School panel considers curbs on AI for 2025-26
The district worked with teachers to draft a new section of the student handbook, responding to a “craving for guardrails” from staff.
Acton educators recognize artificial intelligence as a learning tool — but one with serious drawbacks — in a new policy.
The district’s new policy says artificial intelligence, or AI, is “a component of an innovative approach to learning.” It directs educators to incorporate “the teaching and ethical use of generative AI into relevant aspects of the K-12 curriculum” and calls for guidelines to be provided yearly in the student handbook, with school committee approval.
Schools Superintendent Laurie Hunter said the district worked with about 20 teachers across all schools to draft a new section of the student handbook, responding to what she described as a “craving for guardrails” from staff.
“I think it’ll help to set the right stage,” Hunter said at the August 20 School Committee meeting.
The handbook draft lists potential benefits of AI use in schools, from tailoring lessons to learning styles and keeping students engaged to augmenting creative expression and executive skills such as study planning and time management.
It highlights AI’s potential to expand access to information, ease routine tasks for educators, and — used in moderation — strengthen students’ critical thinking.
The draft also outlines potential drawbacks: AI can produce biased or inaccurate outputs, struggle with nuance and context, and have difficulty replicating a human voice or style authentically.
Other challenges include the quality and quantity of data used to train models.
Hunter said in last Wednesday’s meeting that the most popular generative AI, ChatGPT, has been banned on school servers to encourage students to use Google’s Gemini AI, a tool for which the district pays because school officials consider it higher quality and it fits with other Google products they use.
Misuse and discipline
The new policy does not outline what disciplinary action will be taken if a student misuses AI in their work. Hunter said such cases would be treated like plagiarism and that any discipline would follow the same rules applied there.
Currently, plagiarism is punished at the discretion of the student’s principal, and measures could include removing the student from extracurricular activities.
What constitutes improper use of AI will primarily be determined at the teacher level. The new guidelines say “any assignments or tasks expected for students to conduct outside the classroom should be clearly outlined if AI use is acceptable” and that students should clearly mark where AI was used.
The committee was expected to adopt the policy at its meeting on August 27.
