Important dates next week to provide input on the need for smaller classes & a moratorium on AI in schools

 

Dear all:  Hope you are having a relaxing summer. Meanwhile, here are some important dates and events coming up in the next week:

1-     The deadline for families to sign up for a portion of the $17.25M Naviance court settlement for violating student privacy is this Monday, July 27. You can sign up here. Naviance has been used in many NYC high schools for college advising purposes. Any NYC family is eligible if your child logged into the Naviance platform at least once between August 18, 2021, through January 23, 2026. Reminder: if your child is over 18, they must apply themselves.

We are very disappointed that DOE has failed to inform families of this alleged breach or their right to apply for a portion of the settlement.

2-     Another important deadline is on Wed. July 29 – when public comments on the DOE”s inadequate draft class size plan are due. If your school had large classes last year and did not receive funding to lower them next year, and/or the DOE has not announced any specific plan to address your school’s class sizes in the future, you should email ContractsForExcellence@schools.nyc.gov by that date to insist that they develop and articulate such a plan in this document so your children can receive the unparalleled benefits of smaller classes – which according to the state law and constitution, is their right. DOE is supposed to take public comments into account and revise their plan accordingly before it is sent to the State Education Department for their review on August 14.   If you do send a comment, please copy us at info@classsizematters.org

3-     Meanwhile, the DOE has failed to issue any report summarizing the public feedback to their totally inadequate AI guidance, and no improved guidance, despite promises that both would be released last month. Nor have they announced any AI moratorium, which thousands of parents and teachers have urgently called for. The Mayor is also more than a month late in establishing an Office of Algorithmic Accountability, required by a law passed by the City Council last year, supposed to gather public feedback and develop responsible citywide policies on AI, as explained here.

4-     Also on Wed. July 29, the Panel for Educational Policy is meeting at the High School for Fashion Industries at 225 West 24th Street at 6 PM. The AIM coalition will be holding a rally outside the school at 5:30 PM. This is an important meeting as many new Mayoral appointees will be attending for the first time. It is critical to make these new members aware of how many thousands of NYC parents and teachers strongly believe in the need for a real class size plan for the 600 plus schools that DOE admits do not have space at their current enrollment, and for an immediate moratorium on using AI in schools. Here is more information about this meeting, and a link to RSVP.

5-     Finally, an important bill S9051B passed the State Legislature unanimously during the last session which would prohibit the use of unsafe AI chatbots by kids, including in schools. Google Gemini has been rated as one of the most unsafe chatbots by both Commonsense Media and by the independent nonprofit KORA, and yet last year was assigned to many young students in NYC schools. More than sixty organizations have sent a letter to the Governor in support of this bill, including our Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. Please call the Governor today at (518) 474-8390 or email her to urge her to sign this bill!

Thanks, Leonie

The testimony of NYC students on the use -- and misuse-- of AI in the classroom

 

  

Above is a video of the terrific testimonies of four NYC students involved in NYCLU's Teen Activist Project on the use of AI in their schooling, presented at the Joint Hearings of the Education and Technology Committees on June 26, 2026 with also their responses to questions from Chair Eric Dinowitz.

 

Yelani Joseph’s testimony 

Good afternoon, my name is Yelani Joseph, I’m sixteen years old, a sophomore from Brooklyn, New York, and an organizer with the NYCLU’s Teen Activist Project. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. 

When people talk about artificial intelligence in schools, I often hear one assumption: that students either fully support it or don’t care about its impact. But many of us do care — because we’re the ones experiencing these changes in real time. 

My concern is how quickly AI is being normalized in schools without enough accountability, transparency, or guidance on how it should support student learning. 

Recently, my friend and I were reviewing a reproductive health slideshow for class and came across a sentence full of scrambled words, errors and unclear information–our impression was that the teacher created classroom content with NotebookLM, an AI tool and we were shocked. Even though we were eventually able to make sense of it, we shouldn’t have had to spend time guessing what the curriculum was trying to say. Students deserve educational materials that are clear, accurate, and understandable — especially when learning about subjects as important and personal as our own health. 

And that experience reflects a larger issue — so much that it’s something I’ve also heard echoed when talking with my peers about AI in education. 

I had one of my peers recently tell me, “Although AI is helpful in some ways, students often use it to cheat instead of studying… and when exams come around, students can feel lost because they don’t have that sense of security they did before.” 

And another student, my friend, shared with me that her “My school is shutting down… and they’re opening up a school for an AI focused school in its place. I loved my school because everyone was able to get the attention they needed. And taking that away feels like a step in the wrong direction.” 

Even though the plan for an AI school was paused for now, what stood out to me wasn’t opposition to technology — it was a pattern: AI is being normalized faster than students are being taught how to engage with it responsibly. 

AI literacy has to mean something other than filling classrooms with AI products. It has to mean understanding how and when to question these products, and protect against the threat they pose to teaching and learning. Students are asking for accountability — clear standards that protect student learning and ensure human judgment stays at the center of education. 

