“My superintendent … is very visionary, and he wants to be in the forefront. He wants our name out there,” Polney said. “He wants us to be moving forward, and he wants to do right by kids.”
When Steimel first asked Polney how the district should handle AI, Polney mentioned Matt Miller’s book AI for Educators. Polney and the special education director later led chats on Miller’s book at the monthly district leaders’ meeting. They also shared resources, quizzed their administration and demonstrated AI tools.
Among other tools, Eastport-South Manor Central School District chose to invest in Google Gemini advanced licenses for its 22 administrators. “We wanted our administrators to start using it,” Polney said. “As the leadership in the buildings and the leaderships of the departments, we want them to lift this tool.”
RELATED: How does Google Gemini benefit teaching and learning?
Since the investments in various AI tools, Steimel said, he has followed teachers’ comfort levels and progress closely. He asks how the teachers are using AI and urges the tech department to teach it, Polney said.
For now, they’re tackling this with after-school professional learning that’s broken into different trainings for the various grade levels — K-2, 3-6 and 7-12 — and the building and district administrators.
An Air of Exclusivity Creates Educator Buy-In at Miami-Dade
Curriculum support specialists Susan Leyva-Bostick and Jeannette Tejeda at Miami-Dade County Public Schools took a different approach, encouraging staff to opt in rather than having the technology handed down to them. They explained to FETC 2025 attendees Thursday how they created the AI Institute for teachers in their district.
Their department was “severely obsessed” with this emerging technology when it came out, they noted, but they first needed to gauge how teachers felt about it. “If you do a needs assessment, you’re able to get information on the areas where administrators, teachers and office staff are struggling,” Tejeda said.
DISCOVER MORE: These are the top artificial intelligence trends to watch in ed tech for 2025.
They took feedback from teachers and built the AI Institute, an exclusive training opportunity for interested and engaged employees of the district. Tejeda and Leyva-Bostick emphasized that the trainings were for all district employees, not just teachers. They accepted a limited number of applications for their AI lessons and awarded a district-specific microcredential to participants who met all of the requirements.
“Everybody wants to be part of the club they’re not a part of,” Leyva-Bostick said. “We limited the amount of participants with intent, knowing that the first cohort would lead to a second cohort that would lead to a third cohort. Then, we would upskill and expand that way.”
