Artificial Intelligence, Student Data, and Privacy in NYC Public Schools
Committee on Education | Committee on Technology · June 24, 2026 · 5hrs 9m
Source: https://hearinghearings.nyc/hearings/committee-on-education-artificial-intelligence-student-data-and-privacy-in-nyc-public-schools-2026-06-24/
Video: https://councilnyc.viebit.com/vod/?s=true&v=NYCC-PV-CH-CHA_260624-130421.mp4

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Good afternoon. Welcome to today's New York City Council hearing for the Committee on Education joined with the Committee on Technology. Please silence all cell phones and electronic devices. As a friendly reminder, do not approach the dais. If you wish to testify today, please fill out an appearance card with the Sergeant at Arms.

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No further business with the chairs.

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We are ready to begin. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I am CM Eric Dinowitz, New York City public school alum — although with a different signature on my diploma — public school special education teacher and Chair of the Committee on Education. I am excited to be joined by my friend from the south, Chair of the Committee on Technology, CM De La Rosa, for today's hearing on artificial intelligence, student data and privacy in New York City Public Schools.

Today's hearing will examine the landscape of AI use in New York City Public Schools, particularly as it relates to academic integrity and student data and privacy. The rapid proliferation of AI has sparked intense citywide debate about the role and use of AI in schools. NYC Public Schools issued preliminary guidelines for AI in public schools, but the guidance has faced strong opposition from parents and advocacy groups alike. Many Council members, including myself, and numerous community education councils have gone as far as calling for a two-year moratorium on the use of student-facing AI in schools. They point to ongoing worries about data privacy breaches, lack of transparency and, very troublingly for me as a former teacher, cognitive offloading and algorithmic bias.

Others, however, argue that the question of allowing AI in schools is no longer relevant. National survey data show that students are already engaged in AI-related activities. Instead, they argue the question should be: how do we harness it safely, equitably and effectively for our students? Underlying this debate is the issue of data collection by third-party vendors. NYC Public Schools' policy aligns with national standards, but a 2026 audit by the State Comptroller found that NYC Public Schools does not have a documented data classification policy and does not maintain a comprehensive list of all applications used by each school. With a number of high-profile data breaches, including the PowerSchool breach that exposed personally identifiable information for tens of millions of students and educators nationwide, questions remain around what information is being collected about students and who has access to this information.

Now, as someone who does not even believe calculators should be used in elementary school classrooms, I look forward to hearing today about how NYC Public Schools is planning to protect student data, their plans for updated guidelines on AI and how NYC Public Schools plans to ensure academic integrity and rigor in light of AI. I would now like to turn it to Chair De La Rosa for opening remarks. Thank you so much.

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Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our hearing. I am CM Carmen De La Rosa and I am the Chair of the Committee on Technology. I am happy to join my neighbor to the north, Chair Eric Dinowitz, to discuss an issue that I care about deeply, not only as chair of this committee but also as a public school parent who is concerned about the future we are building for the next generation. Technology has become an unavoidable part of our lives, with artificial intelligence changing the way we work, learn and make decisions. This is why we have an obligation to ensure that innovation serves people and that technological progress is guided by accountability, transparency, safety and public interest.

Artificial intelligence tools are used by the Department of Education in its daily operations as well as in classrooms. The use of AI in education has raised concerns that it affects students' critical thinking and compromises the traditional learning process. Another concern that people have is related to digital privacy, safety and inequality. Some AI tools use personal data as training data. That data could include students' information such as names, dates of birth, behavioral analytics, medical history, family income, ethnicity and even facial geometry. Without proper safeguards, this data could be used to profile students, predict or surveil their behavior or make assumptions about their abilities and future opportunities.

This information can also be breached. In fact, based on a recent New York State Comptroller report, between January 2023 and February 2025, NYC Public Schools experienced 141 data breach incidents. Based on our conversations and public reporting, some tools used by NYC Public Schools may collect data without parents' knowledge or consent. While AI offers potential benefits in education, its ethical use must be carefully considered. Many tools have bias and as a result discriminate against certain students or communities.

From the Technology Committee's perspective, safeguards against bias in AI algorithms and protecting student privacy are fundamental issues that must be addressed. Today we wish to discuss both how AI should fit into the curriculum and how the Department of Education uses it in its operations. We need to make sure that AI supports students and teachers rather than undermining the quality of education. We must ensure that we are preparing the next generation to thrive in this technological era while also protecting their rights and future opportunities.

I also joined my colleagues in signing on to a letter from our school communities, and we have heard from our communities calling for a two-year moratorium. We look forward to hearing testimonies from the Department of Education and others to gain insight and clarity around the many questions about AI in the classroom and the use of AI in the education system. We also look forward to hearing from members of the public, students, families, educators and advocates. Unfortunately, neither the Chief Privacy Officer nor representatives of the newly established Office of AI Accountability are here today. However, we look forward to receiving their testimony, which we have received and responses in writing, as the school year is ending. I also wish to congratulate every student and teacher on completing another academic year.

Now I would like to thank Technology Committee staff, Legislative Counsel Irene Wolski — I am learning, I am going to get it right, I promise — and Policy Analyst Eric Brown for putting together this hearing. I would also like to recognize members of the Council who are here from the Technology Committee: CM Hanif and CM Gutiérrez, and we have CM Zhuang and CM Wong here as well. Thank you for being here. Am I missing anybody? Okay. Now we will turn it back to the Chair. Thank you.

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Thank you. Additionally, today the Committee will also consider the following legislation: two bills sponsored by CM Susan Zhuang. These include Int 0684-2026, in relation to requiring a study on how language access needs and geographic location affect access to early elementary gifted and talented programs, and Int 0853-2026, in relation to requiring a study on how language access needs, income and geographic location affect access to special education programs and services. I would like to invite CM Zhuang to make opening remarks about these bills. Thank you, Chair.

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I am here today to ask for your support for my Education Access for All package, Int 0684-2026 and Int 0853-2026. I am proud to put forward this pair of bills that together would go a long way towards expanding education access for all students. Every child deserves an education that meets them where they are and helps them grow. Yet like everything else in this City, children in outer boroughs have less access to specialized programs than others. Children from lower-income families have less access and children for whom English is a second language have less access too. I believe that all students deserve access that is not limited due to where they live, what their parents' income is or the language they speak at home.

Both of these bills ask NYC Public Schools to do a study on how language access needs, income and geographic location affect access to education. Int 0684-2026 focuses on access to gifted and talented programs while Int 0853-2026 is about access to special education programs. Gaps in access affect both types of specialized programs. For example, it is sadly well known that not enough Black and Brown students are in specialized high schools. But how can brilliant Black and Brown students have the same chance to get in when their elementary and junior high schools do not have gifted and talented programs that other students have? We are denying Black and Brown students opportunities and that must end. We should not be thinking about eliminating those programs. We should be extending them so every child who can benefit from them can get into one. We need to create more opportunity, not less opportunity.

As another example, it is also sadly well known that some children in outer boroughs need to travel long bus rides to get to the school that offers the special education they need. It is an extremely heavy burden for both students and their families, especially in bad weather. I still remember parents calling my office on a snow day when school is open. The kids have to travel more than two hours to get to school and then spend one to two hours there before the school has to end early and they travel another two hours to get home. Parents whose first language is not English also struggle to learn about opportunities available to their children and how to get their children into those programs. These are only a few examples. We ask you to join us in supporting both of these bills and addressing those issues and the other gaps.

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I also want to thank all of you who have already cosponsored, and those who came to testify and rally with me today. Thank you. Thank you, CM Zhuang.

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Good afternoon, members of the Committees on Education and Technology. My name is Danielle Gente. I am the First Deputy Chancellor of New York City Public Schools, serving under Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. Prior to this role I was a teacher, network leader, superintendent and most recently Chief of School Leadership Development, but my favorite role in New York City Public Schools was as a student. I am a graduate of New York City Public Schools. I now oversee superintendents and key offices, including academics and instruction, district planning, enrollment, new school development and design, policy and evaluation and student pathways.

I am also joined today by Supervising Superintendents Dr. Alan Chang and Dr. Maribel Holla, who work directly with our superintendents and their school communities across the City. Because AI spans multiple divisions and areas of expertise, I am also joined by colleagues from data privacy, the Division of Instructional and Information Technology, early childhood education and the Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning, underscoring our commitment to a coordinated and responsible approach to this work.

Over the past few months, the Chancellor and I have been speaking regularly to our communities about artificial intelligence and screen time in classrooms. Those conversations have made clear that families, educators and students are thoughtfully considering how these developments are shaping teaching and learning for our students. I appreciate the opportunity to engage with you about artificial intelligence, student data, privacy and the role of technology in our schools. We know this conversation is urgent. We recognize the rapid evolution of AI requires careful judgment, clear safeguards and meaningful dialogue with the communities we serve. Families, advocates, labor partners, school communities and members of this Council have pushed us to think more deeply about the role of AI and screen-based technology in our schools. We are grateful for the

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Engagement, including the letter sent to the Mayor and Chancellor by 29 members of this Council. The concerns raised by the Council members and school communities have helped shape our approach and reinforce the need for clear guardrails, transparency and ongoing engagement.

When Chancellor Samuels assumed his role, NYC Public Schools was completing guidance that had been initiated under the prior administration. On March 25, NYC Public Schools published that guidance, launching an AI landing page on our website, a 45-day feedback window, and began collecting input from educators, families, students and community members across the City. This process was designed to be iterative from the start, reflecting our commitment to establish initial guardrails while continuing to listen, learn and work with the stakeholders most affected by these decisions.

The guidance laid an important foundation for our protections. This guidance requires tools that use student data to go through NYC Public Schools' privacy and security review process, prohibits student data from being used to train models, requires human review of outputs and makes clear that AI cannot replace educator judgment or qualified human decision making in high-stakes decisions about students. It also makes clear that any student use of AI requires guidance, critical evaluation of outputs and age-appropriate context.

During the 45 days, which ended on May 8, we received 6,491 survey responses from educators, families, students and community members across our City. We also gathered feedback through engagement with students, families, parent leaders, community and citywide education councils as well as the Chancellor's advisory councils, the panel for education and other stakeholders.

There were many key takeaways from the feedback. Many respondents said they clearly or mostly understood the framework. We heard recognition that AI and technology have benefits when used thoughtfully and with appropriate safeguards. Students in particular reflected both interest in AI literacy and concern about over-reliance. Educators and staff also drew an important distinction between teacher-facing uses and student-facing uses. But the feedback also made clear that our next set of policies must be stronger, practical and developmentally specific.

The top concerns that were surfaced were the impact of AI on children's cognitive development, mental health and social-emotional well-being, and data privacy and security. Families and educators shared that they want stronger guardrails, clearer expectations and greater transparency. Families and educators have also raised questions about screen-based technology more broadly, how technology is being used and whether it is supporting active, meaningful engagement.

From this feedback, we understand that our current guidance does need to be strengthened to better protect students and respond to community input. While we are still shaping our next set of policies, let me speak to the values of what is driving what comes next.

First, we need to center developmental appropriateness across all grades. Students need opportunities to read, write, problem-solve, discuss ideas and work through challenging tasks with teachers and peers. We are mindful of cognitive offloading, when technology does the work that students need to do for themselves. AI should not short-circuit those learning experiences or allow students to bypass the work that learning requires.

We also recognize that the developmental and instructional needs of students vary greatly from pre-K through high school, and our policy should reflect those distinctions. As we build on the guidance, we are looking carefully at how expectations should differ by age and grade level, how to prevent unstructured technology use and how to prepare older students for a world in which AI is already present without allowing AI to replace their own thinking.

Second, we are focused on distinguishing between different kinds of tools and uses. Not all technology use is the same. The clearest risk is unstructured student-facing AI that allows students to bypass the thinking, writing, reasoning and problem-solving. A carefully reviewed tool designed for a specific instructional purpose, used under educator supervision with clear limits and a clear role for the teacher, is also different from assistive technology or software like text-to-speech required by a student's IEP or 504 plan, language access support for a multilingual learner or a teacher-facing planning tool. Those uses raise different legal, instructional and equity considerations, ones that we are factoring into our next set of policies.

Third, and probably most important, the safety of our students is essential. Privacy, security and instructional review must all work together as we evaluate technological tools. NYC Public Schools has an existing privacy and security review process through the Request Management Application, or IRMA. Software that has not been reviewed through IRMA is not approved for use with students or staff data. In December 2024, NYC Public Schools added specific standards requiring vendors to disclose AI capabilities, prohibiting the use of student data to train AI models and setting transparency requirements. This review is essential, but families and educators are also asking broader questions about instructional purpose, accessibility, bias and how tools affect the student experience.

As we enter the next phase of our work, we are working to establish a more comprehensive framework, one that responds to the ongoing evolution of this rapidly changing technology and factors in student protections, instructional quality and more. Finally, community voice must be part of NYC Public Schools' technology governance structure. Families want more transparency. Educators need clearer guidance. Students need a voice in decisions about tools shaping their learning. We are committed to engaging with each of these groups and others to ensure our approach to technology reflects their continued input.

In summary, our guidance established the foundation. The feedback we have received since then, from our surveys, from parent groups and from our students, has made clear that we need to build more detail and specificity on that foundation. Any technology use must be developmentally appropriate, carefully reviewed, transparent to families and in service of learning, not a substitute for it. We are finalizing a stronger approach for the school year ahead so that educators and school communities will have clarity before the new year begins, and we will continue engagement around our updated guidance.

I would like to now turn to the proposed legislation. Preconsidered T2026-2129 requires NYC Public Schools to report on algorithmic tools approved for use in schools. We support the goal of the proposed legislation. Pursuant to Local Law 35, NYC Public Schools annually reports information on algorithmic tools in use at schools. We look forward to working with the Council and the New York City Office of Technology and Innovation to ensure that any new reporting requirements align with existing legislation and our reporting systems.

Preconsidered T2026-2130 relates to quarterly reporting on data breaches involving algorithmic tools in schools. Protecting student and staff data is of the utmost importance and is required by law. We take any data breach seriously and follow all

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required procedures in the event of an incident. We support the overall goals of the proposed legislation. With that said, NYC Public Schools already maintains policies regarding privacy audits of third-party tools that process student data, including AI tools. These policies are publicly available on our website. The links are in the testimony and on the website. I would draw your attention to ourschools.nyc.gov/AI. We also have a data privacy and security compliance process as the place to search for them.

Moreover, NYC Public Schools reports all data breaches to the State in accordance with New York State Education Law. We also share information about recent data security incidents on our website, which you can find at the forward slash data security incidents page. We welcome continued dialogue with the Council regarding the proposed legislation.

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For Int 0412-2026, this requires NYC Public Schools to disclose information regarding school admissions policies and procedures. We support the underlying intent of the proposed legislation to ensure that school admissions processes are accessible, transparent and well understood by our families and the public. As written, we believe the Bill references information that is already publicly available, including each school's MySchools directory page, which conveys priority structures, selection criteria and prior application and offer rates by priority group.

The same directory data is also published in spreadsheet form on the NYC Public Schools InfoHub for multiple years. Comprehensive admissions process guides on the NYC Public Schools website explain evaluation methods, including auditions and other assessments, and reporting required under Local Law 70 provides detailed admissions outcomes for each school. We welcome the opportunity to work with the Council to explore how this existing information can be further clarified and made more accessible for our families.

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Thank you, and I welcome the conversation ahead. Thank you. I want to start with student-facing AI. I think it is one of the things that troubles me the most, as a parent and a teacher. Is there a specific age that has been determined at which students should not be using things like large language models, and an age where it is appropriate to begin such use in the classroom or outside the classroom? Thank you.

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Right now we do not have a developmental framework for age-based restrictions. We have some clearer screen time policies in place in our early childhood programs. I would like to invite Dr. ... to speak

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a little bit more to the specifics. And while she is coming up, I would like to acknowledge the Council members. We have been joined by CM Maloney and CM Joseph.

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Our first deputy chancellor said we do not currently have a policy, but we are learning from insights across the nation. We do know that we are paying very close attention to what it means to engage in developmentally appropriate use of technology, inclusive of screen time.

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Thank you. Just to add, specifically in the early childhood grades, we do have a limit of 30 minutes per week and 15 minutes per day. However, this is not used for students to be on it alone. That is not the intent. The intent is more for a policy with exceptions for things like assistive technology.

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And what age is that for?

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That would be for any early childhood grade.

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So ages 2, 3, 4?

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So there is no policy for kindergarten through fifth grade? No, that is the consistent policy.

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There is no policy. Okay. There are seven tools that, according to Local Law 35, you utilize AI, although it seems that there are many more according to the vendor website. I am going to ask about that later. But the simple fact is that you have approved the use of tools. So you have approved vendors with tools for schools to purchase whatever tools are available, and of course the large language models come pre-installed on the devices that we give our kids. Gemini and Claude and ChatGPT. What evidence has the department looked at to determine that these tools that you have approved as vendors are beneficial to our students and their cognitive development?

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So when we are talking about ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, we have not opened these up for student-facing use except under some very specific circumstances. Alan, would you like to jump

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in, and perhaps Scott? This is a great opportunity to clarify that. Just make sure you state your name for the record before you speak.

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Scott Strickland. I am the deputy in the Division of Instructional Information Technology at NYC Public Schools. In relation to technology that has been approved for schools, we do have Microsoft products and Google products that have been longstanding approved. As Copilot and Gemini came out, we evaluated them under our new standards and also approved them again for staff use. I want to be very clear on that. For students, there is only the Gemini system within Google that we open up to high schools if a principal requests it. There are about 35 high schools that have requested that this spring.

There are a number of tools... I am looking at this one right here, which says there are a number of tools on your approved list. Canvas is one of them. There is another one, Observer AI. There must be hundreds of vendors that use these tools. And when you say "open up to students," are you telling me that if you give a fifth grader a Chromebook, they do not go on the schools' subscription for Canvas and use those tools?

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To be clear on the devices: a Chromebook is an end-user device. It comes with the Chrome browser. When the student logs into the network, we filter a lot of websites so that they do not have access to them. In those cases, that is how we control access to something like ChatGPT. I do not know if Canvas is open to students. That is really just a piece of software that our teachers use extensively. There are a number of vendors on your website that are approved vendors that have AI tools that are available for schools to buy, but I just want to make sure you understand.

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I understand your testimony that schools buy these products, the subscriptions with AI tools, but students do not or are unable to use these specific components. That is correct.

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Okay. I have a number of teachers and principals who would disagree with you. I would also add: I am not sure if you are aware of VPNs. Have you heard of this? Absolutely. Are you aware that they are used in schools? In some cases, yes. But students are supposed to log into the network and use the network for their work, right? Okay.

I think the challenge we are facing already is that you have approved vendors that have AI tools, and we have had reports from teachers that these are being used in class, with students using ChatGPT or Gemini in the classroom, and they are somehow getting around your filters. But let us pretend for a second that no student is able to access these student-facing AI tools. You have still approved vendors that have AI tools, including, according to your testimony, Google Gemini. Correct. And what empirical evidence or peer-reviewed journals has the department looked at to determine that this is for the betterment of our students' education and their cognitive

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development? I will turn to the panel. Okay. Thank you.

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The red light means go, so make sure the red light is on. Appreciate that.

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Good afternoon, Council. My name is Dr. Alan Chang. I am the supervising superintendent for high schools and District 79.

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Where I want to start is: as both the committee chairs and CM De La Rosa are deeply, deeply committed to our public schools as places of learning, we know that oftentimes in public discourse, uses of AI tools, particularly unstructured large language models like Claude and ChatGPT, have a way of short-circuiting that thinking. By design, we have limited and prohibited that.

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Your question is around the research that is behind this.

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My question is that you are approving these tools, and I do want to read one to you from Local Law 35. What it says conflicts with the testimony that was just given, and the question is why we are approving tools when there does not seem to be any empirical evidence to demonstrate their efficacy in student learning.

So this is the Jen AI teaching assistant tool, and it says the tool purpose: the tool is used to generate responses to prompts entered by a student or a teacher requesting the generative tool to compose a text response to a text input. So I just wanted to read that to you because that is correct — that Jen AI tool has been deployed to a very limited number of schools, and any student that interacts with that tool has gotten parental consent. Mostly in District 28 is where that has been deployed.

I am sorry, we have to — I am sorry for everyone in the audience, we have to listen. And if you have something to say, you can... This means yes and this means no, but a verbal sentence or two cannot continue. Okay?

I am Susan. Just one school district — you are using this tool in District 28. That is the one where it has been piloted and is most heavily used by a small number of teachers and a small number of students.

And with what guardrails or assurances in place? Is this not part of the cognitive offloading that so many of us are concerned about? I will make some general statements around that. My general question is just this: I want to make sure I understand. My question is that our kids — it seems like even if it were just this one school that we are using this generative AI text — our children are being guinea pigs.

And it just seems to me that I am not hearing any studies or data that the DOE has done, or that a third party has done, or peer reviewed journals, to demonstrate that these are tools that are beneficial to our students. It seems to me that vendors have been approved and vendors are telling you that these are beneficial tools, and I am still not getting an answer to my question, which is what...

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Evidence is there that these tools are beneficial to our students?

So, Chair, I would love to be able to respond to that question.

In our review of the evidence there are multiple meta-analyses, randomized controlled trials and scientific articles that state that when these tools are being used with educators — that are intelligent tutoring systems, that are structured systems — what they are able to offer is really an ability to provide careful supports around instructional design, feedback and adaptability. I want to be able to cite one such article that is in the Journal of Science of Learning, that had 28 studies and was published in 2025. There is another research article that is a peer reviewed randomized controlled trial. Each of these pulled together many, many hundreds of studies and analyzed this research, and this research ultimately tells us one thing: that it is really important that...

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Students are not having unfiltered, uncontrolled and unsupervised use. But when it is being used together with teachers, under guidance and support, that challenges and asks students to be able to show their thinking and learning, that learning is helpful and does persist.

Well, that is true of any educational tool — show your learning, right? And any educational tool requires teacher guidance. That is the purpose of a teacher, right?

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Otherwise, why the hell do I need a master's degree in teaching, right? And is it your understanding that that is actually happening in schools — that teachers are guiding the use of AI?

And for what purpose? What is the educational benefit?

Well, I think that there are so many different versions of how it might be used, the most important of which is exactly what Dr. Chang talked about with adaptive supports. We know we have some tutoring programs and online programs that are adaptive, whether we are using them more in supplemental and intervention spaces. I also want to go back to the conversation about ChatGPT.

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We have these policies in our schools, and it actually is — we felt it was very prudent to put out this guidance with guardrails, to be very clear about the IRMA process, what should and should not be student-facing, what can and should not be teacher-facing. And now, as you know, I have spent the vast majority of my career focused on implementation, and so that is where we are now. How is this landing in schools? How is the guidance and our policies actually coming to life?

So when we hear these examples about the misuse against our policies, we want to engage with our superintendents and principals to understand where the misunderstanding in the policy is. We should not be having this particular ChatGPT example freely available for children to be using in classrooms. We should make sure that Google Gemini is understood to be in the 35 schools, and if it is far exceeding that, those are great examples that should be escalated to us for further explanation. That is part of our implementation process.

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The challenge is that I hear all the time about escalating issues, and I will tell you, when it is almost 1,600 schools escalating these issues to me, I have had multiple principals tell me — and this was an actual phrase — that they feel like they are flying the plane as they are building it. That was an actual phrase multiple principals have said.

