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Rye City schools outline AI guidelines, classroom pilots and parent training
Summary
At its Oct. 7 meeting the Rye City School District presented districtwide AI guidelines, described summer professional learning for teachers and showcased classroom pilots using Magic School and other tools; the district is limiting open LLM access for students while it expands teacher training and parent outreach.
The Rye City School District Board of Education on Oct. 7 heard a detailed presentation on the district's artificial intelligence guidelines, classroom pilots and plans for parent education. Assistant Superintendent Lauren Santa Barbara led the presentation with Dr. Caitlin Sasson, director of technology, instructional technology coaches Carol Ann Bombace and Kim Persad, two teachers and two students.
The presentation framed AI integration as instructional and ethical work. "As technology evolves and becomes increasingly embedded in our daily lives, we believe we have responsibility to not only keep pace but to lead with integrity, thoughtfulness, and purpose when it comes to the use of AI within our classrooms," Santa Barbara said.
District officials said the guidelines — developed over roughly two years with the technology committee, teachers and community feedback — emphasize critical thinking, inclusivity and ethics. Dr. Sasson said the process emphasized district values: "Instead of shying away from it, I think as a district, we really thought about our values and beliefs and said what's at the core of our learning." The guideline document is organized around several sections that define the district stance, professional learning, ethical use and alignment with existing policies and approved sites.
Officials described a two-day AI Institute this summer that drew about 53 teachers and a continuing, year-round professional learning program. The district is piloting teacher-facing and student-facing tools with built-in management features. Instructional technology staff identified Diffit as a mainly teacher-facing tool to support differentiation and Magic School as a platform that can be tightly configured by teachers to control which generators students may access and at what grade level.
Teachers demonstrated classroom uses. Anna Dagmar Johnson, an elementary music teacher at Osborne School, described a composing project where students interview an AI-rendered historical composer and then write and revise their own music-related text, using AI only to refine drafts rather than create them. In middle school, teachers have built three targeted "rooms" in Magic School — writing, study skills and research — that students access by assignment. Magic School's teacher dashboard records prompts and interactions so teachers can review student use.
Seventh- and eighth-grade students also do a values-based "gray area" activity to surface ethical choices about AI use, and lessons teach students to spot deepfakes, hallucinations and bias. Student presenters Taylor Dougherty and Brooke Erickson told the board the activities helped peers see when AI use is appropriate. "Using AI doesn't have to feel icky," Taylor said, "it can feel beneficial ... because it was given to us by our teachers so we know that we're allowed to use it and we're not allowed to cheat."
On policy and access, the district said larger open large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Gemini are currently approved only for teacher-facing use; student access to those platforms is blocked on school Google accounts pending further education and privacy review. The district cited concerns about student data privacy and Ed Law 2-d and said it will continue to assess vendor contracts and privacy protections before expanding student access.
Officials announced a three-part "Parent University" series to explain student access, school safeguards and guidance for home use: an all-ages overview on Nov. 17, and deeper split sessions (K–6 and 7–12) on Jan. 7 and Feb. 23.
District leaders said next steps include continued revision of the guidelines by the technology committee, broader K–12 alignment of AI literacy lessons (including work on a ninth-grade composition course), and ongoing professional learning tied to department goals. The board did not take formal action on policy at the meeting; staff said several privacy- and data-related policies will be brought forward for adoption at the Oct. 28 meeting.
The presentation included specific classroom examples, teacher-facing pilots, and student work samples. Staff emphasized that AI is being introduced as a tool to support instruction and skill development rather than to replace student thinking.
