RESOLUTION
BY COUNCIL PRESIDENT COLLINS-BELLAMY, MAJORITY LEADER RUBBO, MAJORITY WHIP NORMAN, MINORITY LEADER BREEN, COUNCILMEMBERS, PINEDA-ISAAC, DIAZ AND HODGES:
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A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF YONKERS URGING THE YONKERS PUBLIC SCHOOLS BOARD OF EDUCATION TO ADOPT AGE-APPROPRIATE RESTRICTIONS ON STUDENT USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS SO THAT YONKERS STUDENTS FIRST DEVELOP THE CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS THEY WILL NEED TO USE SUCH TECHNOLOGY WELL.
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WHEREAS, the City Council of the City of Yonkers ("City Council") is committed to the healthy development, academic achievement, and long-term success of every child educated within the City of Yonkers; and
WHEREAS, the ability to think critically, to question, evaluate evidence, form independent judgments, and solve problems without reliance on an external tool is a foundational skill that research shows is best developed in early childhood, and which underlies not only a child's later capacity for informed citizenship, sound decision-making, and genuine understanding, but also the child's future ability to use powerful new technologies, including artificial intelligence, wisely and well; and
WHEREAS, elementary school children in the Yonkers Public Schools currently have access to artificial intelligence tools, including ChatGPT and similar generative AI chatbots, for use in academic research and schoolwork; and
WHEREAS, independent research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and a joint study by Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University, has found that reliance on generative AI chatbots measurably reduces critical thinking and independent analytical reasoning in their users, and that the more an individual relies on AI to complete a task, the less critical thinking that individual applies to it; and
WHEREAS, this same body of research finds that generative AI systems can produce responses that are confidently stated yet factually incorrect or entirely fabricated a phenomenon commonly known as a "hallucination," such that a student who has not yet developed independent research and evaluative skills is ill-equipped to recognize when the information provided to them is wrong; and
WHEREAS, the City Council finds that the effective, safe, and responsible use of artificial intelligence is itself a higher-order critical thinking skill, requiring the user to question an AI system's output, recognize its limitations and biases, verify its claims against independent knowledge, and exercise sound, informed judgment about when to rely on the technology and when not to; and that none of these abilities can be taught to a child who has not first been given the opportunity to develop the capacity to think and reason independently; and
WHEREAS, the City Council further finds that introducing artificial intelligence to children before this foundation is built does not prepare them to use the technology well; it does the opposite, teaching a child to defer to a machine before that child has learned to trust and exercise their own mind, and risks producing not a generation of skilled, discerning AI users, but a generation dependent on a tool it was never taught to question; and
WHEREAS, on September 2, 2026, the New York City Public Schools, the largest public school system in the United States, issued its final Guidance on Artificial Intelligence, which bans the use of student-facing generative AI tools, including chatbots and AI tutors, for all students from 2-K through the eighth grade, bars the issuance of individual internet-connected devices to students in preschool through second grade, and limits individual screen time for students in grades three through eight; and
WHEREAS, New York City Public Schools officials, in adopting this policy, stated that "[y]ounger students need hands-on learning, social interaction, play, and teacher-guided instruction" and that "[r]outine individual screen use can crowd out those experiences"; and
WHEREAS, the New York City policy further establishes that artificial intelligence shall never be used to make decisions about individual students, including grading, discipline, promotion, or special education placement, that all such decisions must remain in the hands of qualified educators and school professionals, and that any AI tool used in a New York City public school must first pass a data-privacy and security review before it may be used with any student; and
WHEREAS, New York City is not acting alone: the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest public school system in the United States, has likewise banned individual screen time before the second grade, barred students under the age of thirteen from using AI on assignments, and prohibited teachers from using AI to grade student work; and
WHEREAS, legislation currently pending in the New York State Legislature (Senate Bill S10133 and Assembly Bill A9190) would amend the State Education Law to prohibit the use of most artificial intelligence in classrooms statewide prior to the ninth grade; and
WHEREAS, as of the 2026 legislative session, education-policy trackers identified more than seventy bills across more than two dozen states addressing the use of artificial intelligence in classroom instruction, confirming that concern for how young children encounter this technology is a broad, bipartisan, and rapidly growing national policy movement, not an isolated position of any single city; and
WHEREAS, the American Academy of Pediatrics, in its January 2026 policy statement on children's digital ecosystems, cautioned that digital platforms which "prioritize engagement and commercialization" can displace the healthy developmental behaviors of childhood, and specifically identified the promotion of critical thinking as a hallmark of higher-quality, developmentally appropriate technology use; and
WHEREAS, the City Council finds that the elementary school children of Yonkers deserve the same thoughtful, evidence-based protection now being extended to children in New York City, Los Angeles, and a growing number of American states, and that this resolution is not a rejection of artificial intelligence but an investment in sequence: children who are first taught to think for themselves, and only later introduced to artificial intelligence as a supervised, age-appropriate tool, will grow into more capable, more discerning, and more efficient users of this technology than children who are handed the tool before they are prepared to question it; and
WHEREAS, the City Council further finds that Yonkers, as the third-largest city in the State of New York, need not wait for the New York State Legislature to act, nor be content to follow the example set by other cities; Yonkers has the opportunity, and the responsibility, to lead on this issue among municipalities in Westchester County and the Lower Hudson Valley, and to be among the first cities in the region to formally call on its own school district to put children's development ahead of unproven technology, rather than trailing behind others in protecting its youngest students; and
WHEREAS, the City Council recognizes that the Yonkers Public Schools Board of Education has sole legal authority over curriculum and instructional technology policy, and that this resolution constitutes a request and expression of the City Council's position, not a mandate;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the City Council of the City of Yonkers hereby declares its intent to lead, rather than follow, in protecting the youngest students of Yonkers from the premature and unsupervised use of artificial intelligence, so that those students first develop the independent critical thinking skills necessary to use such technology effectively, safely, and to their lasting advantage later in life, and respectfully urges the Yonkers Public Schools Board of Education (Board of Trustees) to study and adopt a policy governing student use of artificial intelligence in Yonkers elementary schools on its own timeline and initiative, without waiting for a mandate from the New York State Legislature; and be it further
RESOLVED, that this resolution shall take effect immediately.