Beyond the AI Ban: How Schools Can Build What They Want to Protect

In early September, New York City and Los Angeles Unified, the two largest school districts in the country, announced restrictions on student use of generative AI. After both announcements, I received separate messages from past colleagues and fellow educators asking how I felt about them. At first, I thought they were simply asking for my perspective as an educator working in this field. I soon realized they were also checking on me because they thought I created AI tools for schools.

I don’t. My work at LEGO® Education focuses on creating and implementing AI literacy resources in schools, not generative AI tools for students to use.

What may seem like a minor difference is actually major. It is the difference between the technology and the knowledge needed to use it, between a short-term response and a long-term need, and between the ban itself and the goals behind the ban. A ban can remove a tool from the classroom. It cannot, by itself, achieve the larger educational goals that prompted the ban in the first place.

The bans call for temporarily restricting students’ use of generative AI, alongside limits on device use and screen time, particularly for younger learners. The technology covered includes AI chatbots, tools that generate text or images, and generative AI features embedded within educational platforms. These restrictions still allow teachers to use AI for planning and students to learn about AI.

In this article we’ll unpack the three goals that were stated as part of the ban and what it will take to truly meet these goals whether or not a ban on AI is in place.

Three Goals Behind the Bans, and What It Takes to Reach Them

Much of what I read about these bans points to legitimate concerns: student safety, thoughtful and appropriate use of AI, and its impact on instruction. Those are concerns I share. These districts have been clear about what they hope to achieve: protecting the quality of instruction, developing foundational skills, and returning to and protecting hands-on learning. These are important goals, but they are also not achieved simply by restricting or removing AI.

So rather than focusing on the bans themselves, I want to unpack each of these stated goals and consider what it would actually take to achieve them, whether a school has banned AI, restricted it, or is still deciding how to approach it.

Goal: Improving the Quality of Instruction

Moving from a ban to an AI literacy plan requires instruction, and the success of that instruction depends on how well we prepare and support educators. A 2026 LEGO® Education survey of 1,700 teachers across four countries found that 69% said their schools were not prepared to teach AI literacy responsibly If districts are thinking beyond the immediate response and toward the future, investing in teachers must be a central part of the plan.

This is not a novel idea. We know the same is true when implementing any new curriculum, initiative, or instructional approach: if you want a plan to be effective, you have to prepare the people responsible for implementing it. That preparation cannot take the form of a single professional development session. One-off sessions rarely lead to sustained changes in teaching practice or student outcomes. Educators need continuous opportunities to build their knowledge, apply it, reflect on their experiences, and adapt as the technology evolves.

And this responsibility cannot sit with schools alone. Teacher preparation programs belong in the conversation too. If we are thinking about the long-term future of AI literacy in schools, we should also be asking how colleges and universities are preparing the next generation of educators to teach, understand, and navigate it.

Goal: Developing Foundational Skills

The field of education can seem volatile from the outside, but certain things do not change. Decades of research and practice have consistently reinforced a set of skills that are critical across subjects, developmental stages, and learning contexts: critical thinking, reasoning, problem-solving, creativity, communication, and the ability to work through complexity.

These same skills sit at the center of the districts’ reasoning. The concern is that AI can do some of the thinking for the user, particularly when it is used primarily to provide an answer, contributing to what is known as cognitive offloading. It is encouraging to see the conversation around AI in schools emphasize the value of these skills. But banning AI, or reducing time spent on screens, does not automatically translate into developing them.

So, as we think about what comes next, the focus cannot only be on what we are taking away. We also have to think carefully about what happens in the space we create. How are we using that time to intentionally cultivate the thinking, reasoning, problem-solving, and creativity we are trying to protect? This will look different across subjects and curricula. But when it comes to AI literacy specifically, it means taking a critical look at the curricula and learning experiences we choose and asking whether they actually help students develop these skills, rather than simply teaching them about AI.

