Good morning. It’s Thursday, and it’s back-to-school day for children in New York City’s public schools. We’ll find out about new rules for artificial intelligence in the classroom. We’ll also get details about a City Council hearing on a breakdown that kept hundreds of callers from reaching 911 operators.
Artificial intelligence seems to be everywhere, but it won’t be in elementary and middle school classrooms in New York City. The city’s Education Department has banned A.I. for those students (and for teachers grading papers). I asked Matthew Haag, who covers education for the Metro desk, to explain the ins and outs of the regulations. The new rules mean that the students in public schools in New York City won’t be allowed to use A.I. until they enter high school. How enforceable is that? That’s a good question that doesn’t have a clear answer yet. Until this school year, elementary students and middle schoolers used instructional tools and apps that had A.I. features. They were intended to help students in reading, math and other subjects. But starting this school year, those features will be turned off. And if a tool can’t be disabled, the device it’s on will be removed from the classroom. There are 38 such tools that have A.I. components that will be altered or removed. But school leaders have not released the full list of apps. The rules set limits on digital devices and A.I. tools in the school system. How will that work? You wrote that the city’s Education Department can’t stop students from using A.I. tools outside school. The A.I. tools will be removed, and that includes Gemini, the A.I. tool that is built into the Google Classroom service used by students. That should go a long way during the school day. At home is another matter, and it will be up to parents and guardians whether to police a student’s A.I. use. The new screen time rules prohibit individual use of digital devices for students before third grade. From third grade through eighth grade, students can use their own digital devices but only for a set amount of time every day. And even then, the city’s Education Department is calling the rules “recommendations.” For older elementary school students, the recommended time is 30 minutes a day. For middle schoolers, it is 45 minutes. In high school, students can use screens without a set time limit if their coursework requires them. Once again, school leaders have not detailed how the screen time recommendations will be enforced. But it is safe to say that it will fall to the teachers. And enforcing the time limits will most likely be more difficult in middle school, where students can have multiple teachers. The teachers’ union has already said that it is concerned about how much of the new policies teachers will have to implement and oversee. City officials say the rules are some of the most restrictive tech-in-the-classroom regulations in the country, but weren’t parents who wanted a temporary moratorium on all A.I. disappointed? Did the directives go far enough? Yes, the New York policy is among the most restrictive for tech in the classroom in the country. But a few hours after it was announced, the Los Angeles school district one-upped it. New York City will allow some A.I. use in high school, but the Los Angeles Unified School District will restrict it in all grades. When Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced New York’s policy, he purposefully used the word “moratorium” to describe the restrictions on A.I. for younger students. He said it was a one-year moratorium. But yes, parents who had wanted a two-year pause on A.I. were disappointed that the city did not go that far. For teachers, isn’t there likely to be confusion? Teachers will be instructed not to use A.I. to grade assignments, but they can use A.I. to draw up lesson plans. There is already some confusion about what existing tools will be allowed. For teachers and their own use of A.I., the new rules are not that different from what the city announced in March in its preliminary rulebook on A.I. That guidebook said teachers could not grade assignments using A.I., but it did allow A.I. to help design lesson plans. I have heard from parents who say their children get annoyed when teachers use A.I.-created lesson plans — or those that appear to be created with help from A.I. — while they are held to different standards. The same goes for when teachers appear to use A.I. to communicate with students and parents, which is also allowed. A.I. isn’t all that’s new this year, is it? What else can students expect? There are also five new schools opening this year, including one that has received a lot of attention. That is the Bronx School of Hip-Hop, a high school that will have the culture of hip-hop at its core while students also explore the world of audio production and digital media. WEATHER Expect early clouds to give way to sunshine; the high will be near 87. Clouds will roll in again tonight, with a low near 69 and a chance of rain. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Saturday (Rosh Hashana). QUOTE OF THE DAY “Sometimes, maybe I can use my professional skills to help fans have an even better experience.” — Rosemary Marrugo, a mental health counselor who spends her three-week vacation volunteering as one of about 50 U.S. Open ambassadors, assisting fans with everything from selfies to questions about why there are no more seats available in Louis Armstrong Stadium. The latest Metro news
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The questions at a City Council hearing were angry: Why did officials keep quiet about a breakdown last month that affected hundreds of 911 calls? A software update was blamed for the glitch, which kept nearly 1,700 calls from getting through to a 911 call center in the Bronx. When asked why the city did not immediately notify the public, Lisa Gelobter, who runs the agency responsible for the 911 system, said that officials “didn’t want to deter people from calling 911.” She also said that her agency had not alerted police or fire officials that the software update was taking place or that it could affect the system. She said the agency learned of the partial breakdown at 6 a.m. on Aug. 18, almost three hours after it began. The agency did not disclose what had happened until late that evening, when The New York Times reported on it. “You should be embarrassed,” Councilwoman Joann Ariola, a Republican who represents parts of Queens, told Gelobter. “People could have died because you were not doing your job.” Gelobter said that an internal review had not “identified any death or injury attributable to the disruption.” The agency is conducting a “root cause analysis” of the breakdown, she said. METROPOLITAN DIARY Close encounter
Dear Diary: I was getting on the 4 at Union Square a few years ago. It was rush hour, and the train was packed. Slipping through the closing doors, I spied my friend Margaret sitting in a choice seat. She was reading and didn’t see me. I navigated through the crowd to where she was sitting. She didn’t look up, so I sat on her. Yep. I sat right down as if she weren’t there. It was so funny. She was flustered and blustered. Everyone around us was very concerned. I just sat there. Then I turned around to look at her. It took her a second or two to collect herself, and we both burst out laughing. It took us another moment to realize everyone in the car was having a good laugh, too. I kissed her, wished her a good day and got off at my stop. — Monique Morgan Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
