NYC NOW - NYC's Blizzard and the AI Debate in Schools

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

A record-breaking snowstorm hits New York City, bringing travel bans, icy streets, and the first full public school snow day since 2019. Schools reopen Tuesday, and Janae sits down with WNYC education reporter Jessica Gould to talk about how students and teachers are using AI tools like ChatGPT and what the city’s incoming guidance could mean for classrooms across the five boroughs.

Welcome to NYC Now, I'm Jenae Pierre. The Department of Education will soon release guidance on AI in public schools. On today's episode, we'll hear from some students, parents, and teachers about their thoughts on using artificial intelligence in the classroom. But first, here's what's happening in our region. An epic blizzard began wrapping up Monday afternoon, but not without disrupting New York City's public schools, public transit, and some road closures. The National Weather Service says the storm is one of the top 20 biggest snowfalls in New York City history, dumping more than a foot of snow on our region. WMYC's Brittany Crickstein was out and about reporting Monday morning as sheets of snow were falling.

She joins us now. Brittany, I hope you've thought out by now. Yeah, just about tonight. Good, good. I know you left your home and traveled to the Brooklyn Promenade and then went to. to Fort Green Park. What was it like commuting in all of that snow? Well, it was tricky. So I suited up, you know, ski pants, gloves, layers, a hood, the whole deal. And I left home around 545 a.m. And first I actually headed to the Barclay Center just because I wanted to see what a busy transit

hub would be like today. And I have to say it was eerily quiet for rush hour time, usually bustling with people getting to work and cars and trucks, there was practically no one out there. And that was true through most of the subway stations I visited early Monday morning. They were mostly practically empty. But I will say the subways were running more or less as normal, which was good to see. Yep. The hardest part was walking around. Now, today, the Olympics are over, but I felt like I was in an Olympic sport just getting around the city.

It was that difficult. Most of the sidewalks aren't cleared, so I'm walking in the plowed streets. I'm tripping over piles from the last snowstorm that are covered. I needed a boat practically to get through some of the slush puddles that are already out there. And you never know how deep those go. So it was definitely treacherous. I'd say anyone out there Monday truly deserved a medal. Yeah, Britt, you can go home with the gold for sure.

For sure. Thank you so much. So we know that Governor Kathy Hokel declared a state of emergency Sunday. Then Mayor Mumdani announced a travel ban Sunday night into Monday afternoon. Where does that stand now? Well, Mamm Dani announced around noon Monday that the travel ban in New York City was lifted, but he cautioned that roads around the city would still be icy. I continue to encourage all non-emergency traffic, cars, trucks, scooters, and e-bikes to remain off the roads.

He says New Yorkers should be really careful, drive slow. stay home as much as possible. And I saw some cars stuck out there as I traveled around myself. So I say driving is probably still not the best idea. Absolutely. I know I'm going to stay put for sure. So students had some good news. Monday was the first full snow day since 2019 for New York City Public Schools.

Any update on classes Tuesday? Yeah, Mom Donnie actually had a presser about that at 1 p.m. I hope our students enjoy their snow day today and stay warm and safe throughout, but I do have some tough news to share. School will be in person tomorrow. You can still pelt me with snowballs when you see me. So that means back to school for students around the five boroughs, which obviously is unfortunate. Though the bulk of the storm has already passed, another two-ish inches were expected to fall throughout the later afternoon Monday, according to Mom Dani. So it still remains to be seen how efficiently the city.

will dig out from that. Most places around the city got more than 15 inches so far. So time will tell just how quickly New Yorkers can get back on their feet, get those sidewalks cleared, get those subway entrances cleared, and all of that to really be able to resume normal life again. Yeah. I want to go back to the January snowstorm. That one led to more than 20 deaths. Have any debts been reported in this blizzard? Not so far as we've heard yet.

My colleagues and I have been communicating with the NYPD and City Hall, but they haven't really announced anything like that yet, thankfully. Now, officials have been adamant about spreading the word to vulnerable people out there. Mom Donnie on Sunday deployed 22 warming buses citywide and open warming centers at 11 city-run hospitals and 13 schools. And he said homeless outreach teams would be out trying to just convince people to get indoors. But that information just doesn't always reach everybody. I spoke to a woman Monday morning who was waiting for a bus near Brooklyn Hospital. She said she had just been discharged and was trying to get back to a nearby homeless shelter. And Jeney, when I asked her if she knew where to go if the bus didn't come, she said she wasn't sure.

She said she hadn't heard about the warming centers in the neighborhood. So it's tough to get that information out to some of these folks. Yeah, I'm sure. How was the city better prepared for this storm compared to the last one? Well, I think the full magnitude of this storm and its effects remains to be seen. I think we'll have a better idea of all that Tuesday and later this week. But so far I spoke to Jason Levy, who's a Department of Sanitation Worker, and he was driving a salt spreader around Manhattan neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Soho

from 6 p.m. Sunday night to 6 a.m. Monday. He says last month's storm really helped the team gel, like a well-oiled machine before this major blizzard. To cease a storm of this caliber, but to have the warm-up storm beforehand, you know, really helped us, you know, get into the groove of things, get into the swing of things, get how the shifts are all working out, how it, you know, to get on the plows when, you know, change of shift and things like that. So we were really, really prepared for it. Besides his own crew, Levy says more New Yorkers seem to heed warnings to stay off the streets this time around, which really helped the plows and spreaders do. their jobs. Yeah, but I know that New Yorkers didn't stay off the streets for too long. Brittany, did you see anyone out there having fun in the snow or are people just over it? Oh, yeah. I saw a lot of joy out there for sure on Monday, maybe even more than I expected.