I want to share a reality with you that I experienced in high school about credit recovery. All of the principals are really incentivized to make sure kids graduate at any expense, and so what they would often do is what is called credit recovery. Does this sound familiar? Credit recovery. They are plopping kids in front of a computer — I think in one of the schools it was called Atlas — and they would sit for 45 minutes doing online test stuff. That was bad enough: no teacher interaction, with 30 kids in a credit recovery class.

And now I would add — we would not even get to the biases, the hallucinations of generative AI. We do not have the guardrails right now to ensure that our yearning to make sure kids get these credits does not conflict with what good education looks like. This is frightening to so many of the students and families and, honestly, a lot of principals who just do not feel like they have the guidance yet. And yet these approved vendor tools are still permeating their schools.

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I will ask you more questions and then I will turn it over to my co-chair, my neighbor from the south. Close — you do not know, my district is here and her district is right to the south of mine. A little geography lesson for all of you.

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What is the DOE's position on AI detection tools, given documented false positive rates that disproportionately flag multilingual learners and students with disabilities?

Can you repeat your question?

Does the DOE have a position on AI detection tools, given...

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Documented false positive rates that disproportionately flag multilingual learners and students with disabilities? Or does the DOE have an approved detection tool or policy regarding detection tools?

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AI detection tools — Scott Wood, thank you. You can just stay, Scott, just stay. You should pull up 13 more chairs, you know. Fair enough.

We do not have any detection tools that I would be aware of that we have that...

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Are detecting if a child uses AI to write questions, answer questions or write papers.

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I think I am getting tripped up on your question around students with disabilities and multilingual...

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Learners. Well, the detection tools creating false positives — particularly students with disabilities or multilingual learners being flagged disproportionately as using AI, with false positives meaning accusing a student with disabilities or a multilingual learner of using AI when it has not been detected properly.

But it sounds like the DOE, according to your testimony, does not utilize detection software or have any AI detection software vendors approved. Correct. But you do have plagiarism detection tools — those have been around for many years, where students upload their papers and it detects for plagiarism. Correct? Yes, I am aware of plagiarism detection tools.

Okay. So you do not have any such detectors approved for use in disciplinary or academic integrity hearings?

(00:48:20)

Even before AI, we have very high standards for academic integrity. We are not using a detection tool, but we want to make sure that our teachers are very closely connected to their students and that they understand whether this is their product or not their product, and how to make sure that students are responding in a way that is theirs and not someone else's. But in...

(00:48:46)

Other words — I am sorry to interrupt, but it just sounds to me like you are talking as if it is 2015. You are talking in terms of good teaching, but we are in a completely different world with the advent of AI. Tomorrow it is going to be completely different, and in two months it is going to be astoundingly different.

So I just want to ask one more question before I turn it over to my co-chair. You spoke about teacher intervention, teachers looking at the work and knowing their students. What training does the DOE provide? How are you actually measuring whether teachers are trained in the use of these tools that they are then being asked to use with students, or in the detection of any AI-generated content that their students are turning in?

(00:49:40)

I will invite Dr. Pete and or Karen in, but what I would say is some of the programs that we rely on most are connected to our Tier 1 curriculum or supplements to it, and so the training for all aspects of the program is part of the New York City Reads and New York City Solves professional learning plan. There is centrally designed professional learning, there is a district level, and then there is school-based. So if a principal, a superintendent or the central office is recommending a program that would be good as a supplement or an intervention program, it is going to come with training, as do all the aspects of that program.

So, for example, one of the programs that we know and have gotten a lot of questions about and feedback on is within... We also know lots of our schools adopted Amira for some supports in literacy and in math, just as some examples. Nobody would be asking teachers to engage in those programs without training. That is also true of our non-computer-based assessments. So when it is part of the instructional strategy, whether Tier 1, intervention or supplemental, that is all part of the professional learning package that is coming into schools.

(00:51:09)

HMH includes required training for the use of AI in the...

(00:51:15)

Classroom. No, it is not required, but there are some aspects of the program that different schools or districts are leaning into. But you are asking individual schools to choose and figure out whether to provide this to teachers?

(00:51:37)

No, but any program that a principal, a superintendent or the central office brings in would come along with professional learning related to generative AI...

(00:51:48)

If that is part of the instructional strategy. What is the question behind...

(00:51:55)

Your question? I am just going to say — your testimony seems to be a lot about what teachers are doing in the classroom, what schools are doing, and I am just a little confused. HMH is not in the classroom, is not student-facing, but also has student-facing AI, and they get training for these tools? I am just hearing a couple of different things and I am just trying to get clarity on it.

(00:52:16)

If I could chime in just for a moment...

(00:52:19)

That is great. Initials like that — that is great.

(00:52:26)

Thank you for the question. We want to recognize very publicly that AI is new, and in the largest school system in the country we are taking it all in and we are navigating this evolving landscape.

To answer your question more targeted and more specifically: we have created centrally based guidance and training for staff, and to date we have more than 8,300 staff members who have engaged and completed this course. One of the positive things about this particular course on our system that we learned is that as new information develops and evolves, we get to go in and update that system and that training, and it actually pings educators to tap into the course again when a new module has been developed to further educate them.

I would acknowledge that there are more opportunities that need to be taken advantage of, which is why we are partnering extremely closely with our labor partners who are doing cutting-edge, teacher-facing professional development that is deeply building their capacity around appropriate pedagogical uses of AI in the classroom.

So from my standpoint as Chief Academic Officer, we are engaging in a rapidly evolving, wrap-around capacity-building approach to what it means to educate teachers on appropriate use of AI in the classroom. We are also starting to deeply look at what AI literacy should look like for students as they navigate what it means to be career-ready, technology-facing and able to utilize that technology.

(00:54:24)

Day to day in the work that they do. Is it perfect? It is not. But are we aggressively acknowledging that we need to continue to develop and to do that work? We are.

The tools — I mean, you said we are taking it all in, that it is rapidly evolving. That is true. But while we are taking it all in, we are putting it out into the classroom without all of the training in place and without a digital literacy or AI literacy curriculum, and without any sort of validated tools to know whether our students are ready before throwing the tools at them. I am going to...

(00:54:57)

Turn it over to my co-chair, and also acknowledge that we have been joined by Council Member Avilés as well.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for that line of questioning. I think that what Chair Dinowitz was just mentioning and the responses is why we see that the parent community has come together across the City to ask for a moratorium — not necessarily because there are no benefits, but also because there are huge gaps in our understanding of how the technology is being deployed and when. I think we do need the time to...

(00:55:37)

Be able to wrap our arms around what is happening in our classrooms. I wanted to ask specifically — you said in your testimony that 6,491 folks submitted feedback to the guidance. Correct? Yes. Are any of those comments made publicly available for us to see? They are not currently made publicly available, but we will get them. It is our intention to share them and to make them public. Yes.

(00:56:10)

Great. Does the DOE monitor student computer use in classrooms through programs like GoGuardian or any other monitoring tools for...

(00:56:24)

Additional apps? Some schools can purchase and use GoGuardian. They use the feature that monitors that the students are on task with whatever tech program is happening in the classroom. There is — and just to be clear — a separate module of GoGuardian that is not approved for use and is not used in any of our schools.

(00:56:49)

And the devices — if the devices are take-home devices, is it monitoring them while they are at home? No, only in schools, only in schools. And who has access to that information, and what information is available through GoGuardian?

(00:57:07)

The purpose of it is to monitor the real-time status of the device as they are in the classroom for that session. When it is turned off, all that information is not stored anywhere or used for any other...

(00:57:18)

Purpose. So can you just walk me through it? My kid is sitting in class, she has her computer open and she goes to YouTube. What do they see? She is not supposed to be on YouTube...

(00:57:28)

Sure. If the school has purchased GoGuardian and it is active for that session, the teacher can see in the GoGuardian monitor that 22 students in the class are on the curriculum, for example, and another student has opened another window when they should only be on the...

(00:57:46)

And they can detect which student is on another window? They can see that information...

(00:57:52)

Live.

(00:57:53)

I believe the answer to that is correct. Yes. Okay.

(00:57:54)

And so they can then walk by or call over and say, please come back to your assigned task.

(00:58:02)

Are there any other monitoring tools like GoGuardian that are being deployed in our schools?

(00:58:11)

Any other tools like GoGuardian? That is the one that is most prominently used. I am not aware of others that are used broadly across the system in a large way. Okay. They are being purchased school by school at this point. Okay.

(00:58:21)

I do think that a response of "I am not aware of others" causes concern. We want to know, and we need to know, if there are other monitoring tools. If there are others, it would be helpful in our understanding.

(00:58:43)

So parents have asked about approved products that are currently being used in the schools. It is my understanding that the DOE has declined to provide some of that information, and there are some parents — we are asking, have parents done FOIL requests for that information — and why is there hesitancy around providing comprehensive...

(00:59:09)

Lists. Thank you for that question. We are currently working as part of our next phase. We are currently working with our superintendents and principals to have more of exactly what you just said, which is we need to understand everything that is in our schools, how they are being used, especially which top ones are which ones might be leading to some impact. That is interesting because it is also new, and we do want to encourage schools to innovate and then scale what is working. With that said, we are currently engaging in that process, but I would say as a former principal that any tool that I am using, any curriculum I am using in my school, a parent has a right to ask and deserves to be answered. So in cases where parents might have a question about what my child uses X — and I did not mean Twitter X, like insert any example — can you talk to me a little bit about how it is used, how long they use it, are they using it alongside a teacher? Those are amazing questions for our parents to be asking. We encourage them to do so and we expect our teachers, our leaders, our superintendents and ourselves to be able to answer those questions, especially if we have adopted them locally. Okay, that is

(01:00:24)

good to hear. Does the department register all contracts through Checkbook? I will have to get back to you to make sure. I believe the answer is yes, but let me find out and come back to that question either in this hearing or shortly after.

(01:00:46)

Great. Does the department have non-disclosure agreements with vendors? If so, why? And are those contracts also registered with Checkbook?

(01:00:52)

Thank you so much. At this point I am going to turn us over to our Chief Privacy Officer Dennis Doyle to jump in. Thank you.

(01:01:01)

Yeah. Thank you for the question. I am not sure exactly what you mean by a non-disclosure. I mean, we have data processing agreements with all the vendors that process student data. If that is what you are referring to, the answer is yes. If there is something

(01:01:18)

else — I mean, I think non-disclosure agreements are pretty standard. So is it a non-disclosure agreement or not?

(01:01:26)

Well, it depends what we are talking about.

(01:01:27)

Describe what

(01:01:28)

you are describing. So for a data processing agreement we have with all third parties that process student data, there are non-disclosure aspects to that agreement. They have to agree to keep our data and information confidential, so in some ways it is a non-disclosure agreement. We do not have any non-disclosure agreements with vendors that would prevent us from disclosing the existence of a contract with that vendor, for example, if that is what

(01:01:56)

you are referring to. Okay. Or like what you are procuring the technology for?

(01:02:04)

Correct. Yeah, we would not have an NDA for something like that.

(01:02:06)

Okay. And again, the question around Checkbook — we will get back to you. I can answer

(01:02:12)

that. Yes. All of our contracts are registered in Checkbook and with the Comptroller. Okay, thank you.

(01:02:22)

The guidance states on page six that a playbook is planned for June 2026. What does that playbook entail and is it currently available?

(01:02:32)

Thank you. As part of our original plan we were releasing the guidance, going through a 45-day feedback period, and it would result in the next step of a playbook. That is how we started this process. Given feedback, given some additional educational and professional reviews, and given the shifting national conversation, which has really escalated over just the last couple of weeks alone, we are not necessarily committed to making sure that playbook comes out in June, because what we are committed to — and this was part of our testimony — is going back to that baseline guidance and fleshing that out to be more responsive to the feedback, to take in some of the shifts in national conversation and research that is coming out. So right now, the playbook as it was originally part of the original plan is shifting. I could invite Dr. Pete, if you want to add to that, or if that is just the answer we can move on.

(01:03:40)

I think you did a wonderful job responding to that. What I would add is that this is not about a rush to get a playbook out for the sake of a playbook. What we are committed to is galvanizing the voices of community, which is connected to the 6,500-plus pieces of feedback that we received, and some of that feedback really shared with us a bit of a slowdown in order to really be thoughtful and strategic about what it looks like to ensure privacy and safety, and to ensure that what is instructionally sound for students is incorporated into what our playbook would be. So the delay is not about getting the job done. It really is about being responsive to

(01:04:31)

what the feedback has told us over this past 45 days, and to just acknowledge that this is really an iterative process. You can expect lots of loops, lots of changes, lots of shifts as we become better informed, as research continues to evolve, and as we have these hearings which give us really good insight about the direction that we need to go from some of your constituents as well.

(01:04:59)

Right. I am going to ask two more questions and then I will pass it back so we can open up, but I wanted to ask — I do have more questions for later, I want to give other people a chance — do you all have a specific policy around YouTube?

(01:05:15)

Scott, would you like to talk about YouTube? Yeah.

(01:05:19)

The policy on YouTube is it is not available for use generally. It is blocked unless a particular school asks for it to be opened up for educational purposes at the principal level, and we do that when that is requested.

(01:05:32)

Okay. We have heard concerns that include, you know, "go watch this YouTube video on X, Y and Z." So we want to have clarity around those types of instructions. I do not know if you have any feedback on that, but we have heard that from parents.

(01:05:54)

I mean, I am aware and have seen where a YouTube or some video link is helping bring a lesson to life, tapping into children's immediate engagement. That is part of the work that we are thinking about even on screens and screen time that might lead there. But I have not seen an example of just, you know, independently "go watch a YouTube video." That would be under those cases where we are saying that is the kind of work that is in either whole class or small group and certainly under the direction of a teacher in the space.

(01:06:31)

Okay. The other thing I wanted to ask — we heard from some of the parents about this app, I am forgetting the name, that basically tells students that if they pay, like if you enter a credit card and you pay, you gain some powers. Do you know the name? I do not know the name.

(01:06:50)

Prodigy. Can you discuss if that is an approved application or program that the department has approved?

(01:07:00)

Thank you for that question. I believe Prodigy is not approved — am I remembering that correctly?

(01:07:07)

Well, it actually is. Oh, it is? The free version is approved. Okay. It has been through our process. There are other applications that have been approved that sometimes have that feature of paying for more things. That is not approved nor is it encouraged. This particular one is only used in a very few schools.

(01:07:29)

Okay. It would be interesting to figure out which schools and for us to see that information. Obviously there are concerns there given the breaches and everything else that has occurred — putting credit card information and all of that at risk — but also making sure that that is not something that we are encouraging our

(01:07:49)

children to do. Can I just clarify one thing, and correct me if I have misunderstood you. So there is the version that is free, but we would never require our families to move into the paid version. That would be a choice that they made, and I would not want to see our schools requiring that or encouraging that.

(01:08:08)

Okay, more on that. I am going to pass it back and then we will come back for round two. Thank you.

(01:08:16)

Thank you. I would just add — your 6,000-some responses is like less than 1% of parents.

(01:08:25)

Yes. That is not a question, I am just sharing that. That is a very low percentage. I am sure many Council members will have a lot to say about the people who helped develop the guidance, and that is compared to the parents survey, which has a significantly higher response rate, and you do a lot of work to make sure parents fill out that survey. So I would think a response rate of less than 1% is not ideal. Parents have a lot to say, rightfully so. This is the future of our children and of our

(01:09:03)

City, and I could not agree with you more. I think given the amount of conversation that we are having about it, I certainly would have thought we had more. But we did intentionally make sure that part of our feedback processes included specific conversations around this with advocates, with labor, with leadership structures, with our elected officials, and really making sure we are listening. Even the PEP comments became feedback for us. Thank you.

(01:09:33)

I want to recognize CM Wong for questions first. Thank you, Chair.

(01:09:40)

Actually, I am very disappointed that early childhood education did not show up. No, they are here.

(01:09:48)

They are here. Yes, ma'am. Okay, very good. On the statement said earlier — the Children's Division does not have any purview over giving the antenna on the program, right?

(01:10:04)

But how come you have purview here about the early childhood education program, which is also run by the department? You guys showed up for all the mayor's announcements about pre-K and 3-K, which are also part of early childhood, and now you are saying you come to a different talent program and you do not have any purview over it. Is that cherry-picking? I do not know how we are going to answer my question. I believe you are referring to the Mayor's Office of Early Childhood Education. The Division of Early Childhood Education is involved with gifted and talented, however, so no one comes from the administration to testify about my bill.

(01:11:14)

We have members from the Division of Early Childhood from NYC Public Schools with us today. Okay.

(01:11:23)

Okay. I have questions. So who would answer them?

(01:11:27)

I myself and my colleague Liana will support with that.

(01:11:32)

Okay. Only 12.5% of children with disabilities in New York City schools are... wait, what percentage of true payment for students with disabilities act...

(01:11:44)

Oh, this is not for you guys, right? What effect does the gifted and talented program have on getting into specialized high school? Do you guys have that information? We do not have that information at this moment. Okay.

(01:12:03)

But I did the research. I have the information. They have a 12% greater chance of kids getting into specialized high school, and also that program really benefits low-income students in New York City. And the next

(01:12:19)

question: what effect does being in a gifted and talented program have on those children later in their life? We do not have that information at this moment.

(01:12:32)

Okay. Do you have any information about what the current gifted and talented program is doing in Black and Brown communities? Do you have any data, or can you help me get some data? CM Wong, I do have data to share with you.

(01:12:59)

I was just going to say we did not bring the team prepared with data specific to gifted and talented today. We brought the team to speak to AI and screen time more so. We can accept your questions, note them, and also follow up for the areas that we are not specifically ready to answer, but

(01:13:19)

it would have taken them having seen the hearings about the two bills I have to make. But you did not prepare to answer my questions. A lot of families depend on the answers. They want to know the answers. This is again why those special needs families getting into the gifted and talented program get ignored, especially in Black and Brown communities, and now there is not even anyone who comes here to testify.

(01:13:54)

This is how we are going to respect those families. We do have data publicly available on our website that shows the demographics of students enrolled in gifted and talented programs, and by neighborhood, by district. We have the number of students from every district who applied to gifted and talented and received

(01:14:14)

offers. Can you tell me for the record what the ratio is and what the ratio is in the program?

(01:14:21)

And — I am sorry — as you answer, please state your name for the record.

(01:14:24)

Yeah, my name is Liana from the Office of Student Enrollment. I do not have all of the numbers in front of me, but we can share the link. They are posted on the website.

(01:14:35)

If no one comes here to testify, then why come? I think some of the bills that you were asking about also come from the Mayor's Office, who provided some written testimony in response to your bill as well.

(01:14:52)

The response — that is my understanding — it said there is no purview over the gifted and talented. Yes, it said there is no purview. That is it.

(01:15:02)

It did not say why, or who has purview if they do not have the purview. We do not know which department can answer my question.

(01:15:10)

Well, we run the gifted and talented screening and admissions process. It is housed within the Division of Early Childhood and it is for children entering kindergarten currently. So if we do not have the data to speak specifically to that, and it is not necessarily publicly available, we will follow up and get that.

(01:15:29)

I mean, that is the reason I asked on my bill. We need to have that data available, and everyone said it is not in their purview. Who is in charge of this data? I do not know which department could work on this issue. And also for the students with disabilities and special needs students, no one came to testify. They just said we agree on your purpose but that is no information at all. Because you got support but not answers — who can answer that question?

(01:16:00)

CM Wong, I am just going to ask — there are a lot of you here, all with tons of data, and I think before you leave today you can testify to what the data shows and answer her questions. I understand you do not have it in front of you now, but before you leave you should have that and testify to that. And then this will be the last time. We will move on to CM

(01:16:19)

Council Member... Suzanne Sanchez, Chief of Special Education, and I am here to answer any questions around students with disabilities that you have.

(01:16:30)

Okay. Well, we are going to go on to the next member, but any of the questions that she had previously — before you leave today, you will testify to those, and I think you can find the information between now and then. Okay. Thank you. CM Wong, I will come back. Let us go. Yeah.

(01:16:48)

Thank you so much, Chairs, for this important hearing. I guess I would like to ask the administration around issues of privacy. I was certainly one of those Council members who is deeply concerned about, you know, what we do not know about what is happening in our schools related to student direct usage. I am deeply concerned about privacy. As you all know, on May 4th the State Comptroller's Office released a really scathing audit finding that NYC Public Schools maintains no written policies for data classification, risk assessment or backup and recovery as required by the NIST data security framework specified by Education Law. So given that that law was passed in 2014, why have these policies been missing? This is obviously making these data breaches, which are profoundly concerning, more likely and harder to respond to.

(01:17:57)

Thank you for that question, and I just want to let you know we have our Chief Data Privacy Officer with us today who is going to respond.

(01:18:06)

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the question. I just want to start out by saying, obviously, student privacy is of the utmost importance to NYC Public Schools. We did work with the New York State Comptroller on this audit over the last few years. We submitted a formal response to the audit that explains that we comply with all federal, state and local privacy laws. In some cases we go beyond what the law requires, but we are always working continuously to try to improve our data privacy practices. While we disagree with some of the findings in the New York State Comptroller's audit report, we did accept and agree to the recommendations that were made in that report.

(01:18:51)

To some extent, we assert that we already comply with the recommendations in that report, and one example is actually what you are referring to — the requirement that we align with the NIST cybersecurity framework.

(01:19:05)

This is something that we use where, as you noted, we are required by New York State Education Law 2-D to align with this cybersecurity framework. Just a point on that: this cybersecurity framework is not necessarily like a checklist of requirements for organizations to follow. It is a framework for assessing an organization's cybersecurity posture and to continuously evaluate it and to try to continuously improve it.

We have been... there are improvements that we plan on making. One is to update our data privacy and security policies page, which we will be doing in the coming months. We will also be issuing a formal written data classification policy. We do have a data classification policy. It is documented in a few different places, but we want to make sure that we have a very clear formal data classification policy for that. As has been mentioned earlier in this hearing, we are working with the schools to make sure we have a better understanding of the tools that they are using, to make sure that it is in compliance with their data privacy and security policies.

Another thing noted in the audit report was the timeliness of notifications. On that front, I think if you read the report itself, in 2024 and 2025 the State Comptroller found that there were only five of one hundred reported data breaches that were not made in accordance with the timeline requirements. With that said, we are striving to improve that. Part of the difficulty with notification timeliness is making sure that we are having our staff be fully aware of what their obligations are and that they are reporting it up to us in a timely fashion. We can also encounter difficulties with working with third party vendors and trying to get the pertinent information from them in time in order to issue these notifications. We also will have translation requirements when it comes to sending out notifications. So there are a lot of hurdles when it comes to issuing these notifications in a timely way, but with that said, we are still working to improve that.

Also on the training point, we have also improved in terms of staff completion rate for our training. In 2023-24, it was 117,000 staff members who completed our data privacy and security training. In 2025-26 that number went up to 238,000 out of approximately 160,000 staff. This is also an area where we actually exceed the law, as Education Law only requires training for those who have access to student data. We require it for all of our employees, which we think is a good policy. Unfortunately that also creates separate challenges in ensuring that everyone who has access to data is actually completing the training so that we are complying with the law. So in short, we are working continuously to improve our data privacy and compliance policies and practices. We have accepted the recommendations of the Comptroller and we look forward to issuing these new improvements in the

(01:22:42)

coming months. So just to circle back, your updates on security protocols are going to be coming out in a few months. Is that what you are suggesting?