Thank you.

 

Odin Adeler’s testimony 

Hello City Council, and thank you for spending time out of your busy day to listen to what I am here to say. 

My name is Odin Adeler, and I am a leader at the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Teen Activist Project. I am 18 years old, and have just graduated Urban Academy Laboratory High School this week. I am here to talk about my views on AI and tech products in schools. 

At my high school, we did a lot of writing. Before I went to Urban Academy, I did not feel so confident about my writing skills. We were also not allowed to use AI to write our papers at all. That was not a problem. Without AI, I could do something else. Ask my teachers for help, 

I now feel much more prepared for college. In college, which I will be starting this summer, I am sure there will be much to write. And it will be writing that I am sure I will be expected to come up with ideas for myself. Fortunately, I believe I can now put some of the many ideas I think about onto paper quite well, without AI. That also helped prepare for my high school’s frequent class discussions, where subject knowledge and critical thinking is essential. 

Knowing how to write well without AI also helps creatively. I am not sure I would have had as much fun or learned as much in my playwriting class, where I wrote up a play that got acted out to my school, if I just used AI. My classes felt much richer due to me and others avoiding using AI to replace thinking. 

I have heard that official guidance on artificial intelligence is being sent to schools. Part of the guidance encourages students to use AI for research, exploration, and creative projects–this is unwise. I am concerned that it will guide those in schools how to use software that is not useful in the classrooms. In schools, I believe not just the final typing up of a paper, but more, including gathering ideas, should all be done without AI. At schools, students should be taught to think for themselves. I am sure it is possible as people knew how to do so for a while before AI. That is why I am glad my high school is as restrictive of AI as it is, for both the writing students produce, and the creation of the material used to properly teach students to be critical thinkers. I support that kind of AI restrictive policy throughout the city.  

I am also concerned about risks to student data privacy. It is required by the government for minors to attend school. Students should not be effectively forced to sign away digital rights to big tech companies to fulfill that requirement. 

Instead of spending much taxpayer money on AI and data capturing products which are not what students need, the city should focus resources on actual human education. 

Thank you.

 

Ariana Ahmed Misha's testimony 

Hello Chair Dinowitz, Chair De La Rosa, and members and staff of the Committees on Education and Technology, 

I am Ariana Ahmed Misha. I am a rising junior at the Institute for Collaborative Education,, and a member of the Teen Activist Project at NYCLU.  

This spring, I helped plan a weekend student event,, with over one hundred students, to listen to their concerns about the new AI guidance.  There was a very specific session about AI policy, where the conversation among the students about AI was so deep, that the session had to go overtime. Even after the event, we students could not stop talking about how much we hate this new policy. 

Critical thinking is the whole purpose of education. All we are supposed to get at the end of everything is having the skill to critically think, Ai is something which prevents the students from critical thinking and does the work for them. Ai gets in the way of real learning. 

As students, we want real human teachers to teach us about the world. We want real human teachers to teach us effective human communication.  We want real human teachers to create assignments backed by human expertise, and we want real human teachers,, to provide us feedback,, on how to improve our work,, by reading  our hard worked assignments,, and get to know how we think,, and who we are as human students.  

However, for many students today, they instead have an AI teacher bot telling them how to work on improvements  and how to do assignments. The difference is clear. Not only is an AI bot biased against certain ways of thinking,, it is also highly perfectionist,, which makes the students discouraged about any work they do,, as it tells  them to fix any work  again and again and again until infinity. These AI products simply do not work.  

AI policy at the end of the day pushes us into being a fake and unrealistic world. We do not want a robotic policy, in this already robotic world, where real connection with people has been rare.  

For this reason, I, on behalf of hundreds of students who care, would like to request you,  to push the DOE to make our policy dependent on humans,, rather than AI,, because rearranging the system after AI would destroy it might be possible,, but the lives which would be destroyed in the process cannot ever be fixed. 

 

Selena Wu’s testimony 

Hello city council, thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is Selena Wu, and I am a rising senior from Francis Lewis High School and a member of the Teen Activist Project 

The field and market of AI is growing at a rapid rate, which is why it starts getting implemented everywhere. First handedly, I know how strong artificial intelligence can be. In fact, I’ve spent my past summers researching and building machine learning models at schools like  MIT and Princeton. This is why I would like to oppose the use of AI technology in the school system. My comments will focus on the use of GenAI products. 

Firstly, the highlights of learning are the interactions and jokes my teachers make when teaching. In my AP Lang class, we start off every day spending 10 minutes discussing different things, whether it is political, philosophical or controversial. These interactions not only creates a bond between the class and makes the classroom more lively, it also sharpens our critical thinking.  It actually makes me look forward to learning and attending class, which is something not many students experience.  Having to think about complicated topics and shaping them into concrete words are a skill needed for the AP Lang curriculum and AP test. Offloading tasks to AI jeopardizes these human relationships, and means me, my classmates, and my teachers understand one another less.   