And it wasn't just kids. And some of them told me they were excited to take advantage of the blizzard before logging on for work. Oh, my name is Anna Feldman and I'm sledding. And you're sledding. And what are you using? Can you describe this? A kitchen pan. It was too big for my girlfriend's oven. So we are using it as a sled today. And it's really good. So I'd recommend. How many runs have you taken so far? Probably like 20. 20 runs. I have to work at nine. So we're trying to pack it in. It shows that you're never too old for the magic of seeing New York City become a winter wonderland. As long as you do it safely, you know.

As long as you do it safely. And, you know, be aware, be cautious because under that blanket of snow, there may be some dog poop. That's right. That's right. There were a lot of dogs out there, and I have to believe that some poop went unscooped. That's WMYC's Brittany Crickstein. Thanks a lot, Britt. Thank you, In other local news, this year's MetGala theme has officially been announced, and it's drum roll, please. Fashion is art. The heady dress code concept is meant to highlight the Institute's corresponding exhibition costume art. Start getting those outfits ready if that's your thing. The 2026 Met Gala will take place on Monday, May 4th.

Still to come, should AI be used in schools? The Department of Education will soon release its guidance on the use of artificial intelligence. More on that after the break. New York City is about to announce new guidance for AI in public schools. City officials say this guidance will be released. least this month. But teachers and students have been saying for years that the school system has been too slow to respond to this transformative technology, which they say has already changed education for better and for worse. WMYC Education reporter Jessica Gould is here to talk us through

some of the impacts. Hey, Jessica. Hey. All right. So we know that AI has simply become a part of everyday life for a lot of people. And it's become a lot more prevalent in work. and education in the past few years. What do the students that you've been talking to say about all of this? Yeah, I talked to a bunch of kids outside of Murrow High School, which is in Midwood and Brooklyn. And they had a lot to say about it. I talked to someone named Alicia Mizuski.

And she says that high school has really changed over the past two years specifically since the introduction of ChatGPT. She says she only uses AI for studying and sources. Oh, right. I don't use it that much, honestly. Only to like, I can use chat GPT to say like, hey, what are some sources that are like good for like this sort of topic, you know, like for schoolwork and stuff? And then you go to the sources. Yeah, and then I check them out.

But she says she knows classmates who totally rely on AI for their schoolwork. I know this person who like passed an entire class just using AI. He would go, oh, I did not like even look at the essay that I just submitted. Another student I talked to, Ruthie Silver, says she also uses AI for study guides. I use it to help me study most of the time. Like if I'm too lazy to make flashcards, like I just kind of send a photo and then see, like, what happens. And then if I don't like it, then I'll just do it myself. But yeah.

So it's for study guides. Yeah. What about forgetting help on homework? Like take homes? I've used it like a couple times if I just really like try it and I don't get the work. But, like, otherwise, I don't really use it. And what do you use? My brain.

No, no, no. I mean, like, chat GPT or whatever. Oh, chaty BT, yeah. Yeah, okay, cool. But good to use your brain. I'm in favor. It makes me curious to know what those study guys actually look like. But are you saying that they're not using it for essays or stuff like that?

Maybe I happened upon a group of very virtuous kids. But they were saying that they don't use AI for anything that would be considered plagiarism. But they say that the teachers have really shifted the way that school operates because of concerns about plagiarism. It's changed the school environment. Yeah. So they're doing a lot more of their work in class, in class essays, in class exams. At the same time, teachers tell me, because they have to do so many of their assignments in class, there really isn't time to cover as much. as they used to.

Yeah. Jessica, can you tell me more about that broken trust you found? Yeah. I spoke with Evelyn Harris, who is also a senior at Murrow, and Alessia Mazuski again. It's like it's like just a loop. Yeah. But like you don't want us to use AI, but you're using AI to check if we're using AI. Sometimes it flags is like the wrong thing.

So like I know somebody. She has to redo an entire essay because the teacher she had used AI and to check her essay and said that she plagiarized it. So... And she hadn't? Yeah, she hadn't. No, no, no. Like, she could prove, like, in the documents, like, the time she edited and stuff,

like, she completely wrote it. Wow. That's rough. That's rough. It just basically has us jump through more hoops to, like, try to prove that what we wrote was human, you know? Yeah. And it's, like, a little, you know, demotivating sometimes. She says AI is creating this kind of loop

where teachers are reliant on AI tools to check if students are using AI. and students are using AI to disguise it from their teachers. For plagiarism. Right. Yeah. Let's talk about plagiarism a bit. I know we're still waiting on the Department of Education's guidance,

but what has been said so far on AI use as plagiarism? Yeah, the Dewee has been inconsistent in its policy toward AI. For example, when ChatGPD launched, first the city banned it in the public schools, and they cited negative impacts on student learning. and then they lifted the ban. David Banks, who was schools chancellor at the time, said, the knee-jerk fear and risk overlooked the potential of generative AI to support students and teachers.

