New York City Public Schools, the largest school system in the country, has banned student-facing generative artificial intelligence tools in classrooms through eighth grade for this school year, adopting one of the most aggressive AI policies in the nation.

The moratorium follows intense pressure from parents and other advocates, who urged New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) to enact a two-year ban on AI in classrooms.

It also comes amid a more widespread backlash to technology that has spurred screen-time limits in dozens of school systems, including Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest public school district. Last year, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) banned cellphones from the state’s public schools, following similar actions in dozens of other states.

Mamdani’s plan calls for a one-year pause that he said can be extended or amended, depending on how the first year goes.

“This moratorium is a commitment to getting the future right,” Mamdani said during a news conference Wednesday morning. “Kids need to learn to think for themselves, they need to work alongside their peers, they need to learn how to ask better questions, and they need to learn what it feels like to not know the answer.”

The new policy also seeks to tighten screen-time limits for the youngest learners in the school district. The city is recommending 30-minute screen-time limits for students in third to fifth grade and 45 minutes for sixth to eighth grades.

Mamdani said the city will also disable AI components in more than 38 technology platforms that students have previously used. If AI capabilities cannot be removed from a program, the school district will stop using it.

Meanwhile, for older students, the city will pilot five “rigorously vetted” educational AI programs in some high schools, and introduce two 45-minute AI literacy modules designed to teach teens about AI-related bias, risks and ethical considerations.