U-46 administrators recommended that the district contract for ChatGPT Edu for staff use only and return to the board with implementation plans and training, while several board members asked for a smaller pilot and clearer cost and data parameters before committing the full $432,000 for up to 4,000 licenses.

The administration said ChatGPT Edu provides an enterprise environment with district control over data and compliance with state and federal laws and that "U46 will fully own everything our staff creates using this platform," adding that "none of our data is used to train OpenAI's models." Rola Tariq Mohammed, coordinator of strategic initiatives, and Jim Wolf, director of information services, led the briefing and described required staff training and analytics tools for oversight.

The issue matters because the proposal would spend $432,000 for one year of licenses and because board members said the district is operating under budget constraints. "For me, 400,000 on AI is not a good use of funds," said Miss Martin (board member), pressing administrators for a plan that identifies where savings or efficiencies would offset the cost. Several board members recommended an opt‑in pilot of a limited number of licenses to collect usage and impact data before full purchase.

Administrators described safeguards and training: only staff would have access, and all staff would be required to complete a Canvas course on AI basics and district guidelines before accessing the tool. The administration said the contract includes controls to delete or export district content if the agreement ends, and that analytics and a compliance interface would be available "to track adoption, engagement, and license usage." Jim Wolf said the analytics dashboard can answer questions such as "how many staff are active this month? Which teams are using AI the most?"

During Q&A, board members focused on scale, cost and measurement. Miss Shonda asked whether the district would pay for all 4,000 licenses at once; staff answered, "Yes. We're paying for the 4,000 staff licenses and up to 4,000 can be used." Miss Sue and others urged a staged rollout: "I have not been very supportive of doing 4,000 licenses … I have not been very supportive of doing 4,000 licenses," she said, favoring a focused pilot to collect teacher feedback on time savings and instructional value. Miss Kate and others emphasized the need for prompt‑engineering training so teachers can get useful, curriculum‑aligned outputs.

Administrators said next steps include returning to the board at the September 22 meeting with a formal proposal. Dr. Johnson (superintendent) told the board he would debrief the team and incorporate tonight's feedback, including possible pilot parameters and agreements around data sharing and usage reporting. The team said they may revise the proposal to include opt‑in pilots, clarified data sharing expectations, and more detailed cost options for scaled license counts.

No final purchase vote occurred at the Sept. 8 meeting; the matter is scheduled to return to the board for further consideration on Sept. 22.

Less urgent details: staff recommended mandatory Canvas training before access; the administration noted neighboring districts are using ChatGPT Edu for staff only; the district currently is running smaller, non‑enterprise AI tools with about 1,600 staff using them, which administrators said motivates adopting a secure, district‑controlled platform.