Last night at the PEP, we defeated another AI product, this time for Prek to 2nd graders

April 30, 2026

Last night was an eye-opening evening at the Panel for Educational Policy.  After gathering outside for a short rally led by the indomitable teacher-activist Martina Meijer,  we entered the school building to join other parents as the meeting began at 6 PM.

Though thankfully, the proposal for the AI high school was scrapped before the meeting,  because of parent pushback, along with several controversial plans to relocate, close and truncate a number of Manhattan schools, there were still plenty of parents eager to speak, as well as many students who were there to advocate for expanding the Lower Manhattan Community Middle School through 12^th grade,  now that space in their building will be available since the AI High school will not be taking up room in 26 Broadway.

Attendees also spoke out against the budget, the capital plan, and of course AI.  I urged the  the panelists to vote against the capital plan, which would provide less than half the space necessary than the School Construction Authority itself has admitted for the DOE to comply with the class size law.

The SCA itself testified last month that  they are in the process of revising the plan to make it better able to allow for smaller classes, so that any vote to approve it now was clearly premature.  Many others in the audience as well as the panelists themselves pointed out other critical deficiencies with the plan, as well as the general incompetence of the SCA, given the excessive costs and delays in their completion of projects, as well as their chronic lack of responsiveness to community input. 

Yet the capital plan passed easily anyway, as it has every year – showing yet again how inadequate Mayoral control is as a system in requiring real accountability from our governmental agencies.

However, the numerous comments of parents against the rush to install AI in our classrooms seemed to have an effect, particularly as one of the contracts on the agenda for an AI program called Age of Learning, designed for students in grades PreK to 2^nd grade, was voted down. 

 

This rejection was despite the fact that three different representatives of the company including its owner were there to speak  in its defense, though their presence seemed to annoy the panel members more than impress them.   

 

Several of the panel members themselves spoke against the expansion of AI, including the two student members and Manhattan parent member Naveed Hasan.  Debra Altman, the Staten Island parent member, said that the main problem in our schools was less AI than excessive screen time, and that the PEP should  pass a resolution similar to the one recently passed by the Los Angeles school board, that would limit computer use in schools and potentially allow parents to opt out.  That would be terrific.  

  

I want to thank all the parents and teachers who came out in support of a moratorium, and spoke so eloquently and clearly on the dangers that AI pose to their children. The video of the meeting is here; many of the comments are illuminating a.  I especially want to point out the dynamite speech of Rev. LaTicia Thompson of CEC 8 at 1:51, who  said   “Until we have system-wide STEAM programs,  AI is a ‘NO’. Until every child can have recess outside in a state-of-the-art yard, AI is a ‘NO’. And until we really leave no child left behind, AI is a ‘NO’.'

 

Please also remember to purchase a ticket to our dinner on May 19,  honoring Diane Ravitch, if you want us to be able to keep advocating on the need to lower class size, protect student privacy and/or keep AI out of our schools!

 

thanks Leonie  

 

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Comments on the Capital Plan:

 

My name is Leonie Haimson, and I’m the executive director of Class Size Matters. 

I urge you to vote no on the capital plan, which according to SCA officials funds fewer than half the seats necessary to provide enough space to allow schools to comply with the class size law.  The SCA also testified to the City Council last month that the current plan is now being revised to better align with the law, and although I do not know if this is true, it does show that any vote now to approve it is premature.  

Moreover, of those new school seats that are funded, more than half have no sites, and nearly 40% are unspecified as to district or grade level.  This lack of transparency violates not just the class size law, but also Local Law 167, passed by the City Council in 2018. 

Approving such an inherently flawed capital plan also flies in the face of a resolution passed by the PEP School Utilization Committee on March 18, over a month ago, which calls on the DOE to produce a real class size reduction plan, that would describe where the 495 schools will receive additional space that DOE says are too overcrowded at their current enrollment to lower class size to mandated levels and to amend the capital plan accordingly. 

These 495 schools enroll nearly half of all non-D 75 students.  Yet the DOE has blocked this resolution from coming to a vote of the full PEP.  One has to doubt their commitment to lowering class size to the levels that all kids need and deserve, and are their right under the law. 

Thank you for your time.

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Comments on the Contracts:

 

My name is Leonie Haimson,  and I am also the co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student privacy, a member of the Chancellor’s Privacy Working group, and a member of the AI Working Group.  Even though we were promised to have input on the AI guidance several times, we were denied that opportunity, and the guidance is deeply flawed.

 

I along with many other parents continue to have serious concerns about the expansion of AI in our schools.  Many AI products have been pushed on schools in the last few weeks, including Google Gemini, which prompts kids to ask for its help with writing or drawing pictures when they log into their Chromebooks.  Teachers are receiving emails from the vendors using their DOE email addresses, promoting their AI products.

