DAC recommends district ‘stay nimble’ when handling AI – Chaffee County Times

The District Accountability Committee for BV schools brought their report on this year’s charge to the school board on April 22: artificial intelligence in schools. 

The AI charge, assigned to the DAC in the fall, involved reading articles and conducting a survey with 258 student responses. 

Mckenzie Lyle, DAC chair and parent, said that around half of the articles used for their research could already be outdated. Cindy Puckett, chair-elect, joined her in presenting. 

The summary of their research, Lyle said, is that “we have to stay nimble because it is just constantly changing on us.

“We are not recommending distinct, specific policies about AI because it is just changing so quickly,” she said. “We want to keep our policies broad. We want to stay nimble to allow for this constant development, but we also want to start and encourage the education of both teachers and students so that we’re all prepared for all of these changing scenarios.”

In their fall survey, 45 percent of students reported using ChatGPT for research, writing prompts and brainstorming.

“That’s probably shot up to 99.9 percent,” she said. “They saw positive uses and they saw concerns themselves. We already have educated students and we just need to keep that education going.”

Of the 33 responses to the parent survey, twenty said they’ve never used AI.

“We would love to see education start at the elementary level along the same lines of what we do for internet security right now,” Lyle said. “Moving to middle school, … similar to what they’re doing right now, how to start Google searches and what prompts to do, really basic generic introduction. … Then in high school, diving deeper.”

BVHS has implemented a “stoplight” approach, with posters in each classroom. “Green” assignments allow or encourage students to use AI. “Yellow” means students must get teachers’ permission before using AI on a project. “Red” means AI use is not permitted for the assignment. 

“The green-yellow-red is a great starting point that every teacher can use,” Lyle said. “If the teacher is not interested themself in teaching or utilizing AI, their entire class that semester or that year is red, or it’s by assignment. … It’s going to be up to the teacher whether they decide to use it in work. 

“We would just love to give the teachers the tools to use it and teach it if they have an interest in doing so,” Lyle said. “Some are really excited about it, and some are pretty apprehensive.”

The DAC also considered integrating the topic of AI into a freshman seminar or health class so that, by sophomore year, every student has had a general introduction to AI. 

“There are a couple of really great resources out there right now,” Lyle said. “Suggestions for the content would be how AI works, how it collects data, how it processes data, how it leads to errors and biases, how it impacts us, all the ethical issues that go along with it.

“Where any teacher is willing to use it, we want to give them the tools so they can do so and further enhance the education we can provide,” she said.  

On the policy front, the DAC recommended incorporating AI into behavior policies, citing the Western Colorado University student handbook as an example of possible wording. 

“Students are also expected to behave in a manner that does not infringe on the rights of others or interfere with educational processes,” the handbook reads. “This policy covers any generative AI tool, such as ChatGPT, Elicit, etc. This includes text, artwork/graphics/video/audio and AI-created/AI-augmented work.” 

They also recommended including provisions on AI in the technology policy, which parents and students sign at the start of the year.

“I think every teacher is also going to need to put it in their syllabus,” Puckett said.

“The biggest thing we are suggesting for parent-community outreach is making it clear there is an annual review of all our policies,” Lyle said, “and that it will adapt as AI adapts.”

Puckett and Lyle also advised offering professional development opportunities on AI for staff. 

“We just think that yearly, as teachers are coming back to school and doing their development work, we feel like AI should be part of that,” Puckett said. “I think we all started not knowing much about AI and we read a lot and talked to a lot of people about it.

“There are definitely places it can be used and can be used well, and that’s where we don’t want our kids to be stuck in the past,” Puckett said. “We obviously want them to leave high school knowing how to use AI. It’s here and it’s not leaving, and we want them to use it well.

“Teachers are going to have to be on their toes and probably work a little harder and change their lesson plans,” Puckett said. “What we didn’t find, and what we’re not suggesting, is a program for checking for AI. We just don’t feel like it’s there, hasn’t been developed.”

BVHS teacher Robin Fritsch, Puckett said, has tried plugging papers into ChatGPT to see which it wrote, but that teachers also need to know their students and how they write. 

“There are some great ways to use it,” she said. “But then you’re also going to have to stay on top of academic integrity.”

The DAC was overall optimistic about using AI in classes. 

“What we really want is to just see the teachers get excited about it rather than fearful,” Lyle said. “There are so many possibilities for it to take us to where we’re not mining the data, we’re analyzing the data instead. There are so many ways to think about it that it’s just really cool. It’s exciting and yes, will cause more work at first, but could potentially be really great.” 

“We’re going to be reviewing it every year, as fast as it changes,” said board member Brett Mitchell. “We may have to do it a little bit more often just to make sure we’re not getting our students or teachers into a black hole.”

Puckett and Lyle said they didn’t talk to any other district with an AI policy. Other districts are either “scrambling, ignoring or banning.” 

“We’re further ahead than almost any other district we talked to,” Puckett said. 

At the beginning of the year, Lyle said, some DAC members were overwhelmed by AI. But after all their research, “this is like spell check,” she said. “This is just part of our education now. The more you read about it, the more you realize it’s everywhere, and we just have to keep a broad and watchful eye on those issues that come along with it.”

“That’s probably going to be the hardest part,” said board member Paula Dylan, “making sure we’re catching (it). … I think there are lots of things for AI as far as efficiencies for teachers and staff, but I think they’re going to just replace that with the amount of time checking to make sure to catch and mitigate those sorts of issues.”

“The beautiful thing about our district is it’s small,” Lyle said. “These teachers know these kids. … What we’re constantly teaching these kids with the Seven Cs is integrity. It’s just part of the overall (change), like moving from pencil to calculator.”

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