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Hampden-Wilbraham school committee endorses AI-use guideline emphasizing privacy, accessibility and teacher training
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Summary
A district committee approved a two-track AI guideline that allows staff research use without student PII, requires student-facing tools to meet student-data protections, bans deepfakes and AI-assisted harassment, and calls for teacher training and verification practices.
Members of the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District school committee on Thursday endorsed an AI-use guideline that separates staff research tools from student-facing AI, bans impersonation and deepfakes, and emphasizes verification, accessibility and training.
Presenter outlined a "two-track" approach, saying staff "are free to use AI" for professional research so long as they "provide no student specific personally identifiable information," and that any AI tools teachers direct students to must conform to the district's student-data privacy protections. The presenter also recommended a verification step to teach students not to trust AI outputs uncritically.
The guideline includes explicit prohibitions on voice synthesis and deepfakes and on using AI to assist bullying or harassment. It adds a new emphasis on receptive-language accessibility, describing AI as a potential online tutor that can rephrase explanations or break down complex material for English learners and others who need different access formats.
The presenter disclosed the draft policy was "drafted with the assistance of generative AI," and said the district had incorporated staff feedback into the version the group reviewed. The presenter also warned that AI-detection tools are unreliable: "I've put things that I've generated with AI into AI detectors and it's told me it's human, and I've put things that I've written myself with no AI into the detector and it's told me, oh, computer definitely wrote this."
Several committee members urged safeguards to ensure students still master basic skills. One committee member said students "should be able to write a page, an essay, and they should be able to do some basic math without any assistance," and others pressed for clear assessment expectations and limits on AI use during testing.
The guideline calls for teachers to specify permitted levels of AI use on assignments (for example, AI-assisted brainstorming versus collaborative AI creation) and for students to disclose what level of AI they used so teachers can account for it in grading. The presenter recommended ongoing professional development and noted a state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education online course is available to educators.
The chair sought a motion to approve the recommendation with an amendment proposed by a member referred to in the meeting as "Rich's amendment." A motion was made and the committee voted by voice; the chair said the guideline will be brought to the full school committee for consideration. The transcript records affirmative "Aye" votes, but does not include a roll-call tally.
The group set a follow-up meeting to discuss an associated memorandum of understanding and whether an executive session with town officials is needed based on responses from the towns; members suggested meeting roughly a month after the current discussion. The presenter said the policy would take effect in July.
Next steps: the guideline will be presented to the full Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District school committee for a final decision and the subcommittee will reconvene to finalize the MOU and any executive-session matters.
