New York City parents and teachers, many of them who pushed for a pause on artificial intelligence in public schools, are kicking off a new campaign: They want to reintroduce play in local classrooms that, advocates say, have been overtaken by education technology, test preparation, and reading curricula that push more short passages than whole novels.
On Saturday, the coalition is organizing a “play-in” and press conference on the Lower East Side, featuring arts and crafts with clay and paper, and physical activities with jump ropes and hula hoops. While the pastimes range, they share a common thread: Children are not permitted to use digital devices.
The group’s letter calling on Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Kamar Samuels to “protect play” in the younger grades had amassed more than 700 signatures before the weekend.
The effort is part of a growing pro-play movement emerging as the next phase of the ed-tech backlash that gripped classrooms across the country, and spurred cellphone bans and screen time limits.
“This is a national issue,” said Lauren Monaco, a public school parent and veteran teacher of 26 years. “This is something that is also becoming more widely and deeply felt by parents in this city, especially when we see the encroachment of ed-tech and AI in our schools and mandated curricula.”
A public schools spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.
This school year, Mayor Mamdani paused the use of AI for elementary and middle school students, and provided grade-appropriate bans or guidance on screen time. The policy followed Gov. Hochul’s statewide school smartphone ban, which has been in effect since last September.
Organizers are happy about the changes, but say they don’t go far enough to return classrooms to the positive environments that support their children’s education.
When Monaco first enrolled her son in kindergarten, he attended a school that offered “zero play,” even in the youngest grades.
“He entered into kindergarten happy and cheerful and joyful, and in a matter of months, he was a completely different child,” Monaco said. “He was melting down all the time. These meltdowns and sort of outbursts started sporadically, and then they grew in frequency, and intensity, and in duration. And it was heartbreaking to hear my 4-year-old come home from school and say, ‘I don’t know how to learn.’”
“I pulled him out of that school, it was a huge shift. My child returned to us, and he became himself again.”
Monaco transferred her son to the Brooklyn New School, P.S. 146 in Carroll Gardens, over the winter break. With a December birthday at the end of New York’s age cutoff, he was able to repeat kindergarten the following year. Monaco’s son, now 7-years-old and in the second grade, is learning through activities such as field trips to a marsh to study animals and the elements, or an at-school farm to learn about the life cycle of plants and pollination.
“You can get children to do a heck a lot more when it’s fun and interesting, and meaningful and relevant,” Monaco said.
In some states, parents are winning time requirements on daily recess. An Axios analysis of Johns Hopkins data found that half of states mandate recess or other forms of play by law.
In New York, there’s a bill in the state legislature that would require up to 30 minutes of recess in elementary schools, be held outside whenever possible, and not involve phones, laptops or tablets. The proposed legislation, however, stalled in committee at the end of last session. Currently, there is a 20-minute recess recommendation in the city’s elementary schools.
Organizers want the bill in New York to go even further than recess and focus more broadly on play and projects where students learn real-life skills.
“We’re starting to scratch the surface by having deeper conversations about tech in classrooms, but we’re not talking about what’s replacing that,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a Manhattan parent of two public school students and also a neuroscientist.
She pointed to research that play, far from being a distraction, can actually help promote learning more quickly.
“To me, that’s always been the true definition of ‘accelerated learning,’” Salas-Ramirez said. “How do we create a learning environment where we need fewer repetitions? And the answer to that is play.”