April 13, 2026
1. On Thursday April 16 at 4:00 PM, NYC parents, kids, teachers and advocates will be gathering in City Hall Park to call for a moratorium on the use of AI in the classroom until rigorous measures can be established to protect student privacy, their cognitive development, critical thinking, mental health and the environment – which DOE’s AI guidance doesn’t even pretend to provide. The latest polling reveals that 74% of K12 students say it is “very” or “somewhat” likely that AI “will make learning more difficult in the future.” Increasingly, prominent voices are calling for a moratorium. We agree.
Please join us as we call on the Mayor to institute an AI pause ASAP. We also hope to be able to deliver our petition (please sign if you haven't already) along with a national letter calling for a moratorium to the Mayor's office!
Where: City Hall Park, in front of the fountain, entrance at Broadway and Park Place.
When: Thursday April 16 at 4 PM. Please RSVP here.
2. Even as the DOE is rapidly expanding the use of AI regardless of the negative impact on students, they have released NO class size plan that has a chance of meeting the requirements in the law. This Wednesday April 15, the Panel for Educational Policy will be meeting in the Bronx at 6 PM to vote on the latest iteration of capital plan, which even the School Construction Authority admits does not provide enough space for schools to lower class size to mandated levels. In fact, the plan as currently written would pay for fewer than half of the seats that both the SCA and DOE have said are necessary to comply with the law, though they testified to the City Council last month that they are in the process of revising the plan to improve it. It makes NO sense to prematurely approve a capital plan that is supposedly in the process of being rewritten. Our updated analysis is here.
Please send an email to the PEP today! A sample message is below; but please edit it any way you like to add details about your child’s school or district. Thanks! Leonie
To: aalicea6@schools.nyc.gov; daltman5@schools.nyc.gov; saubin@schools.nyc.gov; abogad@schools.nyc.gov; jborelli@schools.nyc.gov; ccasaretti@schools.nyc.gov; mdienstag@schools.nyc.gov; afair3@schools.nyc.gov; gregfaulkner1@gmail.com; agarcia141@schools.nyc.gov; agiordano16@schools.nyc.gov; agreen57@schools.nyc.gov; fhannahjones@schools.nyc.gov; naveed@cs.columbia.edu; aho2791@schools.nyc.gov; rizquierdo2@schools.nyc.gov; yjimenez20@schools.nyc.gov; sodwin3@schools.nyc.gov; aong3@schools.nyc.gov; bparsons5@schools.nyc.gov; msapp@schools.nyc.gov; JCollins37@schools.nyc.gov
Dear PEP member: Please vote no on the capital plan which the DOE and the SCA have both admitted does not create enough additional space to allow the city to comply with the class size law, or to provide all NYC students with the smaller classes they need and deserve. In fact, the plan as written would create fewer than half the number of school seats that the DOE and SCA say are necessary to meet the legal class size goals, and nearly half of the seats funded are unspecified as to district or grade level, in violation of Local Law 167, passed by the Council to require full transparency.
If this inadequate and opaque plan is to be approved prematurely, I urge you to insist that SCA and DOE officials explain in detail how it will be improved to meet the mandate in the law.
Sincerely,
[Your name, parent or teacher, and school]
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