District outlines SchoolAI pilot, says teachers used platform for 13,000 interactions

Andrew, the presenter for the SchoolAI pilot, told the Cache County School District Board on Aug. 7 that the district ran a pilot at the end of the 2023–24 school year and continued through 2024–25 to give teachers and students a curated AI environment. “SchoolAI’s mission is to make school awesome for students and teachers,” Andrew said, describing teacher-facing assistants, student-facing “spaces” and planned “power up” features such as slide-deck generation, mind maps and flashcards. Nut Graf: District staff framed SchoolAI as a managed way to introduce generative AI in classrooms while limiting risks. They emphasized monitoring tools for teachers, in-platform flags for potentially harmful content and a district data-privacy agreement intended to prevent student information from being used to train public large language models. During the presentation, Andrew said the district logged about 13,000 interactions with SchoolAI over the last year and that about 40 teachers currently use the system in teacher- or student-facing roles. He described two product tracks: teacher assistants for lesson planning and behavior supports, and student-facing spaces that teachers design for interactive lessons, for example simulated interviews with historical figures. The presenter acknowledged AI limitations, including hallucinations, and said those errors are being used as teaching moments: “We might plug something into AI and expect that everything that it gives us is right, but we should be thinking critically,” Andrew said. Andrew described monitoring and safety features built into the platform: teachers can review a conversation log, see indicators when a student appears off-task, and receive immediate alerts if the system flags self-harm or other safety concerns. He recounted a fifth-grade classroom example where SchoolAI flagged a student comment about war so the teacher could review context. On data privacy, Andrew said the district has a data privacy agreement with SchoolAI to keep information in a secured environment and contrasted that with the risk of teachers pasting student information into public tools such as ChatGPT. Board members asked whether the district would continue surveying teachers; Andrew said yes and described teacher feedback reporting quicker feedback for students, greater classroom engagement and time savings for teachers. The presenter said the district plans to expand teacher use next school year and noted an upcoming second-version rollout from the vendor that includes additional creation tools. Ending: The presentation was informational; board members asked follow-up questions but no formal action or vote was taken. District staff will continue teacher surveys and monitor classroom use as the district scales the pilot.