(01:22:52)

Our data privacy and security policies, yes. Look, that is one of the requirements under New York State Education Law today, that we have that posted on the website. It is

(01:23:03)

publicly posted there right now. To improve it, we want to make it clearer and more accessible so everyone has a better understanding of what our data privacy and compliance policies are. I also just want to add, along the same lines, we have also in the last year, just over a year ago, updated our Chancellor's Regulation, which is Chancellor's Regulation A-820 on student privacy. That regulation had not been updated since 2009. So we worked very hard on that to try and bring our own regulation up to speed with the current landscape of privacy law. We worked with a lot of parents, community leaders, advocates and school leaders, incorporated their feedback, and we came up with a regulation that actually strengthens our data privacy practices. But obviously this is a continuous process and we are going to be doing more.

(01:24:06)

Thank you. Thank you, CM Avilés. If you would like, I will put you down for round two. Okay, I will put you up for round two. CM Wong, followed by CM Gutiérrez. Thank you. Cheers.

(01:24:22)

I went to public school wanting to learn facts and also to learn how to think critically. I sent my daughters to public schools also expecting them to think critically, not to just type something into an engine and then take the results for granted. I have been playing with Consensus, Perplexity and ChatGPT, and I was asking about myself, like, what do you know about me? A lot of times they are wrong.

I am concerned because the technology is already here. Kids are already using it whether you see it or not. My other concern is that teachers are using it, whether they are using it to prepare their lessons or using it to grade student papers. Those are very concerning. But I would like to start with one thing: when I see students, everybody has AI between the ears. This is actual intelligence. My message is that they have to use it rather than relying on some engine telling them things, and they take it for granted or do not believe it is true. I claim that given the technology, a lot of results you get from AI engines are flawed.

Now, with that, here is my question. I read from the website there is a guidance, and there was a period where parents could submit feedback until May 8, and there is feedback somewhere. I would like to read it. I want to learn about what parents are thinking. Where is all this feedback? Can I see it?

(01:26:11)

Is that currently public? We are going to make it public. Can you please do

(01:26:15)

that? Well, send me the link. You have my email. Okay. My next question is: is the same playbook planned for June 2026? In one week we are going to be in... what is this playbook, where is it, and is it

(01:26:34)

available? Yes, that goes back to when asked earlier about the playbook. After we launched the initial guidance, we thought that by the end of the year we would be able to really use the feedback to get us to this playbook. But the feedback is actually taking us in new directions, asking us to think about a developmental sequence — what can and cannot be used and when. The conversation around screen time also started coming up. We are trying to pay attention to all the feedback that we got through surveys and our public engagements. So right now we are not racing into a playbook. We are carefully considering how to build out the original guidance in a way that puts us on footing with clarity, guardrails and specificity.

(01:27:30)

Okay, thank you. I have some time left. Do you have a policy for telling teachers what to do with AI when it comes to planning lessons or grading papers? Because I know, right now, a lot of departments screen resumes and reject resumes if they do not see a certain term or they do not see a certain experience, and then applicants get rejected without anyone looking at the resume, just relying on some engine. So what is your policy, or will you have a policy, for teachers on how to use AI in planning lessons or grading

(01:28:12)

papers? CM Wong, thank you for that question. I want to make it very clear that in the guidance that was released, it really clearly states that assessments and grading are prohibited uses of AI in our NYC Public Schools.

(01:28:30)

Okay. What about planning lessons? What stops a teacher from saying, "I generated a lesson about the Revolutionary War in Saratoga"?

(01:28:44)

I hope they get great lessons. I think what we have to do is to make sure that ultimately the lessons are content-aligned, factually accurate and deeply engaging with the learning that we want students to be doing. We do not recommend nor encourage teachers to be using tools to generate those lessons. We want to make sure that educator input and guidance is culturally appropriate and accurate for those learning purposes. Coming back to one of the things that you said earlier, we really truly want to make sure that the intelligence is something that we are developing with our students through deep interaction, educator guidance and support, and that is what we strongly believe in. Thank you.

(01:29:31)

Thank you, CM Wong. I will put you down for round two. Squeeze in one more question... okay, let us do a relative round. Thank you.

(01:29:36)

Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for joining us. I do want to just at the top share that I am supportive of AI in our schools and of course urge intentionality before our schools and students adopt these tools. I also want to add that I am one of the signatories of the letter calling for a moratorium. I believe that the way in which curriculum is built should be guided by students, and whatever is put in place should be piloted or observed, followed by an assessment and a feedback loop, so that we are not just dropping the curriculum and the plan and then just moving on. We cannot avoid AI... but we need to get on top of it. Could you share what, if any, biometric recognition technologies are currently being deployed in our schools for educational or security purposes?

(01:30:48)

Thank you for that question. I am going to let Scott jump in on the different applications. He just has that.

(01:30:54)

Yeah, I will back that up. We do not have any biometric detection tools.

(01:31:03)

Great, and that is prohibited by law. Can you share how the necessity of an AI tool is going to be evaluated before introduction?

(01:31:21)

Thank you. So as these new tools are coming in, the question is how we are going to evaluate them. I am going to ask Tara or Mia to jump in on some of the work that is underway.

(01:31:37)

So before saying yes to a specific tool or company and then evaluating them, what we are working to develop is a tool scorecard that will give us a more in-depth assessment of not only the educational value-add but also impact, meaning outcomes for students. We are also currently doing some beta testing. Could you share, just in clearer language, what the testing includes and how it is being conducted? It is being conducted through professional learning experiences where some teachers and school leaders — 50 teachers actually — and school leaders are engaged in work that lends itself to AI tools, and we are assessing whether or not these tools have instructional value-add. We are then collecting surveys, talking to teachers and figuring out the different creative ways that they are utilizing those programs so

(01:32:54)

that we can start to better determine how we can more effectively assess the value-add of a tool that may be utilized within our NYC Public Schools.

(01:33:07)

And these 50 teachers — what is the representation? So they cross, they span

(01:33:17)

from sixth to twelfth grade. In addition to that, they span our core content areas, so math, science and social studies. Will there be another set of...

(01:33:33)

The goal is that as we develop this scorecard, we want to enlist the partnership of our educators. It is really to inform us more about the value-add of a particular tool. It is not about taking the word of the tool creator to say, "Hey, this is great, go use it." No. What are our educators saying? How are they utilizing the tool? What are their thoughts around the value-add of the tool? What are the academic impact outcomes that inform us that this is in fact a tool that we should invest more time and energy into as a whole?

(01:34:17)

Not leaning towards what the vendor is saying is good — I would imagine they would all say that they are great, right? We cannot take their word for it. As it relates... because I have a few more seconds, could you share whether a similar scorecard is being assessed with students?

(01:34:36)

So I am going to jump in. Tara is doing this work and I will come back for a second round, but ending here. Thank you. Hi, my name is Derrick Rose. I am the Director of Digital Learning and Innovation, former District 75 teacher. Currently we are not evaluating tools for direct student use. We are starting with teachers, and the reason for that is because we have the same concerns that you as an advocate and many others have shared with us, particularly from the 45-day feedback window and the listening sessions that we engaged in. So we are starting with teachers and leaders who are already using the tools for the purpose of supporting their productivity and supporting their lesson differentiation and scaffolding. We already have high quality instructional materials and grade-level expectations within all of our NYC Reads and Solves curriculum. So we are looking at those standards that we set, we vetted those curriculums, we know they are research-based and evidence-based, and we are taking a similar approach to vetting our tools beyond that.

(01:35:47)

Thank you so much. Thank you,

(01:35:49)

CM Gutiérrez. Okay.

(01:35:51)

I would recommend having our students be able to work with a tool and for us to see how they are responding, so that they are also a part of this process. We are creating the same evidence-based tools scorecard for all of our stakeholders. We are in development of those. I did want to add that one for families as well, so we can empower families to go through the same process. So we are all looking at the same evaluation criteria. We are not saying the DOE is doing one thing and not sharing that out. We really want to be transparent in our next steps forward with all stakeholders, and of course involving students and empowering them with that same agency and critical evaluation and critical thinking, as CM Wong shared. Thank you.

(01:36:41)

Thank you, CM Gutiérrez, and particularly for the questions around evaluations. Okay, CM Gutiérrez.

(01:36:55)

Thank you, Chair. I have a few questions, and I was one of the signers on the letter. At first I wanted to go through the guidance thoughtfully and was able to meet with some parents — I think some who are here to testify — and really listen to their concerns. I think the first thing about the guidance was that even the process feels backwards: you put out a guidance, you are collecting feedback, and now you are going to use that feedback for a playbook. It just feels like the process does not make sense. If you wanted to actively use feedback, you would have called for feedback first and then put together a guidance or a playbook. I do not know if a playbook equates to the same as guidance. I just want to make sure that... I feel like we are creating something that we do not necessarily need to do at this point. I just want to make sure that I raise my concern with the process. It really feels backwards.

I think in speaking with a lot of parents from my district and my community, especially those with younger children in elementary school, there is concern for the fact that they are kind of being brought to the table months after some of these tools are already being introduced. The top concern being with these tools being introduced into the classroom — I am sure you will hear from folks testifying today — but at a bigger picture level, I think that we deserve a vision, like a digital literacy vision. We deserve to know what the expected outcomes are that you all as a governing body of all our public schools expect to have before you start throwing around a guidance or a playbook or mandating vendors.

I will say from just the day-to-day school feedback, I think a lot of principals feel like they are being forced into interacting with these tools. I think a lot of schools feel like they are not prepared and they are being told from the top that they have to utilize this. So a lot of this has been very fragmented — fragmented from when you put the guidance out, and fragmented from the way that you are implementing it. So I would just love for you all to share if there is a bigger picture: what is the desired outcome, so that we can help here publicly, because there are concerns. Yes, we want more time, we want to slow it way down, but I think a lot of that is your fault. I think a lot of that is because of how you have laid this out. So what can you tell me now that is going to help us feel like we can trust and feel calm about the next four years under this administration and what you all have laid out? Thank you. That is really important.

(01:39:44)

Feedback, and I think what I would want to mostly offer here is I do not think we disagree. The prior administration hit the gas on AI and technology, and we were coming out of the gate. This was very shortly after Chancellor Samuels came in. It has been a moving train and so one of his first priorities — in fact, I think it was a week after he established his new cabinet — we started on the fifth. I think we put out the guidance on the 24th, and that is because we recognize that this train was moving and we wanted to put in guardrails. Back to CM Wong's question, some of the answers to your question — what is in red, what is in yellow, what is in green — that answers some of the specifics. We need to get more specific, so I want to acknowledge that. I think that is why we are also saying today and sharing with others that we are not waiting on Chancellor Samuels. I am trying to enter a...

(01:40:51)

If you could answer this in your continued answering: what is the role that the playbook is going to play that the guidance that you all put out did not?

(01:41:00)

Where we hoped — I think the original intent, and this was back to the original plan — Doctor, if you want to jump in on the original attempt: the playbook was to take this feedback and make it very much like answering the questions that were coming in and feedback and realignment.

(01:41:16)

But I think we are able to go further than what the playbook's intent was going to be, and kind of go back to the guidance and ensure that we are doing that engagement that you are talking about. This is a core value of Chancellor Samuels, of our mayor, of this administration. We believe that we do need to reset using the feedback and also with the whole conversation around AI.

(01:41:42)

And it has shifted nationally since our guidance went out. I am not saying it was our guidance, but it is important for us to take all of that in so that when we get to a vision for the role that technology screens — and because they are all intersecting but different — that we are able to offer you that. I can share with you now that that is the current process that we are engaging in as a team.

(01:42:09)

Can I just ask one last question?

(01:42:10)

Do you want a yes or no answer? Actually, yeah. Is there a world where after this playbook is done, the original guidance that you released is tossed — is garbage? I do not think so. I think we stand by our... No, that is right. Thank you. Thank you.

(01:42:27)

Thank you, Councilmember. I can appreciate your not moving fast into a playbook — you want to be thoughtful. I think the evaluative tools and the feedback from parents, students and educators are important. These tools are in the classroom, so it is astounding that both of those things are true at the same time: that we have already released these tools into the classroom without the playbook, without the guidance for the students and the teachers that are really required before engaging with these types of tools. I will now recognize CM Joseph, followed by Maloney.

(01:43:00)

Great. Thank you, Chairs. Good afternoon. As we are having this important conversation around AI, we have been in this space before. Where are the parents in this conversation? I heard nothing about parents. I heard teachers, students, educators, but I have not heard where parents are in this conversation. Are they made aware of AI in the classroom? Do they have the option to opt in or opt out? Another part of this conversation I am not hearing is language access, and we know a lot of parents in the City — English is not their first language. I have a question for the Deputy Chancellor: who are your leads in this digital learning space right now? Who are your leads in your office?

(01:43:52)

Within the — thank you for your questions. Do you want me to lead off with that one? Within the division of the First Deputy Chancellor in academics and instruction, Dr. Pate and Tara are leading that work. But I would say that work hinges upon the partnership with data privacy, so these gentlemen also are very integral in this work. These things cannot happen without each other. And Ben, I know you are preaching to the...

(01:44:22)

Converted. So I have asked my question. OK, so tell me: how are you taking into consideration when you deploy these tools — are parents made aware, how are you using parents' voices, relating parent engagement? Education cannot happen without parents. Where are the parents in this conversation? In addition to the guidance and the feedback loop, superintendents were provided with on-the-ground resources and superintendents did their own engagement unique to their communities, where they utilized the different governance structures within their district to engage families, to collect insights, to collect their feedback, and then they provided us those trends and themes, and that was incorporated. In addition to the 6,400 — which I still consider a low number, as having the largest school system in the country, 6,400 is very little. So here is my question: when you took that feedback, what were the three top things that stood out for you?

(01:45:29)

So the top three concerns that stood out from the cumulative information that was gathered were around cognitive offloading, around safety and around privacy. And that has been a theme — privacy, cognitive development. It is a national theme, so yes.

(01:45:49)

Correct. So we are going to put that there with the parents. So you know, when you do your playbook — even a Council member said you should throw it out...

(01:45:56)

But parents have to be central to this conversation. And what about our educators — what is provided for them? Because I also know that some of these curriculums also come in a hybrid model where you have a technology component to it. How is that being used and how are teachers being trained? So we spoke a little bit earlier about the approach that we are taking now. We have developed guidance at the central level and our educators are engaged in that training, so to date more than 8,300 staff members have taken that information and that course. In addition to that, the other side of it is that we are partnering with our labor partners who are doing some really great work. Even myself — I have attended the capacity building training that the UFT is offering, so that is another way in which educators are being trained very skillfully around that work.

(01:46:55)

What is the timeline to make sure that every educator has gone through at least one session of these classes? Because they are not navigating this alone — I know some kids, I could tell you, are running circles around their teachers with the use of AI, and they can find detectors that can make sure that the product they produce cannot be detected as AI-generated. I know quite a few.

(01:47:17)

Yes, so I have an eleventh grader at home who is currently providing professional development to me, connected to all that AI has to offer and then some. So I do agree with you around the need to continue to build capacity. We have not set a timeline as of yet that I can offer you, but the technology is moving faster than we are working. By the time you go to sleep, somebody has changed their lives. The challenge is in it, so I do not disagree. I am agreeing with you that because of the rapid evolution of technology, it sometimes feels like we are chasing the development of professional learning and capacity building opportunities, but we are actively creating and developing that.

(01:48:10)

And one thing we want to address with AI: how are you addressing biases that do exist in AI? I am...

(01:48:19)

So currently there is not a solid tool that we have endorsed that tracks or traces or keeps account of bias, but we do know that it is again a major problem that we are looking for resources to help us do that. We do not have a solid tool that we are currently utilizing to engage in that work. I think where we can really kind of dig our heels in is around awareness. I think people have to understand that it can be wrong — it is not always right. And it says that too: depending on the prompt that you type in, it will say this answer may not be accurate, you should do further research. So the development really comes through awareness. The more we get that message out to educators, we get that message out to school leaders, we get that message out to students — by spreading that message, we start to build an awareness that you should not put everything in and trust it all as is. You must continue to think critically. You must engage with technology not as a consumer but as a producer, meaning that you are asking it questions that will probe your thinking, not to deliver and give you blanket answers that may not be true.

(01:49:54)

It really is about building awareness around a rapidly evolving... as you said, every day it is a monster at this point. Yes, it is. And how does...

(01:50:04)

How do we support our English language learners and students with disabilities? I have the record. You can answer that.

(01:50:13)

Last question.

(01:50:15)

I do want to invite our friends from the Division of Multilingual Language to just kind of add a value-add piece to that. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Pate.

(01:50:30)

Thank you. Dr. Pate, Suzanne Sanchez, Chief of Special Education. Thank you.

(01:50:33)

Thank you, CM Joseph, for the question on students with disabilities — always at the forefront. We know what you are doing and hope you are going to visit Succeed this...

(01:50:41)

Summer. But that is another conversation. Students with disabilities benefit significantly from the use of assistive technology, and that is something that NYC Public Schools is committed to ensuring — that those students have the right technology in the right cadence, in the right dosage, at the right time. Chair, you brought up earlier around research and efficacy studies and the evidence: the body of evidence on technology for students with disabilities is irrefutable. It is important to note that technology for students with disabilities — what we typically refer to as assistive technology — recommended on a student's plan follows a really careful and thorough evaluation process by an expert in that field, who then recommends the use of a specific tool. It could be a device, could be a software, could be an app — all of which go through the IRMA vetting process. Research is very clear that children with disabilities who utilize assistive technology not only see growth and improvement in academic outcomes, but also in mental health, social and emotional wellbeing. As we remove barriers to learning, our students start to feel better about themselves, and that is certainly seen and felt in our students with disabilities.

(01:52:05)

OK, but I just want to clarify for everyone listening the specific nature of what you are talking about with AI. You are talking about an Individualized Education... well, I know it seems — I wanted to have a little gravitas and, you know, emotional cadence with the word "individualized." Get your gravitas. Individualized Education Program. One dramatic pause. There — was that good? Great. Because what you are talking about is something akin to providing extra time on a test, and what we are concerned with is providing tools that give kids the answer on the test and the cognitive offloading. So I just want to clarify that for anyone listening today: absolutely, if there is a specific tool for a specific student to ensure that they have access to the same educational opportunities as everyone else, that is not the same thing as throwing tools into the classroom with no vetting or little vetting, relying on vendors and corporations to provide guidelines instead of listening to parents, students and educators.

(01:53:12)

And I do want to get clarity on something, because I keep hearing this reference...

(01:53:17)

To digital literacy. Is there not a deal — we approved a digital literacy curriculum. I mean, we have had issues with digital literacy for well over a decade: social media, bias in the media. When I was in high school in the 1900s — it makes me sound... I see some other people who are also old as hell like I am — we had lessons in curriculum just like this because the internet was coming of age and anyone could put anything on it. So how is it that we do not have a digital literacy curriculum? How is it that the DOE is not requiring this? And yes, updated as necessary, but how is this not part of the general curriculum in our schools?

(01:54:11)

I think this particular point — the dramatic pause around "individualized," thank you — it is extremely important. At no point in time do we ever want there to be any tool that shortcuts the thinking that our students are...

(01:54:25)

Doing. We know they do not want that. I am not asking what you want. I am asking what policies are in place, because we want the same thing. I do not think...

(01:54:32)

You are going... I just want to be clear on that.

(01:54:34)

And I want to answer your question about digital literacy, because you are correct: state law requires that we are thinking about media literacy. We are teaching for accuracy, biases and facts — writing research papers. It is a part of the curriculum that teachers are really thoughtful about, engaging students in details about how we write research papers, how we are defending our facts and citing where our work is coming from. New York State Department of Education is actively updating that guidance to specifically require information around use of artificial intelligence, and we are working with our higher education partners to learn together with them how we are addressing this particular issue about teaching — not only, I would say, artificial intelligence literacy, but I would also argue that there is a real civic readiness that we have to be prepared for. Because as AI really infiltrates and works into our entire society, it is dramatically shaping how we are confronting and engaging in discourse, and it is extremely important that when we want our students to become leaders in our society, they are working closely with each other, with researchers, with our teachers, to be able to learn about this information and to be able to use it appropriately — in a way that is enhancing what it is they are learning inside the classroom.

(01:56:03)

And I love everything you said about what our students need to learn and what our teachers need to do, except that you do not need to wait for state guidance to do it. You are empowered as the Department of Education to determine what goes into our classrooms. There are limitations or requirements, yes, but you have programs all the time. You have Civics for All — and you spend just a week on it, just a week on civics to highlight what is going on. Perhaps through the year, but you have no idea...

(01:56:35)

Are we saying that we are waiting for the state to do that? I said that we were collaborating with the state to make sure that that guidance is updated. We have tremendous examples of what is happening across our schools. I know you do, and I have seen it, and I have spoken to... I want to thank you for helping set up those meetings about discussing the Seal of Civic Readiness. There are incredible things going on in our schools, and it seems time and time again you sometimes provide support for that and you celebrate it, but there does not seem to be an expectation that all of these wonderful things you are talking about happen in all of our schools. It does not seem to be a clear evaluative tool to ensure that even if you do expect it in our schools, that our teachers and our students are engaging in this type of learning — the very type of learning, trust me, that we need in a society that seems so at each other's throats. We absolutely need civics education, we absolutely need digital literacy, but it is your job to ensure that this is happening in our schools. Not just providing opportunities — as a supervising superintendent that works with our high schools, I am helping to ensure successful implementation of Future Ready as one example, where we are working with industry partners, with our teachers, with college professors to make sure that is a key component. It is data that we are monitoring as part of our instructional work to make sure that students are prepared for this.

(01:58:04)

I am going to turn over to CM Maloney for questions. Thank you. First, I want to reiterate the urgency of this...

(01:58:13)

Conversation, because as it has been said, it is already in the classrooms. It is already in our lives, and that includes the parents, the teachers, the students and the principals. We all agree on the need for guidelines and frameworks and age-appropriate use of AI in schools and in life, while preserving critical thinking, accuracy and student privacy. I want to flag that we need to move a lot faster, because while we are slowing down, development is not slowing down. The workforce is shifting and people are going to be using this in everyday life. So your testimony notes that there are...

(01:58:47)

Changes that need to be made to the guidance, and some of them include distinctions between teacher use cases and student use cases, more rigor around the age appropriateness for use of the tools, and how you introduce AI at what age. So what changes are expected and when will we get that revised framework? Those are all of the things that we are exploring and hope to be able to include in upcoming guidance. We are working furiously through that. I cannot commit to a date, but we will be offering clarity on those exact items.

(01:59:28)

And a follow up question to that is, this is a very agile technology that is going to require agile governments. So what is the system for continuously revisiting these guidelines and the protocols, because this is rapidly changing and we cannot have a line in the sand. It is going to have to keep moving. So what is your thought on the process for that?

(01:59:46)

I mean, I could not agree more with how fast this is moving. We have to bake into what our next evolution of our guidance is this iterative process that includes a feedback loop and coming back to it in some sort of time frame, and those are part of the conversations we are having right now.

(02:00:07)

Great. I also want to add that, as you and many others have spoken about here, we are doing this together with our parents and really with our students. That is going to be a really important part of this, and that we have processes that are regularly helping them understand but also give input and insight into this work so that we can update and continue to be able to revise this work.

(02:00:34)

Great. I would expect that the next set of guidance will have details on how we will continue to iterate. On the point of civics, I completely agree with the points that were made earlier. I am going to make assumptions, but most if not all students are getting access to smartphones, their parents and teachers are getting access to these tools, and they are readily available outside of the classroom. So how are we teaching students to use them responsibly, critically, ethically, not becoming dependent on them, viewing them as a tool and not a replacement, and critically evaluating that distinction — to interrogate, not just operate.

