Upstate NY School District Pauses Plan to Add Humanoid Robot to High School Classroom Amid Fierce Backlash

A school district in western New York has paused its plan to place a humanoid robot in a high school classroom this fall, following intense public backlash and pressure from the state’s education department over student privacy concerns and questions about the technology’s readiness for classroom use.

A pilot program put on hold

Salamanca City Central School District announced Friday afternoon in a Facebook post that its pilot project with tech company Realbotix had been paused while officials “work through enhanced student data privacy agreements” with the state education agency and continue engaging with community members. The announcement came just hours after state Education Commissioner Betty Rosa sent a letter to Salamanca Superintendent Mark Beehler expressing reservations about the plan. “The Department remains concerned about the effect that a humanoid robot may have within a high school classroom,” Rosa wrote, according to the letter, which followed a meeting between the department and district officials earlier in the week.

Rosa’s letter reflected broader unease she said extended well beyond her own office. “Many parents, teachers, and stakeholders are understandably concerned about the presence of artificial intelligence technology in classrooms, particularly when it involves robots that resemble humans,” she wrote.

What the district had planned

The district had intended to introduce the robot to high school students this fall alongside a related artificial intelligence teacher’s assistant program that would let students interact with a digital avatar of the robot through their laptops. The local school board approved the $57,590 investment at a meeting last month.

The robot, which Realbotix had named Sally, was designed to have a lifelike appearance featuring silicone skin, long brown hair, and a wide range of upper-body movements and facial expressions, though it would remain seated in a stationary position rather than moving around the classroom. According to Realbotix, students would have been able to access the robot’s avatar from their own devices during or after class for academic help, including uploading photos of homework for feedback or receiving real-time translation support in more than 100 languages. Students approaching the robot in person during class would use a unique identification code, which the district said would allow the system to track and manage individual student conversations with the avatar.

A company with an unusual background

Education represents an entirely new business line for Realbotix, a Toronto-based company formerly known as Tokens.com. In April 2024, the company acquired Simulcra, the Las Vegas-based parent company behind RealDoll, a maker of hyperrealistic sex dolls. That connection became a central point of criticism once the Salamanca plan drew wider public attention.

Realbotix CEO Andrew Kiguel defended the program’s intent in a statement provided to New York Focus, the nonprofit news outlet that first reported on the district’s plans. “We fully respect any decision the school makes and encourage thorough due diligence by all parties involved,” Kiguel said, adding that the company wanted the program to be “demonstrably safe, fully district-approved, and strongly supported by teachers.” He emphasized the robot’s intended role directly, saying, “We stand firmly behind [the program] as a supportive tool designed to assist teachers and students, not replace them.”

Union pushback centers on the company’s ties

The state’s largest teachers union emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the plan. New York State United Teachers President Melinda Person issued a statement this week arguing that Realbotix’s background made it fundamentally unsuited for a classroom setting. “A robot built by a company associated with sex dolls has no business in our classrooms,” Person said, adding that robots, regardless of how lifelike their design, cannot provide the human connection students need in order to thrive. Person said the union intended to actively resist what she described as the “thoughtless expansion” of this kind of technology, both in Salamanca and in classrooms across the state more broadly.

District officials had defended safety measures

Before the program was paused, Superintendent Beehler had defended the plan’s safeguards during a school board meeting on Tuesday. In a presentation to trustees, Beehler said the robot and its companion avatar system would operate on a closed network with no internet connection, and that Realbotix would not have access to personally identifiable student information under the arrangement.

A divided community response

Reaction to the plan split sharply among parents and community members after the district posted a recording of Tuesday’s board meeting on Facebook. Some residents voiced support for giving students early exposure to emerging technology, with one commenter writing that experience with AI tools represented a skill that would make students more employable later in their careers. Others pushed back forcefully, questioning why the district couldn’t simply hire an additional traditional teacher instead, and raising broader concerns about AI’s environmental impact and its tendency to produce inaccurate information.

Neither Salamanca City Central School District nor the state Education Department could be immediately reached for comment following Friday’s announcement. With the program now on hold while the district works through expanded student data privacy agreements and continues community engagement, it remains unclear whether the robot will ultimately be introduced to Salamanca classrooms this school year, on a revised timeline, or not at all. The episode adds to a broader, ongoing debate playing out in school districts nationwide over how quickly artificial intelligence tools, including those designed to closely resemble humans, should be integrated into K-12 classrooms, and what safeguards should be in place before that happens.