NYC & LA Just Banned AI in Schools: What Does It Mean for Your School?

Presented by Robbie Torney, Head of AI & Digital Assessments, Common Sense Media Youth AI Safety Institute; Eisha Buch, Head of Teaching & Learning, Common Sense Media; Laura Zimmermann, Ph.D., Director of Youth AI Research, Common Sense Media; and Geoffrey A. Fowler, Head of Public Outreach, Common Sense Media

Sponsored by Common Sense Education

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As New York City and Los Angeles, two of the nation’s largest districts, announce they are banning AI in K-8 (NYC) and in K-12 (LA), districts across the country are facing a question that is becoming impossible to ignore: Are we next? AI conversation doesn’t have to be a choice between banning technology and embracing it without limits.

Join Geoffrey A. Fowler, Head of Public Engagement at Common Sense Media, for a timely edWebinar conversation examining what schools need to know as they navigate the rapidly changing AI landscape. Laura Zimmermann, Ph.D., Director of Youth AI Research, shares the research and help administrators and educators understand what the evidence tells us about how tweens and teens are using AI today—both at home and for school.

Robbie Torney, Head of AI & Digital Assessments, examines AI risk, offering a practical lens for understanding and assessing risks and benefits related to student age, context, privacy, and safety. Eisha Buch, Head of Teaching and Learning, introduces an Age & Stage Guide, a developmentally appropriate framework for the gradual use of AI that helps schools move beyond an all-or-nothing approach and toward intentional, age-appropriate implementation.

Rather than asking simply, “Should schools ban AI?” we explore a more productive question: “How can schools introduce AI in ways that protect what matters most about learning—human connection, curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking?” The conversation culminates in a practical Age & Stage Guide for the Gradual Use of AI, offering a proactive framework for administrators, educators, students, and families to understand what responsible AI use can look like across K–12.

Viewers leave with:

• Research-informed context for understanding the rapidly changing K–12 AI landscape
• A practical way to think about AI risk beyond an all-or-nothing approach
• Considerations for balancing policy decisions with the realities of classroom teaching and learning
• Developmentally appropriate guidance for introducing AI gradually across grade levels
• Concrete resources and next steps for administrators, educators, students, and families

This edWebinar is of interest to K-12 educators, librarians, school leaders, district leaders, and education technology leaders.

About the Presenters

Robbie Torney is Head of AI & Digital Assessments at Common Sense Media. He has overseen the development and launch of Common Sense’s AI risk assessments and thought leadership in this fast-moving space. Prior to this, Robbie spent over a decade working in East Oakland, CA, as a teacher, principal, and school network leader. Robbie is a New Leaders Principal Alum (Bay Area Cohort 17). He graduated from Stanford in 2009 with a BA in political theory and in 2010 with an MA in elementary education. He is a passionate advocate for students and families.

Eisha Buch is the Head of Teaching and Learning at Common Sense Media, where she leads the organization’s K–12 Digital Literacy & Well-Being Curriculum—a free, comprehensive curriculum now reaching millions of students, educators, and families across more than 85,000 schools worldwide. Over 15 years as a teacher, administrator, and learning strategist, Eisha has built a framework for helping young people stay fully human in a tech-saturated world: not by avoiding technology, but by thinking critically about its influence on their relationships, well-being, and sense of self. She is committed to making digital literacy the center of every child’s education, as foundational as learning how to read and write.

Laura Zimmermann, Ph.D., is the Director of Youth AI Research at Common Sense Media, where she leads research focused on how artificial intelligence shapes child development, learning, well-being, and family technology use. Dr. Zimmermann has over a decade of experience in mixed-methods research across programs and products for kids and families, having led research for organizations including MIND Education, Google, PBS KIDS, Bay Area Discovery Museum, The Aspen Institute, and New America. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Georgetown University.

Geoffrey Fowler is the Head of Public Engagement for the Youth AI Safety Institute at Common Sense Media. He is a former columnist at The Washington Post, where he advocated for the users of technology. Previously, he worked as a columnist, reporter, and foreign correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, where he covered Big Tech, China, the Olympics, and more. Geoffrey won the Gerald Loeb Award, the most prestigious honor in business journalism, for commentary in 2020, and was a finalist for commentary in 2024. He graduated from Harvard College with a degree in social anthropology and Afro-American studies and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. He lives in San Francisco with his family, who have to put up with his never-ending gadget experiments.

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