I know you mentioned this before, and I think that is truly a conversation and one of the most important things we could be focused on today. In an age in which it is so readily available for us to get access to information, but we cannot understand whether or not that information is actually true, to be able to participate in our democracy requires that we are educating and working with each other on that. We have a number of teachers that have been very thoughtful about not just teaching literacy, but really working deeply on evaluating the information that they are getting. I look forward to working with our labor partners, with our school principals, and really being able to showcase and demonstrate what that can look like so that we can help support that happening across more and more of our schools.

(02:02:14)

I would echo that. I wanted to jump in as well. Future Ready is within the Office of Student Pathways, and this year they did create a high school instructional module for students, which was delivered by 38 teachers. It is a 15-lesson module covering AI concepts, ethics and societal impact in connection to Future Ready pathways. That is happening at the high school level. For this coming school year, our computer science education team, which historically has done a lot of the capacity building and developmental work around computational thinking and helped co-create our standards on the computer science and digital fluency standards, will be doing a K-through-8 support with teachers as well as instructional modules that are not just about using AI. It is really looking at the conceptual concepts across age and developmental grade bands, so they will be implementing that within this school year.

(02:03:16)

Great. Just to close out, in the next iteration I would love to see those specifics about age, developmental appropriateness, civics and how we are introducing and engaging students as their experience grows, and similarly workforce development, where college graduates and certainly high school graduates are going to be expected to know how to interact with these tools. So I am in the camp that we need to be introducing students at an age-appropriate level with a lot more detail than what is in the guidance. But we are going to be building this plane as we fly it into the future, so it is a problem that we are far behind on and will continue to be because of just how fast this is evolving.

(02:04:01)

So thank you. Thank you, CM Loni.

(02:04:05)

Thank you. I have a few more questions I wanted to ask. So Local Law 35 speaks to vendor disclosure and it says that all agencies need to report the use of tools. The latest report identified seven tools used by NYC Public Schools. I will not go through all seven, but there was one that says "Annual Professional Performance Review Measures of Teaching Practice Calculation" where the vendor is not disclosed. Is there a reason why there are vendors not being disclosed?

(02:04:45)

Do you have a sense of what... I will start, and maybe you can continue. So that is the MOSL process that has been in place a long time. I think the date on that started maybe 2008 or 2013. It is not really AI. We put that into the report because it is an algorithmic tool. It does make observations and then there is scoring that happens in the background, so that is the reason it is in there. It is an algorithmic tool that came way before generative AI hit the marketplace. MOSL is the Measure of Student Learning, which is part of the teacher evaluation process and principal evaluation.

(02:05:24)

Process. Well, MOSL is in the teacher space.

(02:05:27)

Yeah, but regardless, why cannot that vendor be specifically disclosed? We will get back to that. It is possible it was developed internally, but we will get back to you on whether there was a third-party vendor. Okay, that would be great. I also wanted to ask — I know the Chief Privacy Officer is not here, but in your perspective, what role does the Chief Privacy Officer play in the operational process and in the master service agreement procurement process for schools? Thank you. I am going to bring in our data privacy lead to speak on his role and his work with AI.

(02:06:11)

Yeah, I can speak a little bit. Thank you for the question. We work closely with the Chief Privacy Officer's office when it comes to the IRMA process and the data privacy and compliance process. One of the parts of that process is to have third-party vendor products undergo a cloud review conducted by the Office of Technology and Innovation. We also work closely with the Chief Privacy Officer's office in responding to any incidents. We work closely together in sharing information about incidents and making sure we are responding accordingly. I would prefer to defer to somebody else on the contracting aspect of that question. Does anybody else want to address the...

(02:07:08)

...master service agreement procurement process? I am going to have to get back to you on that. I do not want to misspeak on that. Okay. On city governance, the action plan and the generative AI use guidance — does NYC Public Schools consider itself to be outside of OTIS authority?

(02:07:35)

I do not believe we see ourselves as outside of that. Would you have any more insights to share?

(02:07:43)

Yeah, I mean, I think we generally comply with OTIS guidance when it comes to issues like cybersecurity and data privacy.

(02:07:52)

And if there is a conflict with suggestions or guidance, who governs? I think it would probably depend on the subject matter area. For example, there is the City's identifying information law, which is administered by OTIS. That is something that NYC Public Schools is actually not subject to because we are subject to separate laws under New York State education law. So I think it would depend on the subject.

(02:08:23)

Okay, thank you for clarifying. I would just add a bit to this. We, to the extent possible, love to be consistent with what OTIS wants, both technically, legally, et cetera. Every once in a while, as Dennis mentioned, there are things that are above and beyond in the educational setting. Also, there is the situation where the agency is under the State and mayoral control could be removed at any point, and therefore we operate independently, but we do like to follow what they are doing. We work with their Cyber Command a lot on general security and on specific incidents we work cooperatively together.

Thank you. I wanted to ask a little bit about parents' rights under the Parents Bill of Rights for Data Privacy and Security. Parents have the right to file complaints about possible breaches and...

(02:09:21)

...unauthorized disclosures of their child's personal identifying information with NYC Public Schools and with the New York State Department of Education. Can you tell us how many complaints you receive per year? What is a typical outcome of those complaints? Are they followed through on?

Yeah, thank you for the question. I do not have the specific number in terms of complaints that we receive from parents. If we were to receive a complaint from a parent about an unauthorized disclosure, we would investigate it. If we determine that personally identifiable information had been subject to an unauthorized disclosure, we would follow our normal protocols where we notify the State of the disclosure and then make sure that any impacted student receives a direct notification of that disclosure. The NYC Public Schools data privacy and security policy states that parents have the right to require written consent before personal identifying information in their child's education record is disclosed.

(02:10:29)

The policy also states that in some cases the law allows disclosure without parental consent. I want to ask if you could clarify how a parent can exercise the right to require written consent before their child's education record is...

(02:10:45)

...disclosed, and is there a specific form that parents must submit to require this consent? We have forms on our website that are designed for parents to provide consent for disclosure of education records. They are not required to use those forms as long as we have the consent in writing from the parents and it meets all the requirements under FERPA, meaning that it identifies the information to be disclosed, who it is going to be disclosed to, the purpose of the disclosure, and it is signed and dated. We will accept that, but we do have a ready-made form available for parents.

The first part of your question was about requiring consent in general. The general rule is that consent is required before any student information is disclosed. There are, however, a number of exceptions to that general rule. For example, if you are disclosing student information to other school officials — it could be other employees within the school — that does not require consent as long as that disclosure is being made to another school official who has a legitimate educational interest in receiving that information. One of the many examples is the health and safety emergency exception. For example, if a student has a medical emergency and needs to be taken to the hospital, we do not need to get consent from the parent before we start disclosing that information to, for example, medical technicians who are going to be treating the student. Okay, thank you.

(02:12:22)

Thank you. Co-chair, I want to talk about the State Comptroller audit that was raised previously by CM... Are you familiar with it? Yes. Good, that was the easy one. You spoke about the training previously. Part 121 requires annual privacy and security training for employees with access to personally identifiable information. Correct? That is correct. Okay. And NYC Public Schools requires employees to complete annual privacy trainings. Correct? Yes. So the report — the Comptroller found that in 2024, only 73% of employees completed that training. Is that correct? That is right. The audit found that NYC Public Schools did not review the completion list to verify that employees with access to personal identifying information had completed the training. Correct? That was the finding in the audit. Yes, that was...

(02:13:19)

...correct. So we could not prove that every employee with access to student personally identifying information completed the required annual training. True? Yes. So that was from...

(02:13:35)

...2024. Does NYC Public Schools know today whether employees who are not completing the annual training have access to personally identifying...

(02:13:46)

...information? No. I mean, the difficulty with this — and this is an area where we actually, as I said before, exceed what is required — is that education law requires training for anyone with access, but we require it for all employees. The difficulty we have with this is we do not have a list of all of our employees that identifies whether they have access to personally identifiable information. But it is part of your policy — you require all employees to take it regardless. Yes.

(02:14:17)

Thank you. And what percent of employees have taken this training? Our most recent numbers from the most recent school year show we had 138,000 employees complete the training. What is that as a percentage? I would have to get back to you on the exact percent. I think it is roughly 150,000 or 160,000 employees total.

(02:14:37)

So that is not 100%.

(02:14:39)

It is not 100%. But I mean, if your policy is all employees and you cannot identify which employees have access to personal identifying information, I guess it makes sense to just train all employees. But even that — and this was in a report issued two years ago — even with your own numbers, you are not meeting your own requirements. Not every employee gets this training. Correct? Every employee receives the training, whether they actually complete it is a different question. I mean, we strive to have 100% completion and we are working towards finding ways to make sure that we get closer and closer to that number. It is extremely difficult given the number of employees we have. We have employees who are going out on leave, employees who are coming on. It is roughly 138,000 out of 160,000. Is that the ballpark? Yes. Okay.

So you have 22,000 employees not completing it — not necessarily teachers, just employees. You have 22,000 employees a year going on leave? Well, there is some flux in that number. But again, not all of those employees necessarily have access, and we do not know which employees have access. So you made a smart decision to require all employees to complete this training, but it does not sound like a requirement. It sounds like a desire. So what steps are being taken to ensure that all employees who have access to this information get the training that you require?

(02:16:20)

Yeah, it is a requirement. Whether or not we can actually ensure 100% completion is the challenge. We send out the annual training every fall at the beginning of every school year. We give a deadline to complete the training. We send out multiple reminders to staff who have not completed the training. We will send out...

(02:16:41)

...reminders even after the deadline passes, continuing to send reminders. Along those lines, part of the updates to the Chancellor's Regulation A-820 was to require supervisors to make sure that their supervised employees are completing the training, and...

(02:16:55)

...when were those updates to the Chancellor's Regulations made? Those were made in the fall of last year.

(02:17:02)

So the only change between 2024, when this report was released and identified this as an issue, and now is that you told supervisors to tell their employees to complete the training? I am just... That was a change in the regulation, but we are continuing to try to increase our training completion percentage through updating awareness guidance. We send out principals' digest messages and superintendent guidance digest messages, so we are constantly trying to make sure that our staff are aware of their obligations and that they are meeting...

(02:17:36)

...those obligations. It sounds like a huge gap, and this is a report from two years ago. Yes. Let me jump in, please. I want to say that as somebody who supervises our superintendents and therefore our school-based staff, we take full responsibility to ensure that those adults who are working with personally identifiable information — we are doing everything in our power to make sure they are getting that training.

(02:18:02)

And that is the priority for our staff, and we will work with our team internally to make sure that that gets done. Okay.

(02:18:10)

Do you have goals for yourself? I mean, we can call them SMART goals or whatever term you want to use, but you are at roughly 80-something percent now. It was 73% two years ago. Do you have goals that you are setting for yourself in terms of ensuring that this — as we know, AI is changing rapidly, it is getting into the classrooms more and more, more and more vendors — I mean, this is important. So what are the goals that NYC Public Schools has set for themselves to ensure that this is actually a requirement? To me, that means 100% compliance. Yeah, I think the goal is 100% completion. That is what we are striving for, and we recognize the difficulty in getting to that number, but we are constantly trying to get to that number.

(02:18:54)

Okay. I will hold my other questions, but I am interested in hearing what steps have been taken since 2024. What changes have you made besides updating the Chancellor's Regulations and sending out more emails and principals' digest messages? What is being done to address this critical training that was identified in the Comptroller's audit? The audit also identified weaknesses in technical controls that were not disclosed publicly because they were confidential. Correct?

(02:19:24)

Yes, that is right. So is the...

(02:19:25)

Not in a position today to share more information about those weaknesses and what it has done to remediate them. I do not believe we are in the position to disclose. I think part of the reason why a portion of the audit report was kept confidential is because there is information in there that could potentially jeopardize our technology assets and our security posture — like your mom's maiden name, last David... social and first pet's name, something like that. But...

(02:19:56)

What that means to me also... I will say, the audit states the weaknesses involved system monitoring, unsupported systems and firewalls. Correct? Yes, that is right. And have any changes been made to your systems to improve system monitoring, firewalls and other unsupported systems? I could defer to... I, as far as I know, that work is underway.

(02:20:26)

The answer is yes, the changes have been made — or we are talking about doing work. Both.

(02:20:33)

Tell me more. Okay. I think I do not really want to go too far past what has already been disclosed. The areas... and this is common practice on the security side of an audit, that some of the information is not disclosed publicly, but it was disclosed to us. And to the extent that we said yes, we agree and could make the technical changes to improve security, we have either planned to do that or have done it.

(02:21:01)

So this again — this is a report just from 2024, and there is a confidential report you just shared. There were specific recommendations made in that confidential report. In those two years, in addition to whatever changes that you are implementing outside of the recommendations, in those two years have you implemented the recommendations made by the Comptroller's report?

(02:21:23)

Sorry, can I just... please?

(02:21:26)

What is the 2024 data you are referring to? I have a report for...

(02:21:34)

But the data was from 2024 in the report. I apologize. So...

(02:21:43)

How many of those... Chair, please. Thank you. Let me try to parse this because I would like to be able to answer the question. Yes. Let us say there were five or six recommendations. Okay, not disclosing specifically what they were, I think it would be appropriate for us to look at those and provide back as much information as we can about the status of each one of those.

(02:22:00)

Yeah, and I think — I mean, this is all part of a pattern, right? I mean, everyone from the... and the Council, I think we care a lot about the same things. But what is more interesting is the implementation of a policy that keeps our kids safe and keeps our kids learning. So I want to turn over a second round to CM Wong. Thank you.

(02:22:27)

Thank you. Based upon what I hear today, with inside the administrators — like principals and teachers — can you tell me which tools are being used right now? And was there a vetting process? Like, how did you choose these tools? Please answer.

(02:22:53)

Thank you. I want to... the digital tools that we have — we have a long list on our website of digital tools that have been through the IRMA process, which could probably speak to where to find that. In terms of what is actually being used in schools, we are currently working with our principals and superintendents to gather that information. Our current guidance — where we struck the fine line — is that this must have been approved through our IRMA process and adhere to all of our privacy trainings and regulations. At the adult level, there are tools that adults in our charge have adopted and are using for leader-facing uses. We are also gathering all of the different tools that are being used in our schools at the student-facing level. We are doing that now. But as we are collecting that, I just want to be clear there is a bottom-line expectation that whatever is in use has gone through the IRMA process. Okay. And if not...

(02:24:15)

Not.

(02:24:15)

Wait, let me be really specific. Are you using — by teachers, principals, administrators — are you using ChatGPT? Sure, some are. Okay. What about Perplexity? Perplexity — it is a search engine, not widely used. Okay. How about Claude? How about Gemini? Yes. How about Consensus? Okay. How about Copilot? Yes. Okay. Do you have to negotiate licenses for them or do you just open it up and start using it? Because my understanding is that you need commercial licenses for the site-wide use of these engines. Can you talk about that?

(02:24:59)

Sure. Maybe the two largest providers, like Microsoft and Google, have free versions of their Copilot and Gemini and also have paid versions that have expanded capabilities. In both cases those products have been approved in central offices and schools can purchase the advanced features, and staff can use the free features. That is based on existing licenses you have with Microsoft and Google. Correct. But no one has really looked into...

(02:25:30)

The engine — like, is this giving me the correct results? I mean, has anyone ever looked at that? Because the quality of these engines varies. Has anybody looked at that and said, "Gemini gives us better results than..." you know, it is like a comparison. I mean, our full expectation is that these are very limited use cases and that human judgment always has to be a core part of this, particularly when it comes to instruction. We want to make sure that it is always aligned to the curriculum and the standards that we expect.

(02:26:07)

And that there are much more trusted sources that educators and teachers should be using for those purposes. We do know that there are some cases where, administratively, for efficiency's sake, they can be useful. But even in those cases it is absolutely critical that all the adults who are using those tools are fact-checking and ensuring that everything that is being produced is accurate.

(02:26:32)

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, CM. Thank you.

(02:26:40)

I had asked about whether public schools were collecting biometric data. And while the schools may not be retaining that, it is my understanding that Amira, which is being used for reading support, is collecting biometric data. Is that something you all are aware of? What was the conversation with Amira around the storage of data?

(02:27:17)

Specifically... thank you for your question. I am going to turn it over to Tara, but I really appreciate you giving us also the opportunity to share how that is used. Absolutely. Thank you.

(02:27:28)

I mean, I think that reading is one place where this technology is, I think, going to be a lifeline. But in the same vein, if student voices are being collected and we are not sure where that might be going or who it is being used by, aside from Amira, that is a problem.

(02:27:59)

Thank you for your question. So Amira is using student voice in an interactive way with their agent in order to provide reading fluency practice and feedback targeted towards that individual student's needs. In terms of our data processing agreement with Amira and with all of our vendors, there is a one-year data... I am going to pass it over to Dennis, but as I understand it, after one year all data has to be deleted. It has to be hosted within the U.S. and there is no use of student PII or biometric data that goes out to any other large language model, used to train any other models, or used to be monetized. So using any form of student data is not allowed to go out based on our data processing agreement.

(02:28:50)

Can that agreement be shared? I am going to pass it to Dennis, who is the Chief Privacy Officer. Yeah, we generally do not share our data processing agreements publicly. Just like any other internal document, we do not... I mean, it is really hard to then trust.

(02:29:08)

There is a portion of the agreement that is posted publicly. It is the supplemental questionnaire. Does it include this piece about the deletion after one year? Yes. I do not speak to...

(02:29:23)

I would love to just be pointed to where that is. I also want to know, on reading comprehension, has there been a sort of evaluation to understand if reading comprehension is improving? I mean, I know that if I was using this in the fourth or fifth grade, I would be a much stronger reader. I struggled with reading and I think hearing someone else speak to me would be so helpful. So I am also...

(02:29:58)

...how this technology is delivering. So currently, due to the new nature of tools like Amira, we do not have that long-term data as of right now. We have it in lower grades that we can share — the current impact on public schools. But part of this tool evaluation framework and part of our research approach moving forward is understanding how tools are being used within our local communities, within our urban school district, in the rich cultural diversity of New York City public schools. We need to do that work. We also need to see what the vendor says. This particular vendor does have a very large research base. They have done their own... and what do they say? What is their kind of... what do they say a student can learn in reading? Like a grade level? Yeah, like — for the students who are using this tool to strengthen their reading comprehension, by what stage of the school year are they meeting that threshold?

(02:31:11)

I can follow up with the exact data, but I am going to tell you what I remember off the top of my head. In terms of students, it was students using it up to three times a week for 10 minutes a day who showed about a four-to-five month acceleration in reading comprehension improvement compared to students who are not using it. And that is for last school year, so we can share that.

(02:31:32)

Exactly. That would be great. And so you can see that...

(02:31:36)

Again, that is in the earlier... that is key to where we are looking. We are looking at screen time, we are looking at what use... but Amira is not a student sitting in front of a computer and just interacting. It is within the instructional program of the class. It is within the instructional program and high-quality materials at grade level of our New York City Reads program. It is a supplemental tool — that is not the core instruction. The teacher is the core instruction. When I visited schools that are using it, it is in small groups. It is extremely limited and it is not just one-to-one for an entire class period. So I do want...

(02:32:10)

To be clear, I think that is fantastic. And if there are other data sets that you all have — which I hope you are keeping track of — in terms of curriculum and retention, information retention or improvement of a specific skill, I would love to get a...

(02:32:27)

Hold of that. Okay, we will follow up with what we have.

(02:32:31)

Thank you. Thank you, CM. One quick question for... I just want to clarify — you said, following up on CM Hanif's questions, you do not typically share the data processing agreement. Yes, that is right. Is that a "you do not typically do it," "you cannot," or "you will not"? I think it is, as I understand it, our policy — we do not publicly post internal records or contracts. But that is a policy, that is a choice. And so it would be a choice to share that information with the Council. Correct. I would have to defer, probably, to our records access unit on that question, as they handle the disclosure of records. Okay. I imagine it is okay because you did not sign a non-disclosure agreement. So I am sure it is fine. So I think we can expect at least the Council to have those data processing agreements, because this also came up — a lot of concerns about this product, a particular program using Claude, using other platforms to process its data, which leads to a whole other set of issues. So we look forward to seeing those agreements. Council members, thank you. Chairs, I...

(02:33:54)

Have some questions about my bill for disability. Thank you for coming to testify. I just want to know — do you have the number of kids in different zip codes and different boroughs with special needs? How many, broken down by zip code, by borough, by race and...

(02:34:24)

By language access. So we do have, I believe, most if not all of that data. It is publicly reported in City Council special education reports. I do not have them at the top of my head, but we can certainly go over that data with you at a time outside of this hearing, if that is helpful.

(02:34:48)

Okay. And also, I looked at the data and 75%...

(02:34:55)

Of students with a disability in the public school system are Black and from the Bronx — a lot are Black or Latino.

(02:35:04)

And also, for the private school tuition reimbursed, only 24% went to Black and Latino students. Is that correct? And I am also... the tuition reimbursed — 71% went to white students.

(02:35:26)

Is this data correct?

(02:35:26)

So in terms of the students by demographic ethnicity in public school settings, I think you said 75% are Black or Latino. A little bit closer to 50% — a little bit closer to that. However, I do want to acknowledge your question and be very clear that the Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning, which is the division I work in, but NYC Public Schools at large and certainly this mayoral administration, are very focused on equity and integration of public schools. Our Chancellor has said very clearly about true integration, and that includes students with disabilities. So this is something that is very, very paramount — something that we are working on across the board as well.

(02:36:24)

So what for the last year has been reimbursed for special needs kids' education — more than $702 million — went to white families, and the white student body in the New York City system is 12.5%...

(02:36:44)

Of students with a disability in New York City schools are white. What is the City doing to ensure students with disabilities who are not white get the help they need? Thank you for asking that.

(02:36:57)

That is a focus of our work. I want to share that we have opened fully inclusive districts for autistic children in neighborhoods and communities that were historically under-resourced and unserved. In those districts, every student who is coming into kindergarten receives a high-quality program close to their home. One of our specialized programs, called Horizon, was intentionally opened in Districts 5, 12 and 14 just to start, because those districts often do not get the resources needed.

We have also hired and trained over 900 intervention teachers who focus on literacy and reading for children, and those teachers work primarily with students who have historically been marginalized — Black and Brown students. That is a primary focus of their work as well. Another thing that we have done is built out our assistive technology. There used to be areas where you saw a lot of assistive technology requests and other neighborhoods where you saw very few, and we have intentionally done training and outreach to families and staff in those districts and we have seen those numbers really rise. So leveling the playing field around assistive technology for our students and building programs in communities that historically have been under-resourced.

All of that said, CM, we certainly have work to do. I am excited about our work with the First Deputy Chancellor and her team on this kind of equity and inclusion for all students moving forward. We know that we have what is called an over-referral problem of Black and Brown — specifically boys — being over-referred for special education. We are really clear on that. And that is something that is paramount in training our school psychologists, training our school leaders and working through that so that the right children get the right services the right way, where and how they need them, not based on race, ethnicity or family income.

So lastly, I just want to share one other thing. We opened 80 so-called sensory gym sites across New York City. Before we opened these four years ago — we continue to make more and more; we started with 10 and this year we ended with 79 — before that, only families who had the money to pay privately or had the opportunity to sue NYC Public Schools got that kind of service and support. What we did is we built 79 of these that are free of charge in neighborhoods so families can access that for free and not have to sue or pay privately. So we are working on this very important issue from a lot of different angles.

