI-powered tool. ANALYSIS That earlier reversal makes the current, broader moratorium notable: the district moved from a narrow product ban to a blanket prohibition on an entire category of software, a trajectory that suggests internal assessments of the first approach found it insufficient.
Major AI developers Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the New York policy.
What's next
New York City public school students return to classrooms next week, when the moratorium takes effect for the 2026-2027 school year. A new Technology in Schools Coalition composed of students, educators, parent leaders, and elected officials will study the impact over the year15. Education Week has already posed the question directly: will other districts follow? Reuters reported that other districts, including Los Angeles, have said they are reviewing AI policies, positioning the LAUSD moratorium as part of a broader national reassessment. ANALYSIS Michael Mulgrew of the United Federation of Teachers expressed support for the policy's screen-time limits. The coalition's findings, due before the moratorium's one-year expiration, will determine whether the restrictions harden into permanent policy or, as in 2022, give way to a managed reintroduction.