Goal: Protecting Hands-On Learning

The conversation around AI has also brought renewed attention to the importance of hands-on learning. It gives students opportunities to actively engage in the learning process: to build, create, test, manipulate, discuss, revise, and solve problems rather than simply receive information. In many ways, it is a return to what we have long known about how students learn.

But as we make that return, we should be careful not to position AI literacy and hands-on learning in opposition to one another. If we assume that developing AI literacy requires students to be on a screen, while hands-on learning requires removing technology altogether, we limit our ability to imagine learning experiences that can accomplish both.

Instead, we should be asking what it looks like for students to develop AI literacy through hands-on learning. How might students build, create, collaborate, investigate, and solve real problems while also learning how AI works, where it appears in their lives, how to question it, and when its use is or is not appropriate? The goal should not be to choose between hands-on learning and AI literacy. It should be to design learning experiences where students develop the knowledge and skills they need to understand AI without giving up the active, social, creative, and physical experiences we know are important for learning.

Meeting the Goals

None of this is an argument for or against school bans on AI. It is a closer look at the goals behind those bans and what it will actually take to achieve them. A ban can establish a boundary, and schools may have felt an urgency to establish one where student safety, privacy, and learning were being jeopardized. But the goals schools have identified such as protecting the quality of instruction, developing and protecting students’ thinking and learning skills, and prioritizing hands-on learning will not be achieved by simply creating a void.

The conversation should shift from focusing on what we are taking away to asking what we are putting in place. For schools that have banned or restricted AI, as well as those still considering how to approach it, that means having a plan for what comes next.

Beyond the Ban: An Implementation Checklist

Much is asked of our K–12 educators and the education system. In a moment of such innovation and change, the checklist below can help guide decisions about responsible and appropriate AI use in schools.

• An adopted framework for evaluating AI tools and curricula based on their impact on foundational skills
   
• A long-term, continuous professional learning plan for educators, rather than one-time training
   
• Ways to engage students of all ages in the conversation before, during, and after policies are implemented
   
• Clear guidance for educators on responsible and intentional AI use, including when its use supports learning and when it may interfere with it
   
• AI literacy learning experiences that preserve the cognitive work of the student rather than simply providing answers
   
• Hands-on learning experiences that allow students to build, create, test, collaborate, problem-solve, and learn both on and beyond the screen
   
• Opportunities to engage families, both to clearly communicate the approach and to hear their questions, experiences, and perspectives
   
• A plan for evaluating whether the approach is actually achieving its intended goals and adjusting it over time

What LEGO® Education Computer Science & AI Is, and What It Isn’t

As schools consider how to protect students while teaching them about AI, it is important to be clear about the approach we take at LEGO Education.

Child safety should never be compromised, especially at school. That’s why you won’t find any generative AI in LEGO Education Computer Science & AI. Students do not prompt a chatbot or ask software to produce an answer for them – they do the thinking, in safe and secure learning environment.

LEGO Education Computer Science & AI is a K-8 curriculum in which students learn how AI systems work with data by exploring concepts such as machine learning, classification, and computer vision. Through hands-on investigation, testing, and reflection, they develop the critical thinking and judgment needed to understand, question, and responsibly shape how AI is used in their lives.

Our program does not expose students to large language models or store or share student data. We believe that students must learn how AI works without relying on generative AI to do their thinking. Our focus is on helping students build the knowledge, judgment, and foundational skills to engage with AI responsibly while remaining active thinkers.

As schools plan their next steps, student safety and meaningful learning should guide the decisions they make. Explore our AI safety statement to learn more about our approach and consider how your school can create safe, hands-on opportunities for students to develop AI literacy.

About the Author

Nermeen Dashoush, PhD
Nermeen is Head of Educational Impact for the United States at LEGO® Education and a former Clinical Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning at Boston University. With more than two decades of experience spanning classroom teaching, teacher education, educational research, and learning product development, her work focuses on translating research into meaningful learning experiences for students and educators, particularly in STEM, computational thinking, and educational technology.