The Student-First AI Policy is a model policy that protects students by providing strict criteria to review and evaluate the use of AI products in schools.
We have the power to use collective action as parents, teachers, students, and civil society organizations to demand more. The Student-First AI Policy is a model for local school districts that reframes the debate on our own terms for our own communities. It gives our local school districts the tools they need to ensure that any AI educational product rolled out to students meets rigorous, evidence-based standards for safety, privacy, and efficacy.
The risks of cognitive and emotional harm to children from generative AI have been well documented. For example, the Brookings Institution concluded that the risks of utilizing AI in education overshadow its benefits, and Common Sense Media rated Google’s AI search features as an “unacceptable risk.” Widespread adoption of generative AI in schools also poses serious risks to privacy and equity, according to the National Education Policy Center.
Despite these clear risks, developers of education technology, including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI are pushing to deploy generative AI products into schools. Google has turned generative AI features on by default for some schools that already use Google education products. Education technology companies can claim that generative AI tools are being used effectively and "with guardrails" to ready students for the workforce, but often fail to back up their claims with independent data.
Their stated motivations vary, but an internal Google slide deck released in court documents put the concept plainly: “You get that loyalty early, and potentially for life.”
An April 2026 position statement signed by more than 250 experts and organizations laid out the risks and called for a five-year pause on student-facing generative AI in PreK-12 schools. It was followed in September by AI moratoriums in the nation's two largest school districts, New York City and Los Angeles Unified. Both school districts had previously allowed students to use generative AI but reversed course following local advocacy.
The Student-First AI Policy is the long-term next step. It provides a model vetting process for any AI tool a district considers for student use by requiring independent evidence that an AI product meets rigorous standards. While these standards to evaluate AI tools are high, they are necessary and appropriate to protect our children’s education.
Once generative AI products are entangled in students’ and educators’ daily lives, it will be difficult to disentangle them – something many school districts are currently experiencing as they reevaluate their use of educational technology generally. This makes now the ideal time for school board members, superintendents, parents, educators, and students to organize and demand a voice in the standards set for AI products, both for their own benefit and for future generations.
As researchers at the National Education Policy Center noted, there is a danger in allowing AI to “become enmeshed in school processes and procedures in ways that allow private entities to increasingly control the structure and content of public education, to reinforce surveillance practices, and to amplify existing biases and inequalities.”
Taking lessons from the successful uprising around data centers and AI-powered surveillance cameras, the Student-First AI Policy provides a way for ordinary people to make meaningful change in their communities. The model policy offers tangible suggestions advocates can bring to their districts to create concrete change for students. Because district-level decisions about technology in schools are often made at the local level, community members can use this policy to begin a dialogue with decision-makers.
We recommend using this model policy as one tool of many. Consider starting with these questions:
The Student-First AI Policy is the follow-up to Fairplay’s Model Moratorium on Generative AI Products in School. Bans and moratoriums give districts time to slow down and make informed decisions about whether AI should be used in schools, while this model policy provides a starting point for communities to set their own long-term standards.
To learn more about how you can get this policy implemented in your district, visit the Screen Time Action Network at Fairplay.
Parabola Center for Law and Policy, Fairplay, and The Critical Internet Studies Institute.
ACLU of Massachusetts, American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, Design It For Us, Distraction-Free Schools, Fight for the Future, Intersectional Innovation and Impact Labs, Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance, Massachusetts Teachers Association, Rudick Law Group, Sociedad Latina, Schools Beyond Screens, Turning Life On, and Dr. Faith English at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.