Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at what role artificial intelligence could play in classrooms in New York City. We’ll also get details on the districts where Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s program to provide free child care for 2-year-olds will start. And alternate-side parking is back again after a second hiatus.
This could be a pivotal year in shaping the role that artificial intelligence plays in schools. But New York City, with the biggest school system in the United States, has been noticeably absent from the list of school systems that have announced large-scale adoptions of generative A.I. in K-12.
I asked Troy Closson, who covers education, to explain what to expect as the school system decides whether to play up A.I. — or play it down.
School officials in New York have mostly made promises about A.I., saying they’d say more soon. What’s at stake?
At the start of the current school year, the then-chancellor, Melissa Ramos, said that New York would focus on preparing students for A.I.-powered lives and careers and preparing teachers and staff to use A.I. responsibly. This came as tech companies were already marketing themselves to K-12 school districts, offering the promise of a transformation in how students learn, how teachers teach and what day-to-day life would look like in schools.
Her predecessor, David Banks, was really eager about the prospect of A.I., but he resigned in late 2024, and she left at the end of 2025. Now her successor, Kamar Samuels, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani will be the ones who determine where New York stands.
Why is the mayor involved?
He may not be involved directly, but he does appoint the chancellor.
When I talked with experts who are skeptical of some of the promises that A.I. companies have been making and the speed at which some districts have been adopting products, one thing I heard is A.I. is such a consequential issue that it’s important for the mayor to be involved.
A.I. developers see New York as a huge untapped market. Why did one expert you talked to say there’s a lot of money to be wasted and a lot of damage to be done?
I think there is a feeling in both the education world and the tech world that if New York, with the biggest school district in the country, were to announce a large-scale partnership with a company like Microsoft or Google or OpenAI, it could prompt other districts to follow New York’s lead. What New York does is so closely watched and so important to the rest of the country.
What have individual schools done so far in the absence of guidance from Samuels and the city’s Department of Education?
There are schools that have had to change their admissions requirements to insist on in-person essays, because the teachers think that if they let applicants do them at home, they’ll just get A.I.-written material back.
What about parents who are skeptical of A.I.?
There are schools where parents have pushed back on the prospect of A.I. in classrooms or as part of students’ daily lives. Many parents are frustrated with the amount of screen time children have had from an early age.
There are other areas where schools have been piloting different A.I.-powered teaching assistants or other tools to help in the classroom. Some are seeing promising results.
But there are many unanswered questions for the city about student data privacy and information security. And beyond that, we don’t know yet what the impacts of regular A.I. use in schools would be for students’ critical thinking skills.
Let’s go back to parents for a moment. How much sway will they have over the decisions on A.I. in schools?
It really depends on Samuels’s approach. If the city decides to embark on a large-scale partnership with a major company, that would probably be tougher for families to stop. But if it’s left up to individual schools or districts, I think you will see major pushback from families.
Equally important is the concern that if you’re in fifth or sixth grade today, you’re going to be entering a job market that will probably look completely different. Having skills and competency around A.I. and digital literacy could be crucial.
Samuels is expected to release an A.I. road map soon. What do you expect it to look like?
It’s not clear yet whether he will put out something like Chicago did, which included a full list of all the approved generative A.I. tools. That provided transparency for parents.
It’s also not clear whether Samuels will call for specific training to be rolled out for teachers to learn to use A.I. products and gain more digital literacy skills themselves.
Weather
Expect a partly sunny day with temperatures near 49. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with a chance of rain and a low around 39.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until March 20 (Eid al-Fitr).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It should not take expensive memberships to feel like you’re part of a community, and that you’re taking care of yourself and taking care of your family.” — Tricia Shimamura, the commissioner of the Department of Parks and Recreation, whose plans include scheduling more community events, like basketball tournaments and outdoor movie nights.
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Where the first 2-K seats will be
It sounds almost like signal calling in a football play: 6; 10; 18 and 23; and 27.
Those are the school districts chosen for the first 2-K seats in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s program to provide free child care for 2-year-olds.
Here’s one more number: 2,000. That’s how many seats will be available this fall. They will be spread across largely, but not exclusively, low-income neighborhoods in four of the five boroughs. The city will work with existing child care providers in each district to provide the seats.
The 2,000 seats represent only a fraction of the total that the mayor hopes to make available to 2-year-olds over the next four years. Advocates estimate that about 55,000 children will use the program once it is fully built out.
Designating the first districts was an early step toward fulfilling the mayor’s promise to create a universal child care system. Long-term funding remains a question. Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul reached an agreement in January for the state to cover $73 million for the first year of 2-K and about $425 million for the second, but they have not announced a plan to fund the program after that.
Many questions remain about how the city will run what amounts to the most ambitious expansion of the social safety net in decades. But Hochul hinted on Tuesday that she was willing to put up more money for the program.
“The State of New York is not walking away,” she said. “Not now, not ever. You can count on that.”
METROPOLITAN diary
Welcome to New York
Dear Diary:
I arrived in New York in 1986 from the Epcot Center at Walt Disney World, where I had worked as a waiter. I got a job at a small French place in the Village called Chez Ma Tante.
I was about to start my first lunch service and was being trained by a seasoned waiter. He was French, like me, but older (I was 23). He filled me in on how to set tables and stock the bar, and he introduced me to the kitchen staff. He was warm and nice all around.
The last thing to go over was fetching the petty cash from the office safe. Off we went.
He opened the safe and took out all the cash that was there (about $200), put everything in his pocket and told me he was flying back to France later that afternoon.
He wished me good luck with everything and said, “Au revoir.” I can’t remember how my call to the owner went after that.
— Bonfils Jean Pierre
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city.
The post A.I. in New York Schools: What Lies Ahead? appeared first on New York Times.
