A rural New York school district plans to deploy an AI-powered, humanoid robot named “Sally” as a teaching assistant tool in 11th- and 12th-grade classrooms, beginning this fall.
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The Daily Wire reports that the Salamanca City Central School District purchased the lifelike robot, featuring silicone skin, long brown hair, and a mobile upper body and facial expressions, for less than the median annual salary for a New York teacher.
Humanoid Sally will replace a human teacher at an American school
The robot named Sally will start teaching children this autumn at a school in New York State. The “teacher” created by an American company will cost the school less than a human educator. It will teach computer… pic.twitter.com/1bnTg6tS81
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) July 20, 2026
The school district will become one of the first in the nation to introduce a humanoid robot in a U.S. K-12 classroom.
Andrew Kiguel, CEO of Realbotix, the company which is currently building the robot, told the New York Focus that “Sally” will have access to the student’s learning data, exclusively using it to provide specialized support based on their profile.
“They’ll be able to say, ‘Hey, I’m student number 1234,’ and then the robot will be like, ‘Hey, we were talking about this yesterday, do you want to continue that conversation?’” Kiguel said.
Salamanca Superintendent Dr. Mark Beehler emphasized the program’s strict privacy guidelines, noting that the robot does not have open internet access, does not feature facial recognition, cannot record audio or video, and will not transmit student data back to Realbotix.
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The pilot program is sparking mixed reactions from parents regarding the integration of AI into the classroom.
Beehler spoke to concerns that replacing a human educator with a robotic one is an “easy solution”, saying, “I also believe it is critical for schools to teach proper use of technology, not simply exclude it.”
School district officials insist that the robot is not a replacement for teachers, but will function as a teacher’s assistant specifically in the school’s nationally recognized and highly regarded STEM program, according to The Daily Wire.
The New York Post reports that the bot, which uses about the same amount of electricity as a laptop, will assistant students and teachers in classes that are in the Woz Ed Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics courses, developed by the founder of Apple Steve Wozniak.
The school district, located on Seneca Nation territory, serves a predominantly economically disadvantaged community.
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