Opinion

Opinion roundup: New policies raise questions about AI’s role in education

Anya Basnayake, Kevin Dong, and Afarah Cruz-Tillery • April 22, 2026

With the growing popularity of AI, new policies have emerged regarding its use. For example, Chancellor of NYC public schools Kamar Samuels shared news suggestions for guidelines for the use of AI.

On March 24, Chancellor of NYC public schools Kamar Samuels shared new suggestions for guidelines pertaining to the use of AI. The suggested guidelines include a traffic light system to explain what AI can and cannot be used for. There are multiple examples for each traffic light category. For example, in red, AI is prohibited to be used for assessing students and making decisions about students placement for classes or programs. In yellow, students are allowed to use AI for research but the outputs must be reviewed by a staff member, and to translate texts into different languages. In green, teachers can use AI to explore lesson topics and to synthesize data.

With the growing popularity of AI and new varying policies The Classic interviewed students about if they think AI should have a place in schools.

“

“Students should be taught how to use AI in class properly. AI is a big part of our society, and it is not disappearing anytime soon. Instead of avoiding it completely, we should integrate it into our classes. AI is useful in many ways, creating study guides, or correcting grammar errors. When my teachers gives out tests, they usually have a list of topics on what I should study on. However, sometimes the study topics aren’t as straightforward as I expected it to be. I’d have to go back [to] my notes to find the information, often the information I need isn’t there or is hard to understand so I usually ask AI [to] explain it to me.”

— Freshman Vicky Chen

“

“Schools should definitely include [lessons on how to use AI]. AI is here. It’s not going anywhere. We need to make sure that students know how to use it because it can help enhance learning, but then it can also be used in negative ways like plagiarism.  So, for example, if a student in AP seminar finds a very long scientific report that they want to use as a source, but it’s 75 pages long, instead of reading all 75 pages, we instruct students to use AI to help outline it so that they can kind of see where each part of it is. But then they still need to go back and read those parts again. When you rely on it too much, that’s where you lose that critical thinking. Which is not good, because when you use AI, you need critical thinking skills that much more, because you don’t know what can be trusted or what it’s giving you.  I think if it’s used as one of many resources, then it’s good, but it can’t just be the [only] resource. Using it as more of a super search engine is fine. I think part of it is also educating students on it.  And to be able to say, ‘you can’t use it for XYZ, but you can use it for ABC.’ I think I can at least give some guidelines.”

— Mr. McCaughey

Donate to The Classic

$215

$1000

Contributed

Our Goal

Your donation will support the student journalists of The Classic. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment, support our extracurricular events, celebrate our staff, print the paper periodically, and cover our annual website hosting costs.

About the Contributors

Anya Basnayake, Opinion Editor

Anya is a junior at Townsend Harris High School, and plans to pursue a career in law. Outside of journalism, Anya enjoys playing guitar, spending time with friends, and watching movies. Her favorite Classic project she has worked on is an opinion roundup on cultural representation in events at Townsend Harris. In general, her favorite piece on the Classic is a feature article on the gender gap in MAGA and its affect on social life.

Afarah Cruz-Tillery, Multimedia Contributor

Afarah is a freshman at Townsend Harris High School. She is a contributor in The Classic‘s multimedia department.

Connor Chen, Photography Staff

Connor says that he wishes career-wise to be involved in the medical field. Connor’s favorite classic piece that he worked on was the SING new directors assignment because he got to see all of his friends celebrating the experience. His favorite classic piece made by others was the FON pictures because they were able to capture the essence of FON.