 

Moreover, tonight a contract for the Age of Learning is to be voted on, described as providing a “personalized learning” journey for kids in grades PreK to 2nd grade,  to teach them math and ELA with videos, games etc..  While it claims that “this contract contains no AI products; an optional feature includes the ability to use AI to generate recommendations based on de-identified student assessments.”  I don’t know how a product can make personalized recommendations to students without the vendor knowing their identity.  And kids that young shouldn’t be on devices at all. 

 

Parent leaders, elected officials, advocates & members of Chancellor’s Data Privacy Working Group urge Chancellor Ramos to postpone vote on student privacy regulation and allow parents the right of consent

The letter with full list of signers is posted here.

For immediate release: May 27, 2025

For more information:Leonie Haimson, info@studentprivacymatters.org; 917-435-9329 

Rosa Diaz, Rdiaz.cec4@gmail.com; 347-885-1687 

Shannon Edwards, shannon@aiforfamilies.com; 347-719-2161 

Kaye Dyja, kdyja@nyclu.org; 212-203-3532

   Parent leaders, elected officials, advocates & members of Chancellor’s Data Privacy Working Group urge Chancellor Ramos to postpone vote on student privacy regulation and allow parents the right of consent

On Wednesday May 28, 2025, the Panel for Educational Policy is scheduled to vote on the revisions to Chancellor’s regulation A-820, which would significantly weaken student privacy protections.  It would allow  the Department of Education to share a wide range of sensitive student data with third parties as long as they believe it would benefit the student or the school system.  Members of the Chancellor’s Data Privacy Working Group, NYC Council Members, and Community Education Council leaders, as well as several advocacy organizations including  the  NY Civil Liberties Union, the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, Dignity in Schools Coalition, and the Alliance for Quality Education, have signed onto a letter to the Chancellor Ramos, urging her to delay this vote because of the risk to student safety and privacy if these regulations are approved.

 The data that could be shared by Department of Education officials with any third party they please, as long as they  considered it beneficial to the student or the system as a whole, would include a student’s name, email address, home address, phone number, and photo, as well as their parents’ contact information and a wide range of additional personal information.

Because of the concerns expressed by parents and advocates last October, including over 3,000 emails sent to the Chancellor and members of the PEP, the initial vote on these revisions was postponed and a Data Privacy Working Group (DPWG) was appointed by the Chancellor.  While  some significant improvements have been made as a result of the Group’s  discussions, the proposed regulations remain too risky, allowing the disclosure of highly sensitive student data with only an unreliable parent opt out method to prevent this. 

Rosa Diaz, the chair of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council and a member of the DPWG said, “Parents deserve the right to control the dispersal of their children’s sensitive personal information, especially when it’s being transmitted to companies or individuals not performing any services to our schools.  We are especially concerned about how this information might be used to threaten the safety of our most vulnerable immigrant children, at a time when their privacy is being  assaulted and data misused by the Trump administration.”

Nequan McLean, another member of the Chancellor’s DPWG, and President of Community Education Council 16 and the Education Council Consortium said, “If approved, this regulation would open up all sorts of unacceptable harms to public school families, including potentially allowing charter schools to aggressively recruit students directly and  cherry picking the most academically successful ones by making their academic honors publicly available.  Already, parents are bombarded with charter school mailings and phone calls, even  after they have opted out of such mailings.  This harassment could worsen if the proposed amendment to the Chancellor’s regulation A-820 is adopted.”

Shannon Edwards, founder of the organization  AI for Families and a member of both the Chancellor’s DPWG and the  NY State Education  Data Privacy Committee, pointed out, “Too many children are already preyed upon by social media companies and are vulnerable to deep-fake porn and harassment, undermining their mental health.  Sharing their personal email and photographs without strict controls could merely exacerbate this dangerous trend.  We need far more rigorous oversight and regulation preventing the release of this information, rather than loosening the restrictions, as these revisions to the regulation would allow.”

“Parents may not realize that the DOE is handing over their child’s sensitive information to an unknown number of agencies and private companies. This could include a student’s address, photos, and more; in fact, there are only a few exceptions to what can be shared. We believe that caregivers should have the right to give or withhold consent for their child’s information to be shared. It’s reasonable for schools to have the ability to share some basic information for the purposes of events and communication, but for the DOE as a whole to be able to share almost any information without consent is overreach that disenfranchises students and families. We have seen that our new Chancellor is genuinely responsive to the concerns of families, so we are hopeful that she will consider pausing the vote and revisiting the regulations to allow for more parent agency,” said Kaiser, organizer with the Alliance for Quality Education.

“Given the excessive number of data breaches, the potential of identity theft, and troubling examples of student data already used for targeted advertising and commercial exploitation, as well as the enhanced risk of deportation for our most vulnerable immigrant students, the DOE’s student privacy regulations need strengthening rather than weakening at this time,” said Leonie Haimson, a member of the DPWG and co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.  “We urge the Chancellor not to push through these regulations without more careful consideration of their potential damage to student safety, and to require parent consent rather than opt out for these disclosures.”

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