Methactton teachers outline AI pilot uses and urge district policy, training and equity safeguards

Methactton School District staff presented a year of classroom pilots and committee recommendations on artificial intelligence at the board’s May 20 work session, urging the board to adopt a plan that pairs classroom uses with training and clear safeguards.

Dr. Regina, who led the district’s teaching-and-learning AI committee, said the group convened monthly and developed position statements that “AI should help students think, learn, create and communicate more effectively,” while not replacing foundational skills. She told the board the committee recommends a simple red/yellow/green model to identify activities that are permitted, require teacher guidance, or are prohibited.

Teachers described classroom uses that district leaders say have improved feedback and differentiation. Rebecca Lennox, the district’s middle‑school Spanish teacher, said she has piloted AI language labs and voice-chat tools to simulate conversational practice and reach students in large enrollment classes: “Students could have AI‑generated conversations in Spanish … we would customize the chat so that the students would only be able to engage with the chatbot with the questions that we’re providing,” she said.

English and AP teachers described using custom GPTs/GEMs to analyze drafts, extract exemplars and give instant formative feedback on hundreds of free‑response items. Mr. Ma, a social‑studies teacher, said staff built custom GPTs to check whether lessons align with stated learning objectives and to give students rapid, rubric‑based feedback on writing: “They fed it sample free response questions … they got instant feedback. Here’s how we’d score this. Here’s why you missed the point,” he said, calling the tools a “game changer” for formative instruction.

Elementary teacher Jen Vulpi described using Notebook LM (a Google educator tool) to upload only district curriculum materials and generate differentiated study guides, short videos and flashcards, and reported improved pre/post assessment scores among students who used the tools.

Privacy and licensing were recurring concerns in the board’s question period. Board members asked whether district inputs would be used to train vendor models. Presenters said the district is using educator‑licensed versions of ChatGPT and Google tools that, per vendor documentation cited by the presenters, do not use district inputs to train public models, and they reiterated a strict prohibition on entering personally identifiable student data into AI tools.

Several board members asked the committee to gather more published evidence about AI’s impact on student learning—particularly cognitive and reading‑science research—and to include equity considerations and a plan to ensure comparable exposure across schools. Dr. Regina told the board the committee plans to draft a formal recommendation over the summer and present administration proposals for fall consideration on whether the district should adopt a policy, administrative guidelines, or an acceptable‑use form.

Next steps spelled out to the board were (1) develop a detailed policy/guidelines proposal and training plan over the summer, (2) expand staff professional development in 2026–27 (including prompt‑writing and GEM/GPT construction), and (3) form a student AI advisory group after student volunteers expressed strong interest. The administration also proposed continued use of educator‑licensed tools and careful data‑sanitization practices for any analysis that uses student work.

The board did not vote; presenters asked board members for direction about policy form (formal policy vs. guidelines vs. acceptable‑use forms) and for time to return in the fall with a full proposal and supporting evidence.