(02:40:16)

I have one more question.

(02:40:18)

And I represent a large immigrant community. A lot of the time parents come to my office saying, "Hey, I have to travel an hour and a half to bring my kids to Queens to go to a special needs school." Do you have data to show how many kids in New York City have this type of situation?

(02:40:44)

Yes, we do have data on students who are enrolled in District 75, which is the city district for children with more intensive disabilities. Very often those children are going to school far from home because the program is not located in their neighborhood. What we are building in the three districts that I mentioned — and we are expanding our specialized programs to be close to home — is so children do not have to take the bus, get up at 7:00 AM and take the bus for an hour. But we do have data on those programs as well as students currently enrolled in District 75.

(02:41:22)

Do you also have the data for the family? Because I represent large immigrant families, a lot of families not speaking English at all. From the data that I see, the data is saying wow, five kids, family speaking English as a second language, these kids do not have services. Is that correct?

(02:41:48)

That is not the data that I have. Around one in five families who are not English speakers are not receiving services.

(02:41:57)

What you said is that they never received services ever?

(02:42:01)

If those are children who have been evaluated for services and never receiving them, I would very much want to look into that because that is not something that we see in the data set that we have.

(02:42:16)

A lot of the time the family does not speak English. They do not know, they do not have access to the data. They do not even know where to report this situation.

(02:42:28)

There are a lot of resources that we have for families who do not speak English, or even families who are new to New York, on how they can get services quickly for their child without even any documentation, and we would love to have a conversation with you on what we should do better to get that word out to families, because those services do exist and we want families to feel that they can ask. Sometimes we hear that families are fearful to ask based on immigration status or if they are not comfortable with the English language, and we want to do everything possible. If we have to do more, we certainly would be willing and happy to do more to reach more families.

One thing I do want to say, since we have the first deputy chancellor and her team here, is that the first stop for any family is their school. If a family is not receiving the service and support that they need, the first place that they should go and be supported is in their child's school as well.

(02:43:36)

And the question from the hearing we already raised about bus routes for students with disabilities relates to our everyday situation. When this type of situation happens, the City permits bus routes up to two hours each day in a round trip route.

(02:44:03)

An hour and a half each way. Is there any way we can fix this issue? So in terms of the busing issue, I will just say that as a system, the best way for us to fix that issue is to continue to open more specialized programs for students with disabilities in their home and local communities. That is something we have been advocating for. The chair has heard this very often from us and we know these programs work. That is our best way to resolve part of the busing issue — not to put children with disabilities on buses to

(02:44:48)

travel an hour from their home. If we have all the services in the neighborhoods, then it will be much easier. If we can have the data, it is easier.

(02:44:58)

Thank you. We will share that District 75 data with you. Thank you. Thank you.

(02:45:02)

I want to personally thank you because I think you know how important it is to support our students with disabilities, and I appreciate your legislation on this. I will remind everyone that according to testimony during our executive budget hearings, I think we are all in agreement that we do need to open up more specialized programs for students, and there is a little roadblock called OMB — that was the testimony from the last hearing.

I want to go back to the audit, but before that I just want to go to the tool review. I am a little confused by the guidance that currently exists on your website, so if you could walk us through that, it would be very helpful.

(02:45:44)

The current guidance says the Enterprise Requests Management Application, IRMA, is the Department's privacy and security review process. The guidance also says that tools cannot be used with any student or staff data unless they pass the IRMA process. Correct. Okay.

(02:46:03)

For the record, they nodded their heads yes. Oh, sorry. Yes. No, it is yes. That just means you are good listeners, that is all. But the guidance says IRMA does not evaluate algorithmic bias, equity impact or instructional effectiveness. Correct? Correct. But you also say on another part of the website that the legal team reviews bias. Does the legal team review bias? No. I do not — that may be a misprint on the website. I am not sure what party should have had a fact check on your website. Possibly. I am just kidding. Relax, everyone.

I just want to read it to you so we are on the same page. Legal and compliance review: NYC Public Schools teams review legal terms, privacy protections, security measures, instructional value and specific issues like bias and transparency. So you are saying that that is a typo? Transparency is something that gets conducted as part of it, but that is not the same as bias. I mean, word by word, bias is there. So you are saying that this team does not review for bias. Okay. So it is on the website, so I am sure your webmaster will go and delete that right now. But this is the guidance that, by the way, has been up for however long — for weeks, or since it was published. It has been up for months. So please correct that.

(02:47:29)

I also want to add: IRMA does not evaluate algorithmic bias. We have been saying the legal and compliance team does not review bias either. Fix the website. NYC Public Schools is actively building the capacity to review for algorithmic bias. That is correct. That is something NYC Public Schools is working on.

(02:47:56)

One more question. Is the website accurate that NYC Public Schools are actively building the capacity to review for algorithmic bias? Yeah, go ahead, Scott.

(02:48:10)

I guess I will start. For tools that otherwise look like they have a great educational purpose, or maybe even an operational support purpose, I think we want to extend our review of that to bias. We cannot do all tools all the time, but for the ones that we want to use and will encourage our people to use, we want to make sure that bias is also evaluated. There are a variety of ways to do that. One of the best ways is to make sure the tool uses a curated data set to do its work, and we have several tools that follow that kind of processing pattern. But you do not have a policy that all tools — you do not have a requirement that all tools use a curated data set, or just the data that you allow it to use. Correct.

(02:49:01)

The tools will use a large language model in their operation. Yes. With a large language model, you know... So what I am saying is that NYC Public Schools is currently building the capacity to review for algorithmic bias in all of their approved tools and all the tools they plan to approve.

(02:49:27)

I think I just located the section that you are talking about in the guidance. Yeah, and I just wanted to ask — if Dr. Peake can come up. I actually just quickly sent it. I think this is the thing that you see, and I just wanted to know if Dr. Peake can speak to it.

(02:49:41)

Yeah, I will read it to you. Bias and equity review: IRMA currently evaluates data privacy. NYC Public Schools system is actively building the capacity to also review for algorithmic bias, equity impact and instructional effectiveness. But I am focused on the bias and equity impact

(02:50:01)

piece. Sure. So we started with the instructional effectiveness with the tool evaluation framework. The equity impact that we are looking at, particularly in tools, we started with exploring that through our ethics and equity fellowship — and to make sure I get that naming right — a teacher training fellowship over the past year, in terms of bias and equity impact in tools.

(02:50:28)

Given the amount of tools, and even across the private sector, there are not bias evaluations of tools readily available. So as the NYC Public Schools system, we are looking at how we can actually work with our existing partners at the enterprise level, and looking at our partners as well, with the directionality of OTI and what the City is going to do with bias evaluation and equity impact, because it is a new area, just like the research

(02:50:58)

within AI. But algorithmic bias is nowhere near a new area. It sounds like you are going to be having conversations, and your website says you are building the capacity, but it sounds like you are kind of talking about going to be working with enterprise partners to figure out what bias looks

(02:51:23)

like. That is kind of what I am hearing. I understand that is what you are hearing and I respect that as well, and I hear that. So let me try and clarify. Thank you very much. In terms of tool evaluation at our size and scale, algorithmic bias is something that we can evaluate for. Doing it at the scale and across the number of tools we have in NYC Public Schools is something that we have to do in development.

(02:51:49)

It is not something that we have ready at this moment. It is something that we are thinking through, working through and looking at in terms of what is available to us — what tools are available to actually evaluate the algorithmic bias within all of our tools. At the various levels we have enterprise tools, we have smaller ed tech tools, we have curriculum supplemental tools, so it is across a wide number

(02:52:13)

of tools. So whose decision is it to approve tools in the first place without discussing or figuring out what the bias or the equity impact is? The first step of any tool approval is for a principal, a superintendent or a central leader to demonstrate its educational value and impact. That is step number one within the IRMA process, so it has to be an educationally purpose-built tool. That is number one. I am going to pass on the bias part — not because I am passing the question,

(02:52:49)

I am passing it to Dennis in terms of what our current expectations are and what the current IRMA process has in terms of what vendors can share with us. It is not a requirement within our process at the moment, but it is something that we are looking to build into it. So I am going to pass that to Dennis.

(02:53:11)

Yeah, thanks. I will say again, like the legal side, the legal team at least is not evaluating for bias. I am not exactly sure which part of

(02:53:17)

the website you are referring to, but if you get it to us we could try to correct that, because I know there are other parts of the guidance and website that are clear that the IRMA process is not yet evaluating for bias. I think what we are talking about with tool approval is just from a data privacy and security compliance standpoint, which is really just the minimum floor for a tool to be used with student data. I think in order for a tool to be approved, it has to go through additional layers of approval beyond that. IRMA is just evaluating for the data privacy and security policy.

But given the explosion of AI and the challenges we face, can we commit to ensuring that bias and equity impact are part of the criteria you use to evaluate these tools, which you have already released into the classroom? Can that be one of the things you commit to doing?

(02:54:15)

So let me get to the answer first. I have a printout of the guidance. The section that you are referring to is under "Gaining Clarity Together: Concerns and Considerations." Earlier in the document there is a section, "How Tools Are Evaluated," and we clearly say there that the IRMA process currently reviews tools for data privacy and security. It does not yet evaluate for algorithmic... okay, today is not my day with this word. Actually it is — that one works.

(02:54:50)

It really is a terrible word. I just wanted

(02:54:54)

to show the nuance. This is how our tools are evaluated in section three, and that is under the considerations and sort of next steps. In terms of bias in tools, bias lives well beyond our tools as well. It is part of our commitment around ensuring a culturally responsive and sustaining curriculum. It has been part of our investment, even in the hidden voices work, behind the integration in our curriculum, because we also know that just our curriculum — we are always checking: is it representative, is it biased, what other primary source documents can we bring into a curriculum? So in terms of the ask on the tools, I am just going to take that as under consideration. I cannot commit to even the capability to do that as part of what we hope to

(02:55:49)

consider. I just do not want to lock in on the specifics of how we would be doing that. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think you should. I think there are certain baselines and I think it was testified to earlier — it seems that there is a very minimum standard for approving tools that can pose a danger cognitively, emotionally and academically to our students, and that we are not taking this a little more seriously in terms of the minimum standards is a little shocking, honestly.

We are putting the cart before the horse by releasing these tools without, it seems, the same guidance we would use for any other endeavor. But this is a new world and we have to really take seriously all of the elements that have been brought up today, including bias and equity. I do want to call out — because I asked where it was in the IRMA process — step six. According to the website, and I understand there may be a typo, but I did want to cite it: step six, legal and compliance review, the team reviews legal terms, privacy protections, security measures, instructional issues and structural values, and specific issues like bias and transparency. Number six.

(02:57:16)

I want to end with just a bit more about the State Comptroller's report.

(02:57:23)

About data breaches — I think very concerning to all of us. Correct?

(02:57:32)

Yes. Absolutely. Good answer. We are nodding again.

(02:57:36)

Okay, that is called saying yes. It is called implementing feedback — we love to see that. And of course, the Department thinks it is important to report data breaches in a timely manner when they occur. Apart from being important, reporting the breaches is required by Part 121 of the State Education Department's regulations. It requires notification of the State Education Department's chief privacy officer within 10 days of a breach. The Comptroller's audit reviewed 141 breaches and found that 67 of those breaches, which is almost half of them, were reported late. Explain why the Department failed to comply with the law in almost half of the instances that the Comptroller

(02:58:30)

examined. Yeah. Thank you for the question. I think as far as reporting to the State goes, when we have a breach — I alluded to this before in another answer — part of our difficulty is that we rely on either our vendors to come to us and report this information to us in a timely fashion, which unfortunately does not always happen, or we rely on our staff to come to us and report the breach or unauthorized disclosure to us as soon as possible.

I think one of the ways that we have improved on that front — and I think the figures in the Comptroller's audit show that at least we are trending in the right direction — is by improving our awareness campaigns and improving our training. I understand we are not at 100% completion for the training, but even that number is improving. We are finding that we are getting more staff who are aware of their privacy obligations, they are in contact with our office more and reporting more to us. So I think we are improving on that front. It is a tight timeline — 10 days to report to the State. So those are some of the factors that go into it, but we are moving in the right direction on that.

(02:59:43)

So you say about how you are attempting to ensure that professionals get the training so that they report. But what about the vendors? Our vendors are required under our data processing agreements to notify us as soon as they have confirmed an unauthorized disclosure or a data breach.

(03:00:07)

There are sometimes difficulties with getting that information from vendors in a timely fashion, notwithstanding what they are required to do. Sometimes vendors do not contact us at the right point of contact — they will, for example, contact a school and not contact the student privacy office, so we cannot effect notification right away. I am sorry, but that is not in their contract? That in the instance of a data breach they contact... It is, it is. But we still have difficulty with vendors complying with that part of the contract, and we are looking into different ways that we can strengthen our processes to make sure that vendors are going to be held accountable to this and to make sure that they are reporting it in

(03:00:49)

a timely manner. Would you drop a vendor if they do not comply? I did not say that. I know. I am asking, would we? Have we before? Would you? Have you?

(03:01:04)

Yeah. In the case of Illuminate Education, for example, that was a data breach that happened about four years ago. There was a pretty wide-scale breach that happened, and NYC Public Schools decided that we are no longer going to be doing business with that vendor. Okay.

(03:01:26)

So they failed to report after two years, and then once you found out about the breach, how long did it take to report to the State? The data breach. I am sorry, but what... you just said two years. Yeah. How long did it take for Illuminate to report to you, after the data breach, that there was a data breach?

(03:01:48)

It took...

(03:01:48)

I think what happened with...

(03:01:51)

Illuminate — this precedes my tenure in my current role — but Illuminate informed us of an incident, but they did not completely categorize it as a data...

(03:02:02)

...breach until several weeks afterwards. I think it was a few months before they officially deemed it a data breach, and so it was a matter of a few months from the time of the incident to the time that we were officially notified of a data breach. In the Illuminate incident, 380,000 families were not informed. This is what the Comptroller brought up — 380,000 families were not informed until 2024, more than two years after the incident and seven months after Illuminate had informed the DOE of the additional students involved. According to the website, delays in informing families can have devastating consequences because children are a top target for identity theft since they do not have credit ratings. What is the explanation? I mean, these are... in order to delay... so what I am asking about is: what explains the delays between the incident and the reporting of this information, according to the Comptroller's report?

(03:03:05)

Well, for the Illuminate case, there was actually... so there is the initial incident. We eventually received the information necessary to make the notifications, which is often part of the difficulty in the delay in getting the notifications out, as we rely on the vendors to get us that data as soon as possible. That can often take months — investigations have to be completed before we get that information. As soon as we got that information, which was about four or five months after the initial incident, we sent out the notifications. I think it was about a year and a half later that they came back to us and informed us that they had actually discovered that additional students had been impacted and had not initially informed us of. Again, we had to go through that process of obtaining the data from them, the whole forensic investigation, and go through our process of matching that with our own records so we could send out notifications, translate letters, all of that, and get that home as soon as we could.

(03:04:07)

The Comptroller found that the DOE failed to report breaches to families within the required 60-day time frame. Obviously, parents cannot act to protect their children's information or work to mitigate damage from a breach if they are not informed in a timely fashion that their child's information was disclosed. So what steps has the DOE taken to fix these lapses?

(03:04:34)

Yeah, that is a good question. I mean, I think again a lot of this goes back to our training and awareness programs, making sure that our staff are completing the training is very important, and we are pushing to get that number to a much higher level. No, no, I know. Sorry.

(03:04:49)

I want to be clear that we are talking about when the DOE — not one individual teacher or school — I am talking about when the DOE gets this sort of information. Unless... I mean, I think that if a teacher or principal submits this information to the State, I think we would consider the date of discovery when we learn of an incident, and then there is sometimes a gap between them reporting that back up to the Student Privacy Office so that we can then turn around and send the notifications. And when we do send the notifications, when it is a cybersecurity incident like in the case of Illuminate, we also do extend free credit monitoring and identity theft protections to students. Sorry — do you do that or does the vendor do that? We do that.

(03:05:40)

We do it, while the vendor reimburses us for it.

(03:05:46)

Okay, that is... that is, by the way, the minimum. I feel like there should be a penalty. But how are you reimbursed for it? That is sort of another area where we try to go beyond what is required by law, to make sure that once we do send those notifications, they have these resources — in addition to the increased training, or trying to get that number up to 100%, which is the requirement and the goal.

(03:06:12)

What is the DOE doing to fix the lapses? So you have mentioned the training. What other steps have they taken? I think what we are relying on is the reporting from all of our offices and all of our schools so that we can get this information out as soon as possible. And there is no... so you are saying there is no issue between once you get the data or information — there is no hurdle, no speed bump, no hiccup for the DOE to then report it to the State? Well, reporting to the State is one thing. I think we are talking about reporting — wanting to send notices to families. Yes, we are talking about notifying families. That is a little bit more complicated because we have to get the impacted data, we have to understand who is impacted, we have to — if it is a vendor that is involved — get the data from the vendor, then match it against our own records so we have contact information, translate the notices. Where is the 60 days? You have a 60-day time frame, right? I am simply asking if there are any additional steps, based on the findings of the audit, that you are taking to improve this and to ensure that you are notifying families within the 60-day time frame.

(03:07:18)

Yeah, and I think one of the things that we are looking into is ways to strengthen our data processing agreements when we are talking about a data breach associated with a vendor, to make sure that they are held accountable — that there could be penalties, for example, for not notifying us in a timely...

(03:07:36)

...fashion. Is that going to be in your contracts? Because I think the penalties are completely appropriate, in addition to reimbursing you for paying for families' data monitoring. Is that going to be included in your contracts — that there will be a penalty when there are data breaches? It is something that we are looking into including in our data processing...

(03:07:58)

...agreements. Yes. Okay. I mean, I think that is incredibly appropriate given the scale that we are talking about and the amount of student data that we are talking about — so not just talking about personally identifying information that you carry. We are talking about all the information that they are inputting into whatever chatbots or AI systems they are using, which goes a lot deeper, especially since kids — I hope you are teaching them they should not — are using these chatbots as mental health counselors and as friends and as buddies. Yeah, and one other...

(03:08:34)

...thing that I should point out is that when we are talking about data breaches and when the Comptroller's report flags data breaches, we are not only talking about data breaches that are derived from third-party vendors. Under education law, a data breach is any unauthorized disclosure. So if we have a staff member that is sending an email to the wrong recipient and includes one student's personally identifiable information in that, technically that is going to be considered a data breach. It is going to trigger all the same obligations under the law. I think a lot of the delays that we see are sometimes, again, the staff not reporting that to us in a timely fashion so that we can get the notifications...

(03:09:12)

...out. Okay. I think I am going to turn it back over to the chair. Thank you. So when talking about it — paragraph four states that vendors complete a security questionnaire covering encryption, access control and compliance standards, and NYC Public Schools' security team reviews and approves it. Can you clarify what compliance standards are referenced in this paragraph, and who are these standards issued by? Are you referring to the data security review?

(03:09:51)

Process. Yes, I am referring to the security check part of it.

(03:09:58)

Okay. I will defer to them for that question.

(03:10:01)

Sure. So the review...

(03:10:02)

...process that goes on within our processes is three steps. The data privacy review, which is legal, working with the vendor and getting the proper documentation, and then a review of the technology related to the system. We get into those areas that you just described — we have security professionals that know how to do that, and we have some tools that we also use to support that process. The third step is a review from OT, which also looks at the technology and its security and where things are hosted, and makes sure that it is secure from their perspective.

(03:10:44)

So but who sets the standards? Is it... okay. And then I had another question. When we find it in here... okay, here it is.

(03:11:01)

I...

(03:11:02)

I think a Council member had asked about biometrics, but we wanted to know a little bit more around behavioral monitoring, which it states is prohibited at this moment. Behavioral monitoring is prohibited in the guidance.

(03:11:21)

Correct. That is in the red area in terms of a feature of a system.

(03:11:25)

Correct. The guidance also says that NYC Public Schools is reviewing how existing policies apply to the use of biometric and behavioral data. So is it prohibited, or are you all exploring or studying or considering biometric use for behavioral monitoring?

(03:11:52)

So the biometric we talked about — it is illegal. Behavioral monitoring again is a red area. So I think in both cases, where we might begin to look at that is almost to be sure that if any tool comes in that begins to encroach on those areas, we point it out.

(03:12:14)

So you are not considering it. Yeah, we are not opening it up. We are making sure it stays...

(03:12:19)

...closed. Got it. Okay. And then, let us see...

(03:12:25)

Does the prohibition also apply to device monitoring, emotional recognition, facial recognition, profiling or any other forms of...

(03:12:33)

...surveillance? Yes. Okay.

(03:12:38)

All right, thank you. We have a number of follow-up questions that we will submit to you in writing. I want to thank the administration for coming. This is obviously a very huge issue that I think everyone here is really concerned about. We uncovered a few things. I think penalties for these companies that are involved in data breaches is perfectly appropriate, and we look forward to seeing those contracts, as was discussed in the hearing. There is a lot of work to do around tightening up reporting and transparency around these tools, and those are my two pieces of legislation that we look forward to discussing with you further.

And of course, as they started out with, what it means for our students cognitively — Dr. Chang mentioned civics and digital literacy, and we at this point in the City's history have an incredible opportunity with the Portrait of a Graduate to make sure that is embedded. You can decide, and we could decide together, to make that a requirement, to evaluate it, to make sure it is happening, and not wait for guidance from the State in order to require us to do it. This is our City. This is our school system, and we have an obligation to give our kids the best future possible, and that includes all of the things that were mentioned today. It includes protecting our children so that they have every opportunity that they deserve. So I want to thank you once again for coming. We will begin public testimony in a moment.

Thank you very much. Okay, we will begin public testimony in a moment. If you would all take your seats and your conversations outside. I now open the hearing for public testimony. My co-chair and I remind members of the public that this is a government proceeding and that decorum shall be observed at all times. As such, members of the public shall remain silent at all times. The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify. No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table. Further, members of the public shall not present audio or video recordings as testimony but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the Sergeant at Arms for inclusion in the hearing record. If you wish to speak at today's hearing, please fill out an appearance slip with the Sergeant at Arms and wait to be recognized. When recognized, you have two minutes to speak on today's oversight topic. If you have a written statement or additional written testimony you wish to submit for the record, please provide a copy of that testimony to the Sergeant at Arms. You may also email written testimony to testimony@council.nyc.gov within 72 hours of this hearing. Audio and video recordings will not be accepted. I remind you throughout the hearing that your testimony is limited to two minutes, and if you go over, I will just ask you to please submit the rest of your testimony in writing.

(03:17:53)

Our first panel — I would like to call students. Our first panel is a student panel: Selena Woo, Arianna Ahmed, Misha Joseph and Odin Adler. You may begin when ready, and please state your name for the record. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Melanie. I am 16 years old, a sophomore from Brooklyn, New York, and an organizer with the NYCLU 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 do not care about its impact. But many of us do care, because we are the ones experiencing these changes in real time. My concern is how quickly AI is being normalized in schools without enough accountability for student learning. Recently, my friend and I were reviewing a reproductive health slideshow for class and came across six sentences full of scrambled words, errors and unclear information. Our impression was that the teacher created the classroom content with a notebook tool, and we were shocked. Even though we were eventually able to make sense of it, we should not have had to spend time guessing what the curriculum was trying to say. Students deserve educational materials that are clear and accurate, especially when learning about subjects as important and personal as our own health.

