OCPS outlines AI plan, board presses for privacy safeguards and training

Orange County Public Schools on Dec. 9 showed board members a districtwide approach to using artificial intelligence in classrooms and operations, while trustees raised concerns about student privacy, data security and how to teach students to use AI responsibly.

Maurice Dragon, the district's chief information officer, told the board the presentation itself was drafted with AI "as a thought partner" and described several pilot uses, including Google Notebook (NotebookLM) as an indexed repository of district policies and lesson materials. "This presentation was created using AI as a thought partner," Dragon said, noting the district's approved list of tools includes ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Adobe Firefly and Conmigo/Comigo for certain student and staff uses.

Board members said the tools could cut staff workload if tightly governed, but several raised data-privacy and classroom-integrity concerns. "I don't trust AI," Member Vicki Elaine Felder said bluntly during the discussion, emphasizing the need to protect students and preserve the human work of teaching. Felder and others asked how the district will prevent AI from creating misleading or false answers — commonly called "hallucinations" — and how it will stop students from using chatbots as substitutes for learning.

Dragon and Superintendent Maria Vasquez said the district is starting with tools that can be grounded in uploaded district documents to reduce hallucination risk, and they highlighted NotebookLM's ability to link answers to specific documents. Dragon described a layered approach to AI use he called the "AI sandwich": a human begins a task, AI helps do some processing, and a human makes the final judgment. He summarized how district pilots have used AI to turn lesson plans into short instructional videos and to help teachers with translation, data reports and form-filling.

Trustees pressed for concrete controls. Member Gallo asked when board members would get access to the NotebookLM link and demonstrations; Dragon said he would share links and arrange training. Member Salamanca and others stressed that anything beyond a controlled, enterprise environment could expose student records. "If a teacher uploads student records to a non-enterprise AI, that information could be in the public domain," she said, calling for mandatory staff training on data protection.

District staff said they plan to develop an AI policy and training program that will be shared with the board and teacher advisory groups in the coming months. Vasquez committed to summer-paid, in-person training opportunities and to returning to the board with a draft policy and additional materials within roughly two months, and to bringing parent-facing sessions through the Parent Academy early next year.

Board members also discussed where AI belongs in instruction. Several trustees said they want hands-on student guidance to teach critical evaluation of AI outputs and proposals to require some in-class writing or testing without AI so basic skills are retained. Dragon said teachers who have piloted AI emphasize teaching students to ask for sources and verify outputs.

The board did not adopt a policy at the meeting; trustees asked staff to produce more detailed proposals, provide the NotebookLM link and training materials, and return with a draft AI policy and parent-education plan.