Syosset board hears results of 100-day AI pilot; teachers used Gemini to tailor instruction

The Syosset Central School District Board of Education heard a report on an accelerated, teacher-led artificial-intelligence pilot that produced practical classroom tools and raised clear guardrails for student use.

Doctor Rogers introduced the presentation, saying the district approved 32 AI pilot projects in January and issued adult-facing licenses for tools including Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Canva so educators could learn promising uses while the district addressed data-privacy constraints. "Ed Law 2-d compliant" safeguards, he said, are required before identifiable student data can be used in cloud-based AI services.

The pilots were organized and overseen by an AI steering committee that provided training in responsible use, data privacy and prompt literacy. "We began exploring generative AI tools using Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini," said Kelly Fokianos, the district staff developer on the team, who described professional development and a prompt catalog that pilot participants now share across grade levels.

Teachers presented classroom examples. "My student who loves cats now had a book personally leveled for her that matched her interests," said Tyler Gentlecore, a second-grade teacher at Robins Lane, describing how the team combined Gemini output with scholarly criteria on decodable texts and Canva templates to produce leveled, printable books for students. Gentlecore noted limits in image consistency from AI-generated art and emphasized that teacher refinement was required before students received materials.

Fifth-grade teachers Victoria Greco and Justine Konstantinides described an interdisciplinary Shark Tank unit in which Gemini helped generate planning prompts, grouping forms and content beginnings that teachers used to build a project aligned to district goals for collaboration and creativity. "AI provided a foundation, but our teaching expertise shaped it into a truly effective learning experience," Greco said.

High-school English pilots investigated Gemini as a feedback tool. Dave Steinberg, presenting material from a colleague, said the system returned relevant rubric-based feedback, but teachers still had to read essays to ensure accuracy; the tool was more useful as a student self-assessment or a starting point for targeted mini-lessons than as an automated grading replacement.

Board members focused questions on goals, student-facing timelines and safety. Doctor Rogers reiterated that student-facing implementations must meet Ed Law 2-d requirements, including encryption in transit and at rest and contractual assurances that vendors will not mine or resell student data. He said BOCES-level contracting may allow a handful of name-brand tools to become compliant across districts and that the district—xpects more student-facing work once those agreements are in place.

Administrators described next steps: cataloging successful prompts and outputs for teacher reuse, expanding professional development at superintendent conference days, and maintaining a teacher-centered approach that treats AI as a "thought partner" rather than a replacement for professional judgment. The presentation emphasized teacher collaboration and curriculum alignment as the core benefit of the early pilots.

The board agreed to continue piloting and to bring broader faculty training later in the year; no immediate change was made to classroom access for students pending legal and data-security reviews.