Bethlehem Area SD outlines phased, teacher‑supervised AI pilot for secondary students
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Summary
District staff described a controlled pilot granting about 265 secondary students supervised access to Google Gemini and Notebook LM, staff training plans including a Feb. 13 KIKER Learning session, and a Lehigh University AI tutor pilot for Algebra I that provides hints rather than answers.
Unidentified Speaker 7 and Unidentified Speaker 9 briefed the committee on a phased generative AI pilot and district training strategy. Unidentified Speaker 9 said staff have "very, methodically, carefully, and incrementally" granted access to Google Gemini and Notebook LM to a select group of high school students under teacher supervision and described training and safety steps that precede student access.
The pilot began with volunteer teachers: "In October, we identified 8 teachers for each of our 2 high schools who volunteered to be a part of this program," Unidentified Speaker 9 said, and teachers received safety/security and acceptable-use training before student access was enabled. Unidentified Speaker 9 said roughly 265 students were given access in the pilot and teachers can use GoGuardian controls to limit use to particular assignments.
Staff described three main workstreams: staff AI literacy training, research collaborations (notably with Lehigh University on an AI tutor called MathPal that integrates with IXL), and the student pilot that provides teacher-supervised access. On staff training, Unidentified Speaker 9 described earlier in‑service and conference sessions and said an outside vendor, KIKER Learning, will provide a full-day secondary training on Feb. 13.
Unidentified Speaker 9 noted both pedagogical promise and student caution, sharing anonymized student feedback: pupils reported using Gemini to get vocabulary examples, simplify explanations for AP government prep, and check rubrics during editing. He also stated a security point about the vendor: "They don't use student data to train the model," and said that Gemini's privacy/security posture was a reason staff felt comfortable limiting pilot access to older students for now.
Committee members raised concerns about misuse, equity and vendor lock-in. Unidentified Speaker 2 warned about the risk of broad access and urged "surgical" deployments focused on narrow instructional use cases; Unidentified Speaker 10 explained instructors can configure tools to prompt students with questions rather than deliver direct answers, preserving a focus on critical thinking.
Staff said the pilot is intended to be iterative—teachers choose whether to enable the tools for each assignment, and the district will use survey feedback and teacher reports to shape any wider rollout.