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Board hears draft AI policy after student town halls; members call for clearer rules and teacher disclosure
Summary
Orange County staff presented an IJNDC draft that would permit vetted AI tools, bar use of open/unvetted models on district data, and forbid AI detection results as the sole basis for discipline; board members urged explicit protections for IEPs, parental disclosure, and more teacher training and monitoring.
Orange County School District staff on May 12 presented draft revisions to the Appropriate Use of Electronic Resources policy (IJNDC), introducing guardrails for artificial intelligence in classrooms and operations and summarizing themes from student town halls.
Maurice Dragon, who led the presentation, said the draft updates would require human review for high‑stakes decisions (student placement, grading, disciplinary actions and personnel evaluations) and prohibit staff from using district data to train public AI models. "Staff shall only use district‑vetted, secure AI systems that do not use OCPS data to train public models; the use of open source or unvetted commercial AI models is explicitly prohibited," Dragon said.
Students’ feedback: Dragon reported town halls at every high school showed consistent student concerns about fairness and inconsistent teacher practices. Students told staff that being graded by AI while being barred from using it felt "hypocritical," and said detection tools sometimes produce false positives. "Students strongly feel that receiving an automatic 0 based on a flawed software is unjust," Dragon summarized.
What the draft requires: The policy would require educators to verify AI outputs before disseminating them, require secondary verification before disciplinary actions for alleged AI misuse (document history, comparison with baseline samples, or a direct conversation with the student), and prohibit using AI chatbots for emotional support without approved safeguards. Dragon emphasized that authorized AI tools could be used for tutoring and other supplementary functions when teachers define acceptable lesson‑level uses.
Board concerns and next steps: Several members asked that the human‑centric restriction explicitly include IEPs and student recommendation letters so those documents are not produced or finalized solely by AI. Members also raised enforcement questions: whether the district should provide detection tools to teachers, how disputes over alleged AI use would be resolved, and whether teachers must disclose AI use to parents and students. Legal counsel and staff pointed to the CTA contract language that requires the district to provide a list of approved AI platforms and to provide training when new platforms are added; counsel said administrators retain the ability to direct teachers who misuse approved platforms.
Student safety and emotional support: Board members urged caution about banning all chatbot or emotional‑support interactions, because some students use chatbots when they feel they have no trusted adult. Staff noted Gaggle monitoring on middle and high school devices can flag concerning chatbot inputs and route them to local school review rather than automatic discipline.
No votes were taken; staff said the draft is a baseline that will be followed by training, ongoing refinement, and procurement work to vet tools and establish privacy and non‑training guarantees before approving platforms for staff use.
