School system adopts guidance and pilot of Magic School AI for teachers; student access planned after staff training

Campbell County Public Schools told the school board Aug. 11 that the division will adopt guidelines governing artificial intelligence and will pilot Magic School (referred to in the meeting as Magic School AI) for staff use, with student access to follow after additional training and review.

Mister Hudson presented the plan and said the district chose the Magic School platform partly for data-privacy reasons: the platform “is not going to feed other large language models,” he said, describing it as a curated, education-oriented tool that keeps district inputs from being submitted to external models. Hudson described intended teacher uses — lesson planning, rubrics, brainstorming, study guides and differentiated instruction — and called for professional judgment and verification, warning that AI “hallucinates” and must be checked for accuracy.

Hudson and other speakers said the rollout will be phased: the instructional-technology resource teachers (ITRTs) have introduced the guidelines and Magic School to schools, staff training continues through September with follow-up in October, and the district will reassess before enabling generative-AI access for students (targeted for the spring semester). Hudson described an “80–20 rule” for professional use: let AI do up to 80% of an initial draft but require professionals to review and edit the output before use.

Board members asked about student access, alignment with existing state-vetted curricular tools (for example, math and reading programs), potential conflicts with other software, contract length and intellectual-property concerns. Hudson said Magic School can be customized to align with Virginia standards and with district needs and that purchasing Magic School allowed the district to reallocate funds from a prior subscription (Discovery Education).

Several board members voiced concerns about academic integrity and overreliance on AI. One board member asked how to detect whether student work was produced by AI; another raised concerns that teachers could outsource their professional content creation and students could lose subject-matter mastery. Hudson and other officials said these are reasons to phase the rollout and to train staff on appropriate checks, bias review and data privacy.

The board discussed contract length and the rapidly changing AI market; one member recommended short-term licensing (yearly) to retain flexibility.

Discussion-only points: vendors and platforms beyond Magic School were discussed (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini), but the board did not vote to adopt a permanent long-term contract at the meeting. The division said it will continue to vet alignment, bias and data-security safeguards and return to the board if guidelines need revision.

Next steps: staff training through September–October; pilot and feedback collection in October; planned review before any student access is enabled (district target: spring semester).