Putting K–12 AI Policies Into Practice

What Do School AI Policies Include?

In Tucson, “our policy is not just for students. It’s also for teachers and for our staff,” Rowley says. “We wanted to give people guidelines and guardrails, so they have an understanding about how to use it responsibly and ethically.”

The guidance within the policy is grounded in a basic premise: “AI is meant to enhance what we’re doing, to improve what we’re doing, to support what we’re doing — but it should not replace anybody,” Rowley says.

From there, the district’s policy drills down into detail. When it comes to AI outputs, for example, ethical use means “not just copying and pasting and taking what it says,” she says. “You need to be looking at your responses for fairness and equity.”

Other districts are writing their own guiding principles for the technology.

“AI should bolster teaching and learning,” says Greenwich (Conn.) Public Schools Superintendent Toni Jones. With that overarching goal, the district has crafted a detailed regulation, and it starts with definitions.

“We don’t want to assume our staff know generative AI  versus nongenerative AI,” Jones says. “Then, it covers things like access and permission, ethical use, and data privacy and security.”

The regulation spells out best practices around things like proper citation for AI and data privacy. It also dives into academic integrity for students and adults, and covers “plagiarism, cheating and misinformation,” Jones says.

Tucson Unified also considered the policy’s usability. “It’s very easy to read,” Jones adds. “You have bullet points that help students or teachers understand what’s within each category.”

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What Does Crafting and Communicating a K–12 AI Policy Entail?

Districts should take a collaborative approach with departments and stakeholders as they begin to craft AI policies.

“I put a committee together of teachers across the district who were interested in this topic, and they went out and studied AI policy from Brown University, Harvard and other leaders in the field,” Jones says. “Then, our board’s policy committee looked at what we had done, and they created the policy.”

For Rowley, her district’s policy was the culmination of a two-year process. “We started by creating a task force, and I invited anybody and everybody,” she says.

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“We had people from all parts of the district: Teachers and staff members from HR, from purchasing, from communications,” she says. The board then shared its input through two rounds of revisions before releasing the final policy.

To ensure adoption, Rowley has spread the word about the policy through numerous channels. “We are getting it on our website so parents and the public can see it. We have robust communications to all of our teachers and staff,” she explains.

Beyond communications, the school is working to train staff on the new policy.

“We’ve done training for teachers and for departments, and I’ve done training for parents at parent groups,” Rowley says. “Any chance we get in a group setting we’ll talk about it, direct people to it and give people resources.”

How Are Schools Handling Fears Around AI in K–12 Environments?

As an AI policy emerges, there may be pushback from stakeholders, users and the larger community. School leaders need to find ways to address this opposition.

For example, Jones had to allay fears that AI would deprive students of the chance to build critical thinking skills. Hands-on exposure to AI tools helped to reframe that narrative. “Once teachers actually get in front of it and learn about it, most of them leave very excited about the possibilities for how it can enhance the classroom,” she says.

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Rowley encountered the same concern, and her district’s policy tackles it with the “stoplight system” developed by Arizona’s Agua Fria Union High School District.

“Red is no use. Yellow is limited use under these specific guidelines; it’s very moderate and careful use,” Rowley explains. “Then green is, we’re using it, and teachers can make the choice.”

Guided by its AI policy, the district has already approved AI uses in Adobe Express and Canva — an example of how a strong policy framework can help to drive effective IT investments forward.