Furthermore, when GenAI is used in school, it is often incorrect. Last year, I had an English teacher that graded our essays with AI. Not only did his AI incorrectly deduct points from us , it also accused multiple of my classmates of using AI themselves to write their essays. However, we wrote the essay in class on paper, with the prompt given to us the day of. There was no possible way for us to use AI, and we were unfairly getting points deducted despite following the rubric. Compared to my AP Lang class this year, there is a huge contrast between my learning and relationship with a teacher that uses AI compared to one that doesn’t.  

Secondly, I have seen that implementing AI and robots into the education system has made learning even more boring for some students. The rise of AI chat bots like ChatGPT and Claude have encouraged students to cheat, plagiarize and break numerous honor codes. But this issue is much more complicated than adults acknowledge. Rather than implementing AI into schools and allowing students to further rely on such technology, I think that there should be a focus on creating an engaging learning environment that addresses why students use such technology in the first place.  By encouraging curiosity and making learning more interesting, students may feel more confident, less afraid, and find less need for AI.   

In all ways, by bringing AI into schools, it can hinder students' education and growth.  

Thank you! 

Class size hearings tonight thru Thursday; please speak out if you want smaller classes for your kids

 

The state-mandated class size hearings are being held tonight Monday June 29 at 6 PM and run through Thursday via Zoom. Any parent, teacher or community member can attend one of these meetings to speak out about what the DOE's class size plan should include to make sure your school is able to be provided with smaller classes or can keep them, if you have them now. Though tonight's hearing is supposed to be for Manhattan, with Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn to follow (as Bronx was last week) , you can attend any of them to have your voice heard, no matter what borough you live in or where your child attends school.

Additional hearings will be held at CECs through the end of July. By August 14. the DOE is supposed to have revised their class size plan to take into account public input, and have sent it to the state for their consideration, along with a summary of public comments.

Last night we presented a briefing that is posted here.  We  spoke about the changes to the class size law and pointed out flaws in the DOE's draft proposed plan for the 2026-2027 school year, which despite assurances from Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels does not provide any actual roadmap for hundreds of NYC schools that enroll hundreds of thousands students to obtain smaller classes, next year or ever. We also discussed how many NYC schools that already have smaller classes that meet the mandated caps may see their compliance levels drop sharply next year.

Because of the lack of detail and specificity in the DOE's draft proposal, we believe it  does not align with the requirements of the class size law. During the course of the presentation and our discussion afterward, we provided parents and teachers with possible talking points if they do attend one of these briefings, and strategies they can adopt to advocate for smaller classes for their schools.

Additional C4e/class size hearings will be held at CECs through the end of July. Written comments on the city's draft proposal can also be submitted now through July 29 via ContractsForExcellence@schools.nyc.gov. if you do send in comments, please copy us at info@classsizematters.org as well as the other public officials mentioned in our presentation.

Here is a copy of the powerpoint presentation as well as the video of the briefing, including our discussion afterwards, though inadvertently some of the slides were  partly blocked in the video. But please attend one of these hearings this week, and speak out if you can. Thanks!

Class size briefing on Sunday, and report and testimony from yesterday's AI hearing

 

1.     Please sign up for our Zoom briefing this Sunday at 5 PM if you haven’t already, where we will summarize the changes in the class size law, point out the serious flaws in the DOE’s proposed class size plan for next year, and provide strategies that parents and teachers can use to better ensure that your kids as well as all NYC students get smaller classes as soon as possible – whether next year or in the years to come. We will also try to answer any questions you may have to the best of our ability.

2.     Yesterday, a joint hearing of the NYC Council Education and Technology committees was held. At the hearing, the Chancellor did not testify but many other DoE officials did, including First Deputy Chancellor Danielle Giunta. Unfortunately, neither she nor anyone else offered any timeline when the revised AI guidelines would be released, no date when the feedback survey results for those guidelines will be provided, no proposals as to how their privacy vetting would be improved despite the recent findings of the scathing Comptroller audit, and no assurances that AI tools used in schools will be analyzed for racial bias.

More on the highlights and lowlights of the hearing are described here, as well as my testimony outlining the shoddy, irresponsible privacy and AI policies of the DOE. Included in my testimony are a few comments from the thousands of signers of our AI moratorium petition, and an Appendix listing just some of the AI tools currently used in schools which the DOE has refused to provide. I also provide links to videos of the hearing, and suggestions on how the two AI reporting bills recently introduced by the Council could be strengthened.

If you have serious concerns related to student privacy and/or the use of AI in the classroom,  you can upload your thoughts in written form to this Council webpage up to 72 hours following the close of the hearing – which is Saturday, June 27, 2026 at about 6 PM. I suggest you also copy your thoughts to your Councilmember and your State Legislators, to ensure they are alerted to your concerns. If you would like to share your testimony publicly, please email it to us at info@studentprivacymatters.org.

In any case, please remember to sign up for Sunday’s class size briefing here. Thanks!

-Leonie