That experience reflects a larger issue, something I have also heard echoed when talking to my peers. One of my peers recently told me, quote, although there is hope in some ways, students often use it to cheat instead of studying, and when exams come around, students can feel lost because they do not have that sense of security that they did before. Another student, my friend, shared with me that her school is shutting down and they are opening up a school focused on AI. She said, 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 that plan for an AI school was paused for now, what stood out to me was not the opposition to technology — it was a pattern of AI being normalized faster than students are being taught how to engage with it responsibly. Literacy has to mean something other than filling classrooms with products. It has to be an understanding of how and when to question these products and protect against the threats that they pose to teaching and learning. Students are asking for accountability, clear standards that protect student learning and standards that ensure human judgment stays at the center of education. Thank you.

(03:20:58)

You can start. Do not worry about the timer — go ahead and testify, they will figure it out.

(03:21:13)

Hello, City Council, and thank you for spending time out of your busy day to listen. My name is Odin Adler and I am a leader at the New York Civil Liberties Union Teen Activist Project. I am 18 years old and have just graduated from Urban Academy Laboratory High School.

(03:21:26)

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, and before I went to Urban Academy, I did not feel confident in my writing skills. We are 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, and now I feel much more prepared for college, which I will be starting this summer. I am sure there will be much to write, and I will be expected to come up with ideas for myself. Fortunately, I believe I can now put some of my many thoughts on paper quite well without AI.

That also helped prepare me for high school's frequent class discussions, where subject knowledge and critical thinking are essential. Knowing how to write without AI also helps creatively. I am not sure I would have had as much fun or learned as much in my playwriting class. I wrote a play that got acted out at my school, and my classes felt much richer for avoiding using AI to replace thinking.

Unfortunately, I have heard that official guidance on artificial intelligence is being sent to schools, which encourages students to use it for research, exploration and creative projects. This is unwise. I am concerned about guiding those in schools on 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. Students should be taught to think for themselves.

I am sure that as many people knew how to do so for a while before. That is why I am glad my high school is as restrictive of AI as it is, for both the writing that students produce and the creation of the material used to teach teens to be critical thinkers. I support that kind of restrictive policy. I am also concerned about the risk of student data privacy. Students should not be effectively forced to sign away their digital rights to big tech companies to fulfill a 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.

(03:23:24)

Thank you. Thank you, Odin.

(03:23:28)

Thank you so much. Hello, CM Dinowitz, Chair De La Rosa and members and staff of the Committees on Education and Technology. My name is Misha, and I am a rising junior at the Institute for Collaborative Education and a member of the Teen Activist Project. This spring, I helped plan a weekend event with hundreds of students to listen to their concerns about guidance, and there was a very specific session about AI. In that entire event, the conversation about AI went so far and so long that it went over time, and even after the session, we could not stop talking about how much we absolutely hate that policy idea.

Critical thinking is the whole purpose of our education. That is why we get graded on everything. AI is completely taking away our skill of critical thinking because it is doing the work for us. So what is the point of education if it does our critical thinking for us?

As students, we want real human teachers to teach us and we want real human teachers to give us feedback about how to improve our work, not AI. We also want teachers to read our hard work assignments, because we worked hard for all those assignments every single day, and we want them to get to know how we think and how we do our work as human students. So as human students, we want human teachers.

However, for many students today, there are insidious bots which tell them how to improve their work, and these bots are so insanely perfectionistic that they keep telling the students again and again to fix their work again and again, endlessly. This makes the students lose all the confidence in their own work, which is really very bad. At the end of the day, AI pushes us into a fake and unrealistic world. We do not want a robotic policy in this already robotic world.

For this reason, I am going to have hundreds of students who care and would like to request you to push AI away and to make a policy dependent on humans rather than AI, because rearranging a system around AI is going to destroy lives, and the damage that is done after this process cannot ever be fixed. Thank you so much.

(03:25:28)

You timed that really well, that is perfect. Thank you.

(03:25:33)

Hello, City Council. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is Lina Woo and I am a rising senior from Francis Lewis High School and a member of the Teen Activist Project. The AI market is growing at a rapid rate, which is why it is getting implemented everywhere. Firsthand, I know how powerful artificial intelligence can be. In fact, I have spent my past summers researching and building machine learning models at schools like Princeton. This is why I would like to oppose the use of this technology in the school system. My comments will focus on the use of generative AI products.

Firstly, the highlights of learning are the interactions and jokes my teachers make when teaching in my class. We start off every class spending ten minutes discussing different things, whether it is political, philosophical or controversial. These interactions not only create a bond between the class but make the classroom more lively and sharpen our thinking, which is something that not a lot of teachers and students can experience. Having to think about complicated topics and shaping them into concrete words is a skill that is vital for the curriculum as well. Offloading that to AI jeopardizes these human relationships and makes me, my classmates and my teachers understand each other less.

Furthermore, when AI is used in schools, it is often incorrect. Last year I had an English teacher who graded our essays using AI. Not only did it incorrectly deduct points from us, it also accused multiple of my classmates of using AI to write their essays. However, we wrote these essays in class on paper with a prompt given to us on the day of the assignment. There was no possible way for any of us to have used AI. We were unfairly given point deductions despite doing nothing wrong.

Compared to my current class this year, there is a huge contrast between my learning and my relationship with a teacher who uses AI compared to one that does not. Secondly, I have seen that implementing AI into the education system has made learning even more boring for some students. The rise of tools like ChatGPT and Claude has encouraged students to cheat and break numerous honor codes. But this issue is much more complicated than adults can acknowledge. Rather than implementing AI into schools and allowing students to further rely on such technology, I think there should be a focus on creating an engaging learning environment that addresses why students should not use such technology in the first place, by encouraging curiosity and making learning more interesting so students feel more confident, less afraid and find less of a need for AI. Thank you.

(03:27:38)

Thank you. Thank you so much. I have a couple of questions. Any of you can answer this. I often think there is sort of an assumption that kids will do whatever to make the work as easy as possible, right? If there is a chatbot available, they are just going to use it, right? Is it your feeling that your view is that you do not want AI in the classroom because you know how important critical thinking is? That has been your general view. You want more transparency and accountability. Do you think that is the view of most of your classmates, even the ones who use AI in the classroom?

(03:28:15)

I think, to understand the issue, a lot of the time, as we are not adults...

(03:28:20)

A lot of the time it is not necessarily... I am not being weird, but it is not important to do whatever we want to do. Definitely it is going to make our work easier. Definitely it is going to maybe make us think less about it. But what is the whole purpose of education? That is the main question. So if we really do want to learn, or make ourselves smarter, or want to think critically, then we definitely need a process of education where we need to think about something before answering, not necessarily a bot telling us or doing the work for us, because at the end of the day that is definitely not good for us under any circumstances. First of all, it basically takes away all the opportunities for us to learn anything, and the whole purpose is learning.

So definitely there must be some students who feel otherwise, but not a lot, because people who genuinely care about their future or want to learn would not follow such things. But most of the students, whenever I talk with my peers, and as I also mentioned, we had a conference talking about issues like that, people absolutely hate AI. No matter how much some people might say that they like it, they do not like it. They understand how it is also impacting the environment in many different ways. I believe AI use at my school is very uncommon. I do not notice anyone using it, especially...

(03:29:52)

...especially for their writing and their art. It is being avoided because when we are writing, for example in my playwriting class, this is art that people want to be creative about and they want to share with their class. They want to feel proud of it. It could be connected to issues that they care a lot about or personal experiences, and it would just feel so hollow. For example, in my classes, we have these class discussions a lot. My school is a consortium school, so that is probably why. If you are using AI to write something, I do not think you are going to be having a very compelling defense of your opinions or your ideas, and you are probably not going to be able to engage very well in the conversation. It is going to be boring. I think students want to be able to share their views on various issues and back them up with their own ideas and their own evidence.

(03:30:46)

Okay. Thank you so much to this panel. I appreciate your testimony today. Are there any other students in the room that want to testify and have filled out a slip? Okay, so this panel is dismissed. You can go back to your seats. I want to thank you. Thank you, guys.

It almost reminds me of how technology is pretty tempting. It almost reminds me of social media. Students want to be on social media, but I spoke to a lot of students who were so happy when they banned the phones, because it takes it away from them since they want to be engaged with their friends. Are you also a student? In the back row? No. Okay. Just you. Okay. You are the only one. Okay. Please state your name for the record and you may begin your testimony.

(03:31:46)

Good afternoon. My name is... and I am 15 and I am a sophomore at Queens High School for the Sciences. Today I come here to talk about two things. AI is part of it, but first I want to talk about Int 0684-2026, about geographic location and how it affects students. First of all, education and the quality of education is not the only thing that affects students. Depending on how far they live away from their schools, it affects how well or how much education they get. If they cannot come to school on time because of the transportation options we are provided, when these fail, students cannot receive equitable education.

Most students, especially those with disabilities or in special education, often live far away from their schools or often face more struggles in getting to their schools. This inequality can lead to a plateau of issues. Now I want to reserve the rest of my time to talk about artificial intelligence. It is not as simple as we are portraying it. Part of the issue is how easy or how undetectable AI can be. To ban AI in schools... this is AI-generated text. I can humanize it. There are softwares that could help humanize it, which turns the AI version into something that cannot get flagged by detectors, which teachers often use.

(03:33:41)

This is the same text after being humanized.

(03:33:43)

Now, they also...

(03:33:46)

Detectors historically do not work, and I think that even when they can work, they do not work quickly enough.

(03:33:50)

This is a speech from a public figure that is getting flagged at 40%. If we cannot regulate AI, or if we do regulate AI, it will eventually affect innocent students who did not use it. That will be all.

(03:34:14)

Thank you. I have a very famous alum from your school. His name is Alejandro Carbajal. He is right next to me. We are getting a new building, I heard. Congratulations. Yes, thank you. That was all him. I do not know who he is building it with. Thank you so much. I am kidding. Thank you so much for your testimony today. Thank you.

This is the next panel, and as always, if I mispronounce a name, I apologize in advance and you will correct me for the record. Tonight: Nasser, Frederick, Edgar, Edgar Trout, Travis...

(03:35:19)

Okay. Hi. My name is... from the Collaborative Research Center for Resilience, which conducts investigative and community-centered research to ensure the government's use of technology advances the public good and democracy. I am also speaking as a member of the AI Moratorium Coalition.

The data privacy officer mentioned that schools have the right to share student data with school officials, but he neglected to mention that most vendors in New York City Public Schools are designated as school officials. The Department of Education does list its FERPA vendors on its website. This list includes the mandated curriculum platform which hosts Amiira. Amiira has taken a major investment from the investor branch of Amazon's Alexa. It is owned by the private equity firm Paradox Capital, which also currently owns the company that is contracted to build a database. Companies consulted on the DOE's preliminary AI guidelines, including Centr and Salesforce, also maintain quiet contracts with Customs and Border Patrol.

The data privacy officer needs to better explain why data privacy agreements are not available to the public, because it is a great cause of alarm for parents, teachers and students who are concerned that student data is being used for third-party product development and even contributing to higher-resolution databases used by the Department of Homeland Security. The public also does not have a way of verifying whether a vendor has undergone an IRMA approval process. We do not know whether Amiira's AI add-on features are IRMA-approved or if they are considered approved based on pre-existing approval.

Take a company like iReady, which is facing multiple class action lawsuits around the country for wrongly sharing student data. Even where there is overwhelming community mobilization against a vendor such as iReady, most districts are too dependent on the product to cancel their contract with the vendor. The real concern around AI is private equity and venture capital backing consolidations around private solutions for public education. Beyond siphoning public spending for the profit of these companies and their vendors, a district's dependence on a vendor is a threat to democracy and to the kind of community engagement that the DOE claims to value.

(03:37:24)

Once the district is in a relationship of dependency with a vendor, the vendor is operating with impunity. Thank you so much.

(03:37:32)

Good afternoon, chairs, committee staff and the wonderful students in the room. I would like you to consider four activity categories when debating a moratorium on AI.

Category one: the top-down rollout of ed-tech tools by the central administration. A pause is prudent here, especially given the insightful questions of this Council. The next three categories, though, should live beyond the moratorium.

Category two is the bottom-up learning innovations by classroom educators. Imagine a lesson where students tackle an issue in their community, gathering data and stakeholder views for them to discuss, analyze and critically debate.

Category three is learning about AI itself. Imagine a ChatGPT story printed out on paper, viewed screen-free. Students then learn to uncover any biases in that output. Today's students must experience this as future tech leaders, policy advocates and consumers who will vote with their dollars on technologies.

Category four: teachers using AI tools to support lesson development. Imagine a teacher who prepares a supportive lesson after conversing with a generative AI tool about students' common misperceptions on the topic. Students benefit without protected information being shared. Encourage and support teachers to propose innovations and then rigorously review the ideas for compatibility with regulations, accompanied by specific professional development. Strengthen it by organizing co-creation communities of teacher innovators, community stakeholders and pedagogical innovators at higher education partners.

I cannot stress the higher education portion enough. As we think about what activities live outside a moratorium, we should remember that these technologies will continue to be used in the world. Our students will graduate and become students in college, where they will confront AI. We must be responsible in our use of AI, but we must also not do a disservice to our students by pausing the beneficial uses.

(03:39:38)

Thank you. Thank you, German.

(03:39:43)

Good to see you, Travis. Professor from Fordham University, a Chair De La Rosa proud distinguished alumna. Fordham University, good to be here today. Thanks for the opportunity to talk. You know, this hearing is tackling some of the critical operational questions the City is going to be having to grapple with. What our testimony at Fordham is focused on is a bit more specific question that a number of the students very ably raised, which is: when AI is in use, how can we ensure it is applied ethically, responsibly and with end users trained to use it with humanity, discernment and emotional intelligence? We can teach students how to ask questions, not simply generate better answers.

It is important to note that having conversations about the opportunities, challenges and concerns of AI is one thing a machine cannot do. Technology cannot replicate that. That is both our power and our blueprint. There is a global reckoning happening around AI. Just weeks ago, Pope Leo proclaimed that the dignity of the person must always be present in the technology. It is not by accident that the dignity of the person has not always been present in recent years. Careers in social work, teaching, ministry and the arts have frequently been deprioritized amidst the push for youth and young adults to pursue opportunities in STEM fields, understandably deemed a national priority driven by the need for economic competitiveness. But in some corners the humanities were outright stigmatized. The lack of balance is why we need this important conversation now.

At Fordham, we are following four general pillars of how we should approach AI. One is understanding the foundations of AI. Two is discerning ethical versus unethical content and uses. Three is how to augment, not replace, work product and workers. And four is recognizing when the use of AI is not appropriate. We are operationalizing these values through the construction of an AI ethics hub at our Lincoln Center campus, and I have included in my testimony a few of our key initial areas of focus as well as some of the community engagement we have done over the past year and a half to help guide that work. We would be happy to share that information with you if it is helpful. But the gist is this: we need a citywide training strategy that goes beyond not just education, but the entire citywide community. We want to be a partner.

(03:41:53)

Thank you. Thank you so much. I do want to highlight step three, Dr. Trout, in your recommendations. I think if you could talk a little more, just a little more about it.

(03:42:04)

Because I think there is an assumption that, oh, to learn about AI you need to put a chatbot in front of a kid. But you are highlighting that you do not need to use AI itself on a computer to learn about AI. Is that correct? One of the tenets of computer science education, which I am intimately involved in, is what we call unplugged activities. Just because you are learning about a computer does not mean you need to be sitting in front of a screen. And I again stress that if we work with higher education partners, we can co-design these experiences that teach about AI without doing some of the damage of extra screen time.

(03:42:59)

We were trying to figure out your name but I could not catch it. What is your name?

(03:43:04)

Tenaya. Yeah.

(03:43:05)

Sorry. My question is: you mentioned that what you are describing to me sounds like a loophole in the vendor system where if they are registered in-house. Can you explain that a little bit?

(03:43:25)

Yeah, I mean, that has been going on since the 70s. Ever since FERPA was invented, they never really defined what a school official is. So the construction company that they hire to do the cafeteria stuff — those are all considered school officials. Through No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Act, it became more formalized that vendors are designated as school officials. Most ed tech vendors and classroom application solutions and all that stuff, they function as school officials. You can see that on the website.

(03:44:02)

Yeah, that is what the data privacy officers did not mention, and I think that is an important detail to how data is shared to third parties — how schools can share data to companies without parental consent. I just wanted to clarify that because it is important.

(03:44:22)

I thought I had understood it correctly, but you explained it very clearly now. Thank you.

(03:44:27)

I just want to clarify, similar to the question for Dr. Trout: when you say a citywide training strategy, is your contention that we should be training kindergarten through 12th grade students, teachers and administrators? And when you say training kindergartners, do you mean using a computer or on AI, or is there some other clarification about what you mean by empowering K-12 students as creative critical thinkers?

(03:44:58)

For our university, our stance is this: we are not trying to convince people to use AI. We are trying to convince people how to do that critical thinking that the students were talking about — how to understand ethical versus unethical uses, whether that is on a computer or whether that involves other technologies. That is really where it begins for us, and I think that applies to all age groups. It is all sectors. It is outside of education. It is within the small business and medium-sized enterprise space as well. That is really our position. We are not here to convince people to use AI. We are here to convince people to understand ethical realities, discernment and to understand when it is being used on them, and if they do use it, how to use it well.

(03:45:37)

Thank you. Thank you to this panel. Thanks so much. We appreciate your testimony and look forward to continuing to work together. It is very clear that we need to do a lot of work and putting those guardrails in place, both academically and for safety purposes. Our next panel.

(03:45:55)

Ruth Lohan, Kron, Gracie Messier, Matt Henning, Larry Lieberman and Lizbeth Lucero.

(03:46:09)

Ruth is not here, just so you know. She is from my organization.

(03:46:13)

Please begin. Adrienne, ready? Please say your name for the record.

(03:46:28)

Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the opportunity to submit this public comment. My name is Elizabeth Lucero. I am the Deputy Director of Advancement and Communications at the Urban Assembly, and I am actually here on behalf of our Chief Executive Officer David Adams, who was delivering a commencement address at the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School. We really appreciate the Council's focus on AI, student data and privacy in our public schools.

At the Urban Assembly, we believe that AI has the potential to expand opportunities for students and educators, particularly in areas of college and career advising and instructional support. At the same time, we agree that AI must be implemented thoughtfully with strong safeguards to protect our students and ensure responsible use. From our experience, one simple lesson is true: AI works best when implemented in a human-guided way. These tools cannot replace the relationships and expertise of counselors, teachers and school leaders. We also believe that student privacy is non-negotiable, and our tools reflect these philosophies, which is why our schools have been recognized with Ed Safe for demonstrating responsible and ethical practices. These safeguards ensure that innovation and safety can go hand in hand.

At the same time, a focus on risk should not prevent us from pursuing opportunities. Our work with AI-supported instructional feedback has led to measurable improvements in teacher quality, increasing the use of respectful language in the classroom and an increase in lesson previews. We have also seen increases in student participation, with a 14% increase in talk time alongside a 14% decrease in classroom silence, which indicates an engaging and inclusive classroom environment. Beyond these numbers, our impact with students and teachers is real. As AI becomes more common, the question is not about whether it could be used for good or bad. It is about how we can ensure it is used to solve the biggest problems for our students. So thank you again for helping us figure out solutions and innovative strategies for our public education system.

(03:48:42)

Thank you. Thank you so much. Please make sure your microphone is on. Remember, red means go. One more person.

(03:48:58)

Good afternoon. Thank you, Council Members. My name is Larry Lieberman and I am here on behalf of MOUSE, a nonprofit that for 30 years has trained NYC Public Schools students and teachers to use technology creatively and responsibly. We appreciate the Council's attention to security and to artificial intelligence in the classroom. The answer, of course, is not avoiding AI education or distancing our educators from positive and helpful technology. The answer is more training. Teachers and our young people already know that AI is available. They need to learn what it is, how it works, where they are using it and how to use it safely, intentionally and equitably.

That is exactly what MOUSE's AI League does at 40 NYC Public Schools across all five boroughs, with curriculum created in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University that — to your point earlier — includes an incredible set of generative AI lessons using only whiteboards, markers and yellow stickies. In programs like MOUSE's AI League, students are learning how AI works, and knowing this helps protect them. We urge the Council to vigorously move to protect student safety while supporting high-quality digital learning. Together, our jobs include ensuring that NYC Public Schools students are prepared to be the future engineers and innovators at New York City's formidable employers.

Last week, 83 New York City teachers in Council District 35 attended a MOUSE generative AI fluency training. Yesterday, 25 more high school teachers in Council District 15 attended a MOUSE generative AI training. The demand among teachers for training is as large as anything we have ever seen in 30 years. Please come visit MOUSE in the classroom and get to know our teachers. Thank you.

(03:51:03)

Happy to.

(03:51:03)

Thanks. Good afternoon. My name is Gracie and I am a legal intern with the Disability Justice Program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, or NYLPI. NYLPI is here to testify in support of the goals of Int 0853-2026 and appreciates the Council's commitment to special education services. However, we encourage the Council to consider whether this study as currently proposed is the most effective use of the City's resources. Much of the information this study seeks to collect is already available through existing reporting. We encourage the Council to refocus the study to answer questions that existing data cannot, or to devote funds directly towards improved special education services. According to the City's most recent data, only 28% of English language learners

(03:51:51)

Sorry, English language

(03:51:53)

learners with individualized education plans receive those services in another language, and 95% of English-speaking students were fully receiving their recommended special education services while only 47% of Spanish-speaking students were receiving those same services. Data also show substantial differences in accessing services based on income. Students receiving services disproportionately come from low-income households, and students from higher-income neighborhoods are more likely to be placed in inclusive settings. Gaps in services fall hardest on low-income families and multilingual households, and advocates working with these communities have consistently reported the same barriers: delays in receiving related services, shortages of qualified providers, difficulty accessing bilingual services and limited availability of appropriate placements.

(03:52:47)

NYLPI shares the Council's commitment to improving outcomes for students with disabilities. However, existing data already establish that language, income and geography affect access to services. Whether through direct investment or more targeted study, we urge the Council to instead focus its efforts on ensuring that students receive the services to which they are entitled. Thanks for the opportunity to testify. Thank you.

(03:53:07)

Good afternoon, Chair De La Rosa and Chair Dinowitz. My name is Matt Henning and I am the Director of Government Affairs at TechNYC. TechNYC represents hundreds of companies from global tech leaders to startups that are deeply committed to the advancement of the tech sector in New York City and supporting the City's public schools. I am pleased to testify today on Preconsidered T2026-2129 and T2026-2130. TechNYC does not believe New York City's children should be treated as test subjects, and new technology should not be deployed without oversight, clear policies or transparency. But we are equally concerned about the risk of failing to prepare the next generation for a world where AI is pervasive. Without thoughtful guidance from trusted institutions, students will engage with AI on their own terms, not unlike what happened with social media. The answer is not to choose between adoption and prohibition but to build a transparent, accountable framework that earns the confidence of families and educators. That is precisely why I support the intent and goal of both of these bills. However, TechNYC does have a few recommendations to further

(03:54:13)

improve these bills. First, the definition of algorithmic tool in T2026-2129 is broad, and we urge the Council to consider whether to focus compliance resources on tools that genuinely implicate the concerns motivating these bills. Second, these bills layer new requirements on top of the existing Office of Algorithmic Accountability and IRMA framework. Implementation guidance should make clear how they coordinate to avoid duplication. Last, on T2026-2130, the first quarterly reporting deadline of October 31st is a fast-moving timeline, and we encourage the Council to work with the agency to ensure the necessary infrastructure is in place.

