As Artificial Intelligence continues to be integrated into technology, local school systems have begun to update their guidelines for ethical and appropriate use of the tool.
Officials with Hall County and Gainesville City Schools shared how each system plans to address AI use for students and teachers.
Hall County School’s Director of Digital Convergence Eddie Millwood and K-12 Digital Convergence Specialist Laney Park explained that while the system does not currently have a policy for or against AI use, guidelines for the district are in the early stages of planning and may be subject to change as the technology develops.
“We know that this is such an evolving technology, and we know we may have to change some of our guidance practices as AI changes,” Millwood said. “A lot of things with AI that maybe people would be concerned about are already addressed in our current policies, whether it's acceptable use agreement or the code of conduct. So, there really wasn't as much of a need to recreate that as there was just to give some usage guidelines and best practices.”
Park recalled that the district began looking at establishing guidelines in 2023 by encouraging teachers to become familiar with the technology.
“We wanted first to be able to teach teachers and other staff in the district about AI, about responsible use of AI, about how to leverage it effectively and the positive impact that it can have on instruction,” she said.
Park and Millwood explained that even though AI has existed for some time, the district did not immediately create guidelines for its use because most software was not made for educational purposes and required users to be at least 18 years old. Now, the need is more prevalent as resources the district previously purchased begin to integrate the tools into its software.
“There have [now been] generative AI products that are built just for educators,” Park said. “As part of our Microsoft and Google purchases in the district, teachers have access to Microsoft Gopilot and Google Gemini, and then they also have access [to] Khan Academy [which has] Khanmingo tools for teachers, which are free for all educators, and again, built directly for educators and with education in mind.”
The two also clarified that though the district is introducing the technology to teachers, students are generally not using AI in the classroom. Instead, teachers use the technology for creating rubrics for assignments, differentiating instruction or personalizing lessons for individual needs. Teachers are still expected to review the product AI services produce.
Gainesville City Schools’ Director of Instructional Technology and Media Services Eddie Nemec explained that like Hall County Schools, GCS prioritizes the safety of students and staff when deciding which tools will and will not be used in the classroom – regardless of if they integrate AI or not. The vetting process for both systems examines the application’s privacy policies and terms of service.
“The big thing that we're worried about is, where does the data go? Who sees the data and where does it live,” Nemec said. “So for example, [with ChatGPT], if an end user goes to ChatGPT and enters anything that you know, say, a student's work. Well, technically, that has fed the AI model, and it's now out in the AI model.”
Nemec said GCS’ guidelines for the technology outlines appropriate and inappropriate uses for AI, which could include using the technology to do harm, creating an account for a model under the age required by the service or using the technology to generate school work.
While the school system discourages students from completing work using AI, the district also advises teachers to not use tools that detect the usage of AI to grade assignments.
“We’ve really kind of guided teachers to not want to rely on the tools that flag AI, because those tools could be biased, and those tools also can have a lot of false indicators,” he explained.
Additionally, both HCSD and GCS do not currently block generative AI sites such as ChatGPT on school issued-devices, but do give teachers the ability to block or restrict access to certain sites as needed.