And, you know, we hear a lot of the idea that this is the reality now. It's inevitable. Yeah. So basically, Chancellor Banks was saying that AI is here to stay, right? And we have to learn how to use it in schools. Yeah. But according to the Education Department, it is plagiarism for students to use AI to answer questions on homework and tests.

And the consequences can range from, you know, parent conferences to suspension. The problem is that teachers say it's really hard to prove. Hard to prove. So what are they doing about it? Well, teachers told me they've been looking for these AI tells. AI tells. Yeah, like clues. Okay.

Like m-dashes and semicolons, very common in AI, apparently, and words like tapestry, delve, and nuanced. Teachers say sometimes kids are using vocabulary that is obviously beyond what they've learned so far. Sometimes they're referencing material that's beyond what they've learned so far. But they say that AI detection software often isn't accurate. So there's only so much these teachers can do. And on top of that, as we heard, students are using software to disguise the content they're copying. Sometimes it gets a little ridiculous, a little humorous. I talked to Michael Dowd, a history teacher in Brooklyn, who says students have turned in papers referring to the Cuban rocket emergency.

Wait. You mean the Cuban missile crisis? Right. And then other AI mishaps, he's seen students turning in papers referring to President Shrubb. instead of President Bush. And his colleague graded a paper that referred to the Trail of Tears as the Path of Tears. Man, President Shrub is hilarious to me. But, you know, this has to be frustrating for teachers.

And I know you've talked to some of them who are more optimistic about AI. You spend some time at a new training session. Can you tell me about that? Yes, the Teachers Union, the local United Federation of Teachers, which is under the National American Federation of Teachers, announced a partnership with big tech over the summer to create a new AI Training Institute. It's called the National Academy for AI Instruction. And OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic are all involved.

They put $23 million into it. Wow. And it's headquartered right here in the city at the UFT's headquarters. That is quite the investment. It is. I went to a session last fall to check it out. And I talked to the teachers there. Some of them did say that they're concerned students using AI won't develop critical thinking skills for themselves and that they may be more susceptible to misinformation. But they said that the AI tools could also help, especially with the back-end work that they do, like lesson planning and handouts and worksheets, that sort of thing. The kind of paperwork that teachers say builds up so much that it prevents them from having the time to really connect with students. I talked to Jessica Tran, who teaches English to newcomer students and

students learning English at a middle school in Queens. She says AI can help her tailor the work that the students do to their exact proficiency level, help with their, you know, communicating to them in their native languages. AI is like up and coming and students are starting to use it for their assignments too, like without us like guiding them in a way. I'd I've been using AI on my own to help me with lesson plans since I have a wide range of students with different language levels. So I have students that speak Spanish, Chinese, Arabic. I had students that speak French. So they're coming from all different backgrounds.

Tony Chan, another queen's teacher, says she also uses AI herself to help with translations for students. But she doesn't condone students using it. I kind of think that it's essential only because, like he said, we got to get ahead of the curve. It's not going away. So it's better to be on top of it. However, I don't, you know, I don't condone student use because I think that it's really important at this stage

for them to develop the ability to think. Just besides students and teachers, I know that there's a lot of parents who are concerned about AI in schools, you know, about big tech partnering with the teachers union and companies pushing curricula, that has AI in it. What are these parents saying? They talked about some of the same things that the teachers have talked about,

about kids' brains and their learning. They're worried about privacy. They're also worried about the environmental impact of AI. I talked to Sarah Gentile, a parent in Brooklyn, who was really alarmed last year when she learned that her kindergartner's class was using voice recording technology as part of the new literacy curriculum. Was she informed about this? She didn't have to sign any releases or anything. When she heard about the voice recording, she asked that her daughter not participate

because she was worried about the tech company having access to her daughter's voice and the potential for data breaches. So now her daughter and one other child in the class sit in the corner doing a separate activity while their classmates are using the voice app. And I talked to the curriculum company and they say this information is always deleted and they have a lot of protections in place. But parents are concerned, and many of them have signed a petition pushing for a two-year moratorium on all AI in classrooms. At the same time, the oversight panel for the DOE, which is responsible for voting on contracts, has been rejecting all contracts for software that includes any AI in it. And they say they don't want to approve it until the DOE has guidance in place about what their policy is. But there's a concern by members of that panel that big tech companies are really pushing software aggressively on the education department at this time before there's a clear policy one way or another. I am curious to see this guidance when it comes out. When are we expecting that?

It should be any day now. I've heard they're putting final touches on it. That's WMYC's education reporter Jessica Gould. Thanks a lot, Jess. Thank you. What are your thoughts? Is AI a helpful tool or risk for students? Hit us up, let us know at NYC now at WMYC.org. We might use your comments in a future episode. I'm Jenae Pierre.

See you next time.