(03:55:00)

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. These are my two bills to increase transparency and accountability. I thank you for your recommendations to improve the bills. Elizabeth, I just want to understand something. You support our schools and you have chosen to adopt the

(03:55:19)

Ed Safe framework. To me, that means the DOE has not provided a robust enough support system and you have chosen to go one step further and use an outside assessment tool. Could you talk a little more about this decision?

(03:55:41)

Yeah, definitely. So one of our AI tools is used for instructional quality and it has been recognized by the Ed Safe Alliance. I am not 100% sure of the relationship that we currently have with them. Most of my notes are from our team who builds the tool at the Urban Assembly, and there have been conversations with some of the work that we are doing in our tech space, so hopefully that clarifies things somewhat.

(03:56:17)

Okay. It sounds to me like it is another evaluative AI tool, but we will look more into that. Thank you to this panel. I want to thank this panel for testifying today and we will move on to our next panel.

(03:56:43)

Someone with beautiful handwriting. Tell me the rest, please. Blondeville... I love it. Beautiful cursive. Blondmanville. Beautiful cursive. I meant it when I said it. You know, they do not teach cursive in school anymore. Catholic schools do. Maybe I will send my kids to Catholic school to learn. Okay. Shannon, Richie and Julie Zing. Okay, you begin, Adrienne.

(03:57:30)

Ready. Good afternoon. Chair Dinowitz, Chair De La Rosa, thank you for the opportunity to give my testimony. My name is Shu and I am speaking today on behalf of PLACE, Advocates for High Quality Accelerated Learning Opportunities for Students in NYC Public Schools. PLACE strongly supports Int 0684-2026, which calls for a study on how students' language status and geographic location affect access to early elementary gifted and talented programs.

Gifted and talented programs are unevenly distributed across the City. Many districts, particularly in the Bronx, Brooklyn and parts of Queens, have few gifted and talented seats. Geographic location should never determine whether a child receives the education they need. Every year, 10,000 families apply hoping for a spot, with just 2,500 seats across the City. There are simply too few seats. Equally troubling is the sole reliance on a subjective teacher recommendation for identification for the program's lottery. This process is prone to teacher bias and we believe it disproportionately harms immigrant families where the student's home language is not English. The current pre-K teacher assessment takes place just three months after students enter the classroom. As a result, many bright English language learner students may not be recommended for gifted and talented programs even when they are clearly ready for more challenging work.

We urge the Council to examine these problems and recommend concrete solutions, specifically the adoption of an objective evaluation measure in the early grades. Universal screening using standardized assessments will give every child a fair opportunity to be recognized regardless of language, background or zip code. By including an objective evaluation and early identification, we can ensure that students who are ready for acceleration receive the appropriate education they deserve. PLACE urges the Council to advance this bill so we can finally gather the data needed to build a fairer and more effective program for New York City students.

(03:59:47)

Thank you. Thank you so much. Michelle, yes, my...

(03:59:53)

My name is Michelle and I am a health and fitness educator of 40 years, a former adjunct lecturer in New York, a former instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology and at the American Red Cross. I am here today to represent those innocent American citizens who are being experimented on for the use of AI and to add to the supercomputer. Thank you for your service in these difficult times. I am speaking on behalf of everyday people who are Havana Syndrome or anomalous health incident victims, some knowingly and unknowingly, with the glaring awareness of the benefits afforded to our diplomatic counterparts helping American victims affected by neurological attacks. We certainly hope to the notion that one day we will be free from torture, pain, invisibility and the weaponization of technology. I do thank the New York City Council for all of those laws put into place, like the POST Act and the law that was just put into place about businesses accessing our biometrics and so forth. Everyday people with Havana Syndrome have been unlawfully experimented on and have endured targeting and various infamous matters. These heinous crimes include but are not limited to organized stalking. Thank you for those harassment laws also that are put into our workplace, smear campaigns, noise harassment, electronic assault from directed energy weapons, non-consensual human experimentation socially and technologically. Thank you so much.

(04:01:58)

Thank you for your testimony. Thank you.

(04:02:03)

Hello. My name is Shannon Richie. I am a parent of a third grader in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and a member of the coalition. I am here today to speak out against the use of AI in our schools and to encourage a push from the Council to reduce our usage of ed tech. First, I would like to thank the Council members who have signed on to our moratorium proposal. Thank you for listening to your constituents. To those who have not yet signed, I hope you are listening today. The department claims to want parent and student input but they could not be bothered to stay here and hear us out. So much of what they said today is misleading and misrepresenting what we are experiencing on a daily basis. It is nearly impossible to find real peer-reviewed data supporting the use of AI in education. So what are we doing here? Why are we not listening to scientists, researchers or education experts? Why are we simply trusting the words of salespeople, of representatives from ed tech companies? According to a New York Times article, Google claimed, quote, investing in schools helps onboard kids into Google's ecosystem, end quote. Schools are force-feeding kids tech products and most products are collecting, storing and selling private information pulled from our children's brains. This is a plot straight from a dystopian sci-fi novel yet we are living this reality every day when we send our children to school. Our kids and our teachers deserve more than being reduced to data collection.

Speaking as an educator myself, learning is driven by human connection. It is not merely pouring information from one source into another, which is essentially how AI products work. If we want a robust public education system, we need to nurture it and curb the over-reliance on screens. We need an AI moratorium now and this city needs to stop seeing our children as products being ripened for harvest by Google and predatory ed tech

(04:03:56)

companies. Thank you so much. I have to ask first — you said you would educate yourself? I am not currently teaching but I was a teacher. Very cool. Okay. Thank you.

(04:04:07)

Thank you.

(04:04:24)

I want to thank the chair and the members of the Education Committee. My name is... and I am a program assistant at Homecrest Community Services Multi-Service Center. I am also a mother of two daughters in NYC Public Schools. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of Int 0684-2026 and Int 0853-2026, the education equity bills introduced by CM Susan Zhuang. Homecrest Community Services supports low-income and immigrant professional families across southern Brooklyn. Many parents in our community care deeply about their children's educations but they do not always have equal access to clear information. They may not know about gifted and talented programs, special education services, eligibility rules, application innovations and where to go for help. Int 0684-2026 would require the City to study how language needs and location affect access to early elementary gifted and talented programs. Int 0853-2026 would require the City to study how language needs, income and location affect access to special education programs and services. A child's opportunities should not depend on whether a parent speaks English or understands the school system or lives in a neighborhood with more resources. In our borough neighborhoods like Homecrest in Brooklyn, families face many barriers including lack of outreach, translated materials, transportation challenges and uneven program availability.

These barriers can affect whether a child gets the same educational opportunities as other children or receives the special education support they need. Thank you.

(04:06:20)

Thank you so much. Thank you for your testimony and as I said you can submit the rest in writing. Okay. Thank you so much. I want to thank this panel for their testimony this evening. Our next panel: Craig Garrett, Kaiser, Lainey Hanson, Kelly Clancy and Liat Olenick.

(04:06:53)

Craig? Yeah. Okay, so Kaiser and Lainey will testify. Thank you.

(04:07:06)

Yes. Hi, my name is Leoni Hampson. I am the co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. Thank you for holding these hearings today. I wanted to start by addressing some of the misinformation that was spread by the DOE this morning. Google Gemini is used in hundreds of elementary school classrooms, installed on thousands of young children's Chromebooks and inserted into their education every day. So I have no idea what the DOE official meant when he said it was only used in a few high schools. Google Gemini was also cited just this week as one of the most unsafe chatbots on the market when it comes to mental health. I also wanted to talk about the PowerSchool and Illuminate breaches, which released the data of many thousands of former students. That data should no longer have been held by the vendor. State law requires data minimization and data deletion when that data is no longer needed to carry out services and yet the DOE does not require this. PowerSchool has been noted over and over for not complying, with breaches of millions of students' personal data a few years ago, and yet the DOE allows schools to still use more than 15 PowerSchool products, including Naviance, which more recently was cited as disclosing data illegally in violation of state laws and federal wiretapping laws.

A $17.25 million settlement was made by the court, which New York City families are eligible for, and yet the DOE has not told any families about this alleged breach or that they are eligible for a piece of the settlement. I just wanted to go on a little bit more but my testimony is very lengthy. The DOE has not been following... I understand, compliant with the privacy laws. That is why we recommended strengthening them and they did not use the recommendations that we proposed on the AI working group. Thank you very much.

(04:09:33)

Kaiser. Good afternoon. My name is Kaiser, community organizer with the Alliance for Quality Education. On Int 0853-2026, we oppose Int 0684-2026. All academic programs and services should be equitably accessible but there is no evidence that children eight and under can be reliably identified as gifted or that separating them from their peers is educationally sound. We encourage Council members to strengthen and pass the preconsidered bills to propose annual reporting and quarterly data breach reporting. There is no data showing that AI learning tools are effective or safe except claims provided by the profiteers. Yet the Chancellor has announced plans to, quote, beta test these products on our children, including in District 75. The bills should include public disclosure of evidence of efficacy. Algorithmic tools have been proven to have racial and gender bias. The bills must require assessments of bias and limitations in all tools in use. Kids' best interests, not profit, must be centered here. The bills should include public disclosure of the number and positions of all staff who have existing financial or other relationships with the companies that profit off of these products and those companies' involvement in developing trainings and policy. Unfortunately, reporting is not enough, especially when we cannot trust it.

There were many inconsistencies in testimony today, flagging staff either not having a thorough understanding of what their department is doing or misrepresenting it entirely. We are grateful that more than half of the Council has signed on to the call for a two-year moratorium for all AI in schools. Right now, kids are losing access to the most essential kinds of learning backed by extensive research: open-ended play, hands-on inquiry and culturally responsive teaching differentiated by skilled human teachers to suit their specific population of students and their layered human stories. Parents do not know what companies have their kids' data or what products are being used directly by their children, used to surveil them or used to shape their instruction. When they ask, the DOE either does not know or cannot say due to

(04:11:46)

...these unproven, biased, dangerous products are sucking up valuable classroom time and public funding. I appreciate your testimony today and as I mentioned at the very beginning, two minutes. Further questions are fine but I do also want to thank both... Elena, I know you have been particularly helpful in helping shed a light on some of the issues going on, your reporting on it, your participation in the roundtable. So I want to thank you. I want to thank you both for your testimony and remind you again that written testimony can be submitted to the Council at testimony@council.nyc.gov. Thank you so much. Our next panel: Steven Stowe, Beckham, Kali, Lisa Walker, J. Editing and Molly Cenac. First up.

(04:13:00)

I want to mix things up. I will start on my right this time. All right, go ahead, Molly. Great. Great.

(04:13:05)

Thank you so much, Chair and co-chairs. Good evening. My name is Molly Cenac. I am the employment community organizer at the Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York. Advancements in digital technology have provided critical access for people with disabilities to spaces that were previously far less accessible. It has meant the ability to participate in activities remotely, more consistent use of assistive technology and the immediate availability of practically infinite information — all things that can be and are incredibly valuable in an

(04:13:38)

education setting. However, digital technology has also made it easier to harass people, to perpetuate bias, to steal personal information, to spread or even generate misinformation and to erode many of the skills like critical thinking that schools are supposed to build. Over the last few years New York has struggled to contend with having to retroactively set up guardrails inside the classroom for technology that has already had the chance to become ubiquitous outside the classroom, which obviously we know includes a cell phone ban and an attempt to restrict social media usage for children and teens. Now there is a new technology that is developing rapidly enough that it is causing decision makers everywhere to rush to incorporate its usage for fear of being left behind, without necessarily considering that we actually have an opportunity to get ahead and avoid the problems that we saw with cell phones and with social media. As of right now, we do not know enough about it or about the impact of its long-term usage on students, including students with disabilities, to begin incorporating it into our schools without doing our due diligence. While we cannot necessarily protect students outside the classroom, it remains our responsibility to protect them as best we can within it. Just a couple of things — more details are in my written testimony.

We are looking at the impact on critical thinking, bias, misinformation, mental health, trust erosion and also the conflation of assistive technology with AI,

(04:15:05)

meaning that we do not yet know whether it masks critical symptoms and potentially delays diagnoses. Thank you. Thank you.

(04:15:15)

Hi. My name is Lisa Walker and I am a mom. So earlier the First Deputy Chancellor said that YouTube is not on devices. Both my... as far as I understand, according to New York State law, I thought YouTube is not supposed to be on these devices, but at my school every child has a device sent home with them as young as four years old. On weekends I can see on these devices that my children have full access to the internet, YouTube and no real safeguards. Parents can opt out of the device being sent home but it is still there waiting for them at school. The DOE says, well, at least there is software installed so they cannot watch inappropriate content. Well, that is just not good enough. The DOE has not fulfilled their promise to keep kids safe and to protect kids' privacy. We use two apps at our school against our consent. We use one app because at our school it is powered by an AI avatar that talks to children, collecting their voices. Many parents do not even know their kids are using ed tech at school or using AI and being recorded. Instead of putting the onus on parents to ask questions, parents deserve transparency and should be told what technology their kids are interacting with at school. We should also be asked for our consent. Our kids deserve an education focused on real social connection to teachers and students, not AI. Thank you. Thank you very much.

(04:16:53)

Okay. Oh, thank you. And thank you by the way for getting my name right. That is a rare and exciting occurrence.

(04:16:58)

My name is Jad and I am a freelance creative professional and the parent of a New York City student. I am speaking here today to urge you to adopt a moratorium on the use of predatory AI, better known as AI, in New York City schools. The case against AI in schools is really substantial, so much that I cannot fit it into two minutes, so I am going to focus down on something that people have not brought up so far: specifically that the largest large language models are built using the stolen work of thousands upon thousands of writers and artists. Especially in a city where so many of us make our homes, the adoption of technology built on our non-consensual, uncompensated labor and intellectual property is at best an insult. But there is a bigger problem attached to it, which is the fact that adopting that technology into schools means trusting those same predatory companies who stole all that information and all that work unapologetically with our children's sensitive data. We know that AI also undercuts children's social and emotional development and I want to talk in particular about its impact on adolescents because they are the age group targeted commercially and in our schools with the highest concentration of AI. It is bad.

The point is that the surgeon general has issued a health warning about adolescents and AI and that in itself is not much of a surprise, given that we have seen documentation in the last year that chatbots are capable of inducing psychosis in previously healthy adults and have driven multiple children to suicide.

(04:18:38)

My kid is not an adolescent. She is just about to start pre-K where tech advocates are already pushing an increasing use of AI. As you mentioned, kids as young as four are getting devices to take home. As a parent I want my kid to actually learn at school, not just facts but to think and reason for herself, to solve problems and to grow as a human being. Introducing AI as it now exists in New York City classrooms will stunt that same critical growth for my kid and for thousands of others.

(04:19:02)

Thanks for your time. Thank you so much for your testimony.

(04:19:07)

Thank you. You may begin. Thank you, CM De La Rosa and other members of the Education and Technology Committee. My name is Steven Stowe. I am a parent of two former public school students and I previously served on a Community Education Council. I am here to support Bills 684 and 853, sponsored by Council members. I agree with the premise of both these bills that many issues simply come from a lack of awareness and knowledge of what is available to parents.

It is very concerning that white families get the majority of private school special education funding. It was reported that 71% of the private school tuition for students with disabilities who could not otherwise have their services met went to white families, despite the fact that they make up only 12.5% of students with disabilities. By comparison, as the Council member was highlighting earlier, Black and Brown students make up 75% of students with disabilities but only got 24% of the tuition. This is a very complex issue with cultural, socioeconomic and educational reasons. In short, an unawareness gap exists. The City Council can take the lead on addressing these inequalities by advancing Int 0853.

For years, programs were systematically cut in Black and Brown neighborhoods for political reasons. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we also saw a steady reduction in the number of Black and Brown students attending the most selective high schools. I applaud the prior administration for starting to expand the number of programs in underserved districts, but more should be done. There is still not enough awareness of these programs and we cannot just make token efforts. We must continue efforts to address gaps in awareness, which this bill will help do. The Council can take the lead in addressing this inequality by advancing Int 0684.

In conclusion, the system does offer an amazing range of programs. So much of the issue is knowledge and awareness with parents. I support these bills and hope they are passed, acted on and used to improve real education policy in New York City. Thank you.

(04:21:01)

Thank you for your testimony. I will now call the next panel. Greg Pak, Christian, Adrian...

(04:21:21)

Savard, Carrie Hill, Arianna Rebellini and F.

(04:21:44)

You may begin when you are ready.

(04:21:55)

Thank you. CM Dinowitz, CM De La Rosa. My name is... I formerly used to be the Vice President and more recently the Queens representative on the PEP. I was elected by parents to both positions, not appointed by any politician. I was not going

(04:22:12)

to speak, but I heard a lot today that made me want to speak a little bit. Almost everything we heard today about contracts and privacy is not new. It was discussed at least three or four years ago, especially when the DOE had a hearing on it. We had questions, we gave a lot of suggestions, and I am dismayed to see that almost every good, sensible suggestion that was made has been pretty much ignored, certainly not implemented.

When I hear a term like "almost two years moratorium," it almost makes me laugh. Almost by default, everything that the DOE starts to do has a two-year moratorium. They are so slow to move on a topic like AI, which right now is one of the fastest evolving technologies. You have paired what I consider one of the slowest moving agencies in New York City with something that moves very fast. It is almost laughable that we are going to have an agency that moves very slowly trying to contain something that moves very fast.

I do not think there is any way to just avoid AI. It is the coming technology. It is here. It is a tool we need to use. What we do need to focus on is what are the safety measures around privacy and integrity, things like that. So let us forget about not letting it happen. It is going to happen. There is no way you can avoid progress, but we need to think about what guardrails we need to put in place. That should be the focus. Thank you very much.

(04:23:45)

Thank you.

(04:23:45)

Thank you so much. I appreciate you having us and allowing us to speak. My name is Greg Pak. I am a comic book writer and also a New York City resident. I had a child go through the public schools and I am a product of public schools myself. I am here because I believe that AI in the schools is child abuse. It is a form of child abuse. I do not use those terms lightly. Writing is thinking. If you get a kid to type in a prompt and generate text, type in a prompt and generate an image, and you say "good," you have failed. In fact, you have denied that child a human experience of thinking and learning and doing things. Kids are not products and they are not in school to create products. Kids are in school to learn, to go through the process. We should be about process, not products.

AI is also a tool of liars, scammers and fraudsters. This is its primary use case. Having kids use AI creates people who cannot think for themselves and cannot do things and cannot be part of a community. When a kid draws, a kid has to look at you. A kid studies your face. A kid takes note of the world and the people around them. If you deny a kid that chance by having them just type in a prompt, they learn nothing and they do not participate in a wider community. It is child abuse. I say it again.

I also just wanted to note that I support the AI moratorium in the public schools. In fact, we should go further. I also want to take note of the fact that there is a racism button on these machines and the billionaires can push that racism button on the machines, as they have, and we do not want that. Thank you.

(04:25:56)

No, I certainly do not want my kids becoming losers. You are learning something from our President calling people names. Okay, please. Thank you.

(04:26:07)

Thank you, Chairs. I am Mariana Rebellini. I am a mother to a soon-to-be second grader in Queens and a writer. I want to speak today about teachers. My entire life I have had people tell me my father changed their lives. Carlo taught high school English for 43 years and if there is one thing I know beyond all doubt, it is that my father loved teaching and his students loved him.

When he retired, we set up a website where former students could leave well wishes and it was a gift to see what they had each held on to, from high fives in the hallways to a new respect for reading. My dad was born and raised in what he loves to call the Boogie Down Bronx and rap has been a huge part of his life. Multiple posts shouted out Wu-Tang Wednesdays and Kendrick Fridays. I say all of this to highlight the varied and immeasurable impact of teachers and the incalculable losses our community will endure if we declare them redundant in the face of AI. If my father changed his students' lives, it was in ways that cannot be replicated by a machine. It is something living and indelible and unpredictable.

I cannot believe I need to say this, but educators should be people. Anyone who cares about children's well-being knows that. I know you know that. This is a disingenuous conversation. Last year I published a book about suicide, so I feel uniquely qualified to emphasize the dire emotional and material consequences of losing human connection. Isolation and alienation are killing us and I must note that Black children are especially susceptible. Chatbots, which we are already seeing being used as study guides and tutors, are certainly not helping. Our children cannot afford to lose even one person who is invested in their future.

I want to close with one message from my father's former student Rasheen. She wrote: "Your classroom is not just where I learned how to write essays or identify sentences, but it was where I learned how to be human." So when we talk about how AI is destroying the humanities, we are describing not only academics but more profoundly the very substance of life. It is your responsibility to protect our children's right to both, and the moratorium will be a good start. Thank you.

(04:28:11)

You guys are from the Bronx? He is both parents, both parents. Now you have got me. Where in the Bronx?

(04:28:16)

Allerton Avenue is where they were near. I was born in the

(04:28:18)

Bronx. You are part of the family, you know. You are welcome back anytime. Thank you. All right, awesome.

(04:28:24)

Thank you. Thank you to this panel. I am going to call the next panel: Iman God, Charlotte Pope, Anita Rad... Okay.

(04:28:49)

I will let you all decide. Fielder's choice. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Dinowitz, Chair De La Rosa and members of the committees. My name is Iman God and I am the Policy and Advocacy Manager at Girls for Gender Equity, a Black feminist organization that works to reshape culture and policy through advocacy, youth-centered programming and narrative shift.

At a time when technology is moving at an unprecedented pace, we are here today to urge the City to prioritize the education, privacy and safety of our students by redirecting all of the funds currently going to tech companies and surveillance tools towards organizations that are doing the work to support young people's tech literacy and towards proven safety infrastructure such as restorative justice and mental health equity.

Our youth-led organizing base held a town hall to inform the school demand campaign, a campaign with the purpose of uplifting the voices of young people and giving them the opportunity to ask their City for what they need. AI and tech were hot topics in that room of 70 students from schools across the five boroughs. Students expressed grievances that included the need for best practices for utilizing AI in learning environments, the racial disparities in access and education, climate-conscious ways to use AI and the desire to learn about data privacy, along with their digital footprint and methods to protect themselves. As young people from our youth programs reflected on their time in programs and the lessons they walked away with, one student said: "I feel like one way that I can achieve social justice is by telling my friends and family about consent in tech. I feel like that is very important to me now that AI is taking over, making sure that you are using devices that ask for consent before

(04:30:32)

they just take the information that you are giving them." Keeping our youth tech literate and informed about the importance of data privacy was a high priority for this year's program curriculum, to meet the moment and heed the call of our youth. While small organizations are doing the work to keep young people protected, the City needs to support these efforts by funding programming and safety infrastructures in schools. This is why we call on the City to fund Girls for Gender Equity in the amount of $3.2 million to continue equipping young Black girls and youth to fight for a New York City that is resilient. I will submit the rest of my testimony. Thank you.

(04:31:02)

Thank you so much for your

(04:31:06)

testimony. Hello, my name is Charlotte Pope with the New York Civil Liberties Union. Thank you for convening this hearing. My comments focus on the student surveillance industry, where "AI" represents an imprecise blanket marketing term with no set meaning. I note up top that we filed FOIL requests for non-disclosure and data processing agreements, and they are full of redactions under the trade secrets exemption. The refusal of ed tech companies to explain how their systems were built and what they intend to do long term protects these vendors from public scrutiny and has enabled big data systems that claim to do one thing to accomplish another thing, which is the accumulation of student information and public money.

Even where we can explain how a system works, there is still the question of whether certain systems should exist in schools at all. Schools are testing grounds for products that monitor school-issued devices, even simply the typing and drafting, tracking physical movements and social connections and friend groups, and synthesizing moment-to-moment personal data spanning across years. Some companies claim their surveillance systems can measure and track student emotions like aggression or generate an assigned mental health wellness score. All of this produces floods of sensitive student data for private harvesting and opens the door to a digitalized school-to-prison pipeline.

It was confusing to hear today that the DOE is not sure what surveillance software is in use other than GoGuardian, deferring that those purchases are made school by school, but also somehow very confident that certain GoGuardian products are not in use and have not been purchased. As you asked in the guidance, surveillance and behavioral monitoring products are both named as beyond the scope of the guidance but also never allowed. But what is their definition of behavioral monitoring and what is the mechanism for getting these prohibited products out? When students complained about enhanced bathroom tracking apps, which is surveillance, we deferred to principal discretion. The guidance claims, and we were told again today, that these apps must serve a clearly defined educational purpose, but we doubt that schools are convincingly articulating what they are asking these private surveillance sector companies to solve for. Thank you.

(04:33:18)

Thank you so much for your testimony. Hello, I am on the

(04:33:24)

air from Dignity in Schools. NYC Public Schools should be places where students feel safe and supported to learn. Yet excessive policing and surveillance continue to undermine student safety and well-being. While we appreciate Mayor Mamdani's executive budget's proposed reductions to school policing, we are deeply concerned by proposed cuts to restorative justice, the mental health continuum and immigrant family outreach. It is a missed opportunity not to reinvest the savings from school policing into protecting and baseline critical services.

The executive budget also fails to address the continued reliance on metal detectors, scanning and surveillance systems that create barriers to learning and disproportionately impact Black and immigrant students. Investigations have found that while 33% of high school students go through metal detectors, 48% are Black high schoolers, which contributes to the fact that in New York City, Black students make up less than 20% of the enrollment but account for 45% of suspensions and 52% of police interventions. Therefore we are concerned by growing calls to expand school policing, scanning and surveillance in the name of safety, despite clear evidence of their disparate impacts.

Schools are also increasingly adopting technologies that raise serious concerns about student privacy, data security and surveillance. Many AI-powered educational tools collect extensive information about students. These practices are particularly concerning for immigrant families at a time when federal immigration policies are expanding data-driven surveillance and data sharing systems. Families have little knowledge of how student data is collected, stored or shared, and these practices risk undermining student privacy protections under education law.

Rather than investing in tech that monitors students, schools should invest in human relationships and support systems that help students. We call on the City to stop buying student surveillance and scanning equipment and create a plan to use those funds to institute student support staff at a ratio no greater than 1 to 200. We call for a freeze on hiring for school safety agents and to generate $90 million in savings and use those savings to expand school-based restorative justice and mental health access, including $80 million to hire school climate coordinators in 500 schools. Thank you.

(04:35:29)

Thank you for your testimony. I need a row... are you okay? You will go after the Zoom and Dr. Saleh.

(04:36:06)

Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair Eric Dinowitz and Chair De La Rosa. My name is Khalid Jesus Ramirez, pronouns she/her. I am going to speak a little bit in the first minute about the work that the Community Education Council in District Four have been doing around providing feedback and policy recommendations for the Department of Education, not just around AI, which we have explicitly asked for a two-year moratorium. In addition, we are also asking for a reduction in screen time, as it is not an effective tool. We have spent over a hundred million dollars in contracts to be able to do screeners and assessments on our students that again are not informing us of proficiency and growth. So in turn, when thinking about the investments that we make in our students and trying to understand what helps students thrive, these so-called tools that the Department of Education claims to use to assess our kids are ineffective. That has been shown by the work of Dr. Jared Horvath, who continues to advocate for the fact that ed tech and the implementation of tech into our schools in the last ten years have significantly harmed our students.

I want to highlight also the work of Dr. Galia Saleh, a neuroscientist and developmental behavioral neuroscientist, who says that now we know that adolescence has been extended until the age of 30. The reason for that is because we are implementing these computers and ed tech into our classrooms and not giving students the opportunity to engage in experiential learning and engage in the science of learning. That means we need to take them away from screens and give them the experiences that they need and the relationships with their teachers and their community to develop the appropriate cognitive processes to be ready for an adult world. Unfortunately, we are not doing that in our classrooms by providing them with the appropriate resources to do that. In addition, we are implementing a tool that is racially biased and impacting the diversity of our New York

(04:38:07)

City public school students. Thank you.

(04:38:09)

Thank you so much for your testimony. That concludes the in-person portion of our public testimony. We will now move to remote testimony. If you are testifying remotely, please listen for your name to be called. Once your name is called, a member of our staff will unmute you. You may then start your testimony once the Sergeant at Arms sets the clock and cues you to begin.

(04:39:02)

Professor Julius Damjanovic, you may begin once you are unmuted. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. My name is Julius, and I am a professor of computer science and data science and the founding director of the Center for Responsibility. I have worked on AI governance in the City for nearly a decade as a democratic New Yorker. I have serious concerns, and they share one principle: the City should not run systems on our children that no one outside the vendor can see, check or hold to account.

First, prove it works. These tools are flooding into schools right now, fastest into low-income schools, because they promise to do more with less. Today the vendors grade their own homework. They self-certify that their tools are tested, equitable and safe. There is no independent yardstick. The City's own vetting process may check for privacy, but by its own account it does not yet review whether a tool is effective or whether it is wise. One in three New York City third graders cannot read proficiently. A tool that quietly widens gaps for multilingual learners scales that harm across thousands of kids at once. So my first ask: before AI reaches the classroom, require it to meet an independent efficacy and equity standard. Does it measurably improve learning? Does it work as well for English language learners and students with disabilities? Meeting that standard should be a precondition for procurement.

Second, keep the data home. How children think, struggle and learn is some of the most sensitive data we collect on young people today. That data flows out through vendor models running on private platforms where it can be maintained and reused with little transparency and little recourse. When I testified before the U.S. Congress, I called this a loss of data sovereignty — the moment data leaves your control. Third, keep the data open so that people can check whether these systems work. So in summary: prove it works, keep the data home and open the data.

(04:41:32)

Thank you so much for your testimony. If there is anything to expand upon, please submit written testimony. Thank you.

(04:41:47)

Okay, good afternoon, Chairs Dinowitz and De La Rosa. My name is... I am a proud product of New York City Public Schools, a former educator and policy staffer, and the founder of Augmented Intelligence Advisory, where we partner with schools to protect student cognition. New York City parents and advocates are organizing en masse against AI in schools out of a very real fear that students will lose the practice of thinking for themselves. They are not wrong. Recent studies by Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon and Anthropic show that AI use reduces critical thinking effort and weakens conceptual understanding in experienced professionals. If these are the effects on adults, the risks for students building foundational skills are even higher. Most concerningly, untethered use threatens to create a cognitive divide along socioeconomic lines. In tech-heavy households, adults model guarded use. In others, AI replaces thinking entirely.

The answer is not a blanket ban — it is pedagogy. I urge two immediate moves. One: deploy cognition-focused AI literacy in classrooms across the City, where students practice using tools under the guidance of teachers. This means students forming their own hypotheses, interrogating what they know before reaching for their chatbot, and treating AI output as a draft to push back against rather than a final answer. Teachers are already experts in how learning happens. They know when a tool builds reasoning and when it short-circuits it. Teachers, not vendors, should guide this work in every classroom across the City. Second: add a cognition check to the bill. The Bill rightfully assesses tools for privacy and bias. It must also require evidence of the tool's effect on student reasoning, giving representative teachers a formal sign-off on the process. Thanks so much for

(04:43:36)

your testimony. Next we have... you may begin.

(04:43:51)

Hello. We hear you. You may begin. Thank you for this critical hearing and your great questions. My name is Olympia Qassem. I am fighting for my third and fifth grader and I am the creator of Screen-Free District Six. From the testimonies today it is clear that we have immense communication gaps. Parents do not realize what is going on in their classrooms, and that the mandate for computer-based screeners and class curriculums like Reading Adventures and what I would call so-called academic treatment choices — pre-approved as free online games — have opened a tsunami on New York City public school students, educators and families. As a result, we are letting in tools that we actually know do not work.

There is a Columbia Teachers College 2024 study led by... that indicates we need textbooks, paper and pencils. If we care about our students, there is no separation between AI and ed tech right now. Their business model is that these companies test students at every step of the way. So let us be clear: not only do we need a moratorium for two years, but while we are doing the moratorium we need to develop not just guidelines but also meaningful tools for enforcement and oversight. My fifth grader, twice this year — in social studies and in literacy — used YouTube because that was what was assigned, and he plays Prodigy. Hearing the First Deputy Chancellor speak this morning was a slap in the face. She said that they do not endorse these things and that they are not supposed to be used. But then she said, "Oh, we have approved the free ed tech." Has she seen the vehicle? The free account prompts you to buy a paid account every five minutes during the so-called lesson. My third grader gets constantly asked by Google, "Hey, do you need some help?" because he is in Google Classroom. So let us be honest about what we are talking about. These things are only getting worse. AI just became mandatory for PATH this fall. It is big business and it is not working. It is an issue of equity above all. This is a system that was already failing before the pandemic and right now we have a wave of kids that are housed in our system. My time has expired. So let us remember that and...

my time has expired, but there were a lot of things said today that were not true, and it is sad that the Chancellor does not know what is going on. So thank you for hosting this hearing.

(04:46:13)

Thank you so much. Next we have Mariella Bennett. You may begin. Hello. We hear you. You may begin.

(04:46:26)

Oh, yes, thank you. I am walking because I am leaving from work. Thank you for hosting this hearing. My name is Maria. My daughter is just finishing fifth grade and she is going into middle school in the fall. I am so concerned about all of this technology in the classroom. I know so many parents living in Greenpoint who are so careful with their kids. We work so hard to limit the amount of technology with our kids, and now I find out that I am going to be sending my daughter to school and she is going to be in front of a screen with a chatbot that she is going to learn she can ask questions through. I think it is ridiculous. It is dangerous. It is almost

(04:47:24)

negligent, given all of the risks that we know of with technology and the internet, to put this in front of our kids — the most vulnerable population — and just hope for the best. We definitely need action right now. I know that this summer things are going to accelerate and I do not know what happened in the public schools while everybody was on vacation, but we cannot be so slow to do something about this, especially considering we are so fast to incorporate technology in the schools and yet we are so slow to actually do something to show that we care about our kids. Thank you.

(04:48:16)

Thank you so much for your testimony. Our next witness is Sonali Thacker. You may begin.

(04:48:28)

Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you to the Council. I am Sonali Thacker, parent of a rising second grader in Manhattan and an educator myself. I am an English professor. I am appalled at the sloppiness of the guidance that was released and I am strongly in favor of a two-year moratorium. The guidance does not offer, as far as I could see, one single affirmative, rigorous, evidence-based reason for the introduction of AI as a pedagogical good. Instead, the rationale for the guidance is that AI is here and here to stay, and so the school system must adapt and adopt. But this has a distinct flavor of "if you cannot beat them, join them," and it represents a capitulation to a supposed new status quo when actually AI's uses, benefits, costs and infrastructure are all contested.

The very last place to acquiesce to AI as some kind of foregone conclusion is in our classrooms. Our children are not guinea pigs for under-regulated and rapaciously profit-seeking companies to refine their products. Mayor Mamdani's victory was met with immense joy by many, myself included, and his administration's stated values are about resisting corporate power and encroachment, expanding childhood education and keeping families committed to the City and to public institutions. Throwing the door open with this guidance would be a stunning betrayal of those values. The administration cannot ask families to trust it to be a steward of childhood education and then announce that there are multiple domains — the so-called green light areas — where educators are told to proceed with using AI with confidence, even as that very same guidance acknowledges that the review process is not yet capable of evaluating algorithmic bias, equity impact or instructional effectiveness. In its own words, the guidance also acknowledges that the Department of Education does not yet have authoritative answers about biometric and behavioral data, academic integrity, family rights, cognitive impact

(04:50:16)

or environmental impact — seemingly everything. How on earth do you breezily tell educators to proceed with confidence without having this crucial information? I fear that parents with means... my time has expired. I urge parents to seek out schools that commit to much more restricted and considered policies. Thank you.

(04:50:38)

Thank you for your testimony. Next we have Jane Haddad. You may begin.

(04:50:46)

Hi. Thank you. My name is Jane Haddad and I am an AI policy, literacy and civic education policy and advocacy consultant. I have worked at the intersection of education and technology for 25 years, both at Columbia University and also working with secondary education. I am here to express my strong opposition to the proposed moratorium on generative AI in our schools. We are in a paddleboat facing a tsunami, and avoidance cannot be the strategy. A two-year pause will not eliminate the technology but will only diminish our students' agency in a world already awash with AI, leaving them less prepared for college, the workforce and civic life.

The proposed pause ignores the reality that AI is ubiquitous in our social, economic and political landscape. According to Pew Research, by 2026 approximately 51% of all U.S. adults now use chatbots, as well as 21% of the U.S. workforce reporting using AI in their jobs, up from 18% just a year ago, with 38% utilizing them specifically for work tasks. A Pew report on how teens use AI found that 95% of teens have heard of AI and their uses are diverse and deeply integrated into their lives. Over half of U.S. teens report using chatbots to help with schoolwork. 10% of teens already turn to AI for emotional support and that number is doubling to 20% among Black teens, according to a 2026 Common Sense Media comprehensive report on teens, tweens and AI. While 75% of students report their schools have discussed rules for what they cannot do with AI, only just over 50% have been taught how to use it safely. Further, nearly half of students have never had a conversation with their parents about

(04:52:43)

AI safety. Leaving students to navigate these high-stakes interactions alone is not the answer. My time has expired.

(04:52:52)

My time is already up. Oh, I am so

(04:52:53)

sorry. I would like to just say one thing for the Council: the Brookings Institute report, the basis of which was used for a pause, in fact does not call for a pause or a freeze. It has a three-pillar strategy

(04:53:10)

called Prosper, Prepare and Protect.

(04:53:15)

I appreciate that. I think any additional testimony you would like to share can be submitted in writing, and we will, as we always do, review the written testimony. Thank you so much for your testimony at this very important hearing. Thank you so much. I will now call on

(04:53:30)

David Monahan. You may begin. Thank you, Chairs. I am David Monahan, Campaign Director at Fairplay. We are a national nonprofit organization that works to enhance children's well-being by eliminating the harmful business practices of marketers and big tech. I am here today on behalf of thousands of our supporters who reside in New York City. I live in Massachusetts but I am a native of Brooklyn and a proud graduate of the New York City school system.

We hear the voices that are rising among the public urging caution and asking our education leaders to not use children as guinea pigs to test out unproven and unexamined technologies. Fairplay and our Screen Time Action Network led 260 organizations and experts in signing a position statement calling for a five-year pause on AI products for students, saying those products pose significant harm to children. The signers included Fordham Law professors, Teach Out, Jared Cooney Horvath and members of New York City's moratorium coalition. The position statement calls for a five-year pause on all products using generative AI that impact students in schools, which would allow time for school communities to learn about the implications and uses of AI in education, to ask questions and to provide feedback. The statement says that after the pause, products should only be introduced into schools if they meet five requirements: improve learning outcomes without causing cognitive offloading or impeding human relationships; demonstrate absolute safety for students; ensure they will not be used for cheating or academic dishonesty; consider privacy, civil rights, ethics, justice and climate impacts; and ensure they will never be used in place of teachers, especially for vulnerable populations.

Our letter, released earlier this month, won a majority of members of the City Council who signed a letter to Mayor Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Samuels calling for a two-year moratorium on AI in New York City schools. My time has expired. These experts say AI does not belong in schools until it is established that AI is safe and effective. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this afternoon.

(04:55:49)

Thank you. Maddie Dwyer, you may

(04:55:53)

begin. Chairs and members of the committees, my name is Maddie. I am a state policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding student data and privacy in New York City Public Schools. As a nonprofit,

(04:56:08)

We are a nonpartisan organization that works to advance civil rights and civil liberties in the digital age for everyone. A key part of that mission is ensuring the use of data and technology in K through 12 education is centered around privacy, security, civil rights, safety and trust, as has been acknowledged here today in this hearing.

Schools across the country, including in New York City, have rapidly adopted AI tools, which is reshaping how students, teachers and school administrators learn, teach and work. This heightened acceleration is happening even amid growing recognition of the risks this technology poses to students. Nationally representative polling research has uncovered four key risks that all increase the more a school uses AI: data breaches and ransomware attacks, proliferation of deepfakes and non-consensual intimate imagery, systems failing to work as intended and troubling interactions between students and bots.

The Council plays a critical role in addressing these risks so that the potential beneficial uses of AI in schools can be realized. In particular, the Council can take action to address risk management, governance and transparency, including encouraging NYC Public Schools to conduct more research on how this technology impacts students, establishing transparency requirements for AI vendors and mandating the creation of model procurement resources to guide purchasing decisions.

As the Council and NYC Public Schools evaluate the potential benefits and risks of AI use in schools, they should, most importantly, provide formal avenues to engage parents and students and use that feedback to drive their policy making. The written testimony I have submitted for the Council goes into more detail on our research, these policy priorities and highlights for your policy interventions. Once again, I want to express my gratitude for the opportunity to testify and remain available and ready to offer expertise. Thank you.

(04:58:02)

Thank you so much for your testimony. Lastly, on Zoom we have Alissa East. You may begin.

(04:58:14)

Thank you. Thank you, CM Dinowitz and CM De La Rosa. I am Alissa East. I live in CM De La Rosa's district. Thank you for representing uptown. I am not going to read from anything prepared. I think you have heard a lot of facts and data and very strong arguments against AI in the classroom. I am going to speak more personally about my son's experience with these tools.

Earlier, the Deputy Chancellor mentioned iReady and IXL. My child is no longer in NYC Public Schools. But when my child was in school, he was regularly given iReady and IXL, and these were assigned to him because of his learning differences. These were devastating to my child. I want you to understand that something that is built on the same technology as AI can be very destructive to a child's sense of self. That is because these tools, unlike a teacher, might recognize that a child is failing or struggling, and instead of identifying why the child is struggling, they take the child back to a lower level of learning that is utterly ineffective.

Some of these AI platforms give the child a SMART score. Now if the child is struggling, they are getting a low SMART score that has no reflection of their abilities or their intelligence. This is how many of these tools work and they are utterly devastating to struggling learners. They are devastating to children, whereas human teachers recognize and are skilled and trained to see: this is what this child needs. They do not need to go backwards. They may need a pivot or a slightly different approach. Ed tech does not allow this. Time expired. Thank you.

(05:00:20)

Thank you so much for your testimony. As a reminder, you can submit additional written testimony to testimony@council.nyc.gov. I will now call Anita Row and Joseph for in-person testimony.

(05:00:52)

Hello. Hi. It is amazing to see all of you in person. I spent all day with all of you virtually and thank you for hearing my testimony today. It was an impromptu decision. I flew over here real quickly, so if it is a little shoddy, forgive me.

You have an important, crucial role and it is a big one and we value your time. We all do as a community. I am Anita Row. I am the former president and now a member of the Citywide Council on Special Education, appointed by the Public Advocate's office. I am really excited to take on this role.

I am here this evening in my personal capacity and these are my personal opinions. Today we heard from City Council members, members of the central administration and consultants. There are a lot of different angles and approaches we heard today. The bottom line is there is a lack of adherence to federal law around special education. There is negligence around education on special rights and service management, et cetera. Many hearings could be avoided entirely if each and every school consistently provided special needs empowerment evaluations and more collaborative resolution practices to avoid gaps in academic and social-emotional learning.

I am going to stop right here. I will submit this as written testimony. But what I want to tell you is that AI has been present for a long time through assistive tech devices in special needs education. These ed tech software tools have been backed by AI and there have been no guardrails whatsoever. For example, Go Guardian is a vendor that exists within the DOE. However, it is not being utilized consistently. It is the choice of the school and the budget. Why is the DOE not mandating across the board that Go Guardian be utilized in the schools with teachers and parents having access? There are certain independent schools and some charter schools that are already offering this. Why can we not do this? Why can we not put this in place while we are implementing a moratorium, which I hope happens. Thank you for your time.

(05:03:29)

Testimony. That closes it out. Sure. Hey, no pressure.

(05:03:36)

I am Joseph. I am a parent at PS 184, not too far from here in the district. I think our school has a committee that we have formed that is led by one of the moms who is a psychiatrist herself and she is coming at this from the angle of: what is this doing to kids' brains? It is very focused on the youngest grades. That is where our concern is. I think you are doing another hearing that is going to be more about screen time, so come back for that. But for now, I wanted to testify to what I am seeing in my son.

A lot of it is like... he is looking forward to a particular class and I say, what is going to happen in that class, and he says, I am going to be playing again. It is dressed up as education but it is really a game, and whether it is supposedly learning about English or math, I think it is implanting an addictive type of attachment to technology.

I did listen to everything earlier and I was wondering whether we should advocate at the district level, the City Council level, the state level or the federal level. I really appreciate everything I heard from you today. I think there is a power imbalance between the DOE and the Council. It feels like you are almost like fighting for us as an outside entity, so we really appreciate your support. We would love to know what we can do as a parent association or as individual parents. Should I be contacting my Council member? We want to support you. Thank you.

(05:05:38)

Thank you. We do have one more on Zoom. Okay. Carmen, you may begin.

(05:05:54)

Okay. Thank you. I am the mother of two daughters who graduated from NYC Public Schools and are now in their early 20s. I am sure you have read about this, but in polls and in the reactions of speakers, young people of Generation Z have expressed distrust of and even alarm at the encouragement of AI use in seemingly all aspects of their lives. This is in direct contrast to the woman who was speaking before me, who said it is all over their lives and they love it. No, they do not love it.

One of my daughters recently sent me screenshots of a tool that was being used for a job she was applying for. She had been instructed to upload her resume to the portal, which then distributed it into various sections, transforming it as it did so into language which was not her own and, in her opinion, misrepresented her understanding of her abilities and workplace objectives. She confided in me that she had started to use AI on her resume but decided not to do so in the future because it was, quote, too easy and she did not want to, quote, lose her ability to write.

I fear that when she was younger, the same child might not have had this wise realization. Not that she was not wise at the time, but it is a bit of a mature realization, I think. It is terrifying that children who are going through this are feeling that they are going to be denied their abilities to develop as writers and as thinkers.

I just want to close by saying that I know a lot of the ed tech that is coming into our schools is coming in because we have an obsession with standardized testing and test scores. A lot of the screeners, the standardized corporate curriculum, et cetera, are all being put in at the service of raising test scores. Time expired.

(05:08:04)

Thank you. All right. I want to thank my fabulous co-chair, CM De La Rosa, my neighbor to the south, for this really, really important hearing. I think anyone who is watching can see that there are a significant number of gaps in AI policy. We already have these tools in our classrooms and yet guidance is not in place for a number of critical elements, including bias and equity, including student safety and including academic impact and cognitive offloading.

This is personal to us as parents, but it is also important to anyone in New York City who wants to see a bright future for our kids. Kids who are critical thinkers are going to be the future of our City. So we look forward to more answers and to policy that makes sense for our students, keeps them safe, keeps them protected, all while expanding their knowledge and making sure we have rigorous academic standards here in our City. Thank you so much. Thank you again, co-chair. Thank you to all the staff and the sergeants and everyone who testified today. The hearing is adjourned.