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Parkrose team urges K—12 media-literacy program, teacher-led AI vetting and parental opt-in for classroom AI
Summary
A district AI action-research team told the Parkrose School District board it prefers teaching media and AI literacy over tool bans, proposing a K— scope-and-sequence, teacher vetting attached to unit plans, parental opt-in for under-13 students and an academic-integrity review team to handle suspected AI-authored work.
Parkrose School District AI action-research team leaders Lori and Em presented the district board on May 26, recommending a K— media-literacy and tech team, teacher-led vetting for any student-facing AI, and parental opt-in consistent with federal child-privacy law.
"Any policy that looks at saying yes or no to specific tools is by the time it's written going to be obsolete," Lori said, arguing the district should teach "critical consumption of media, including critical consumption of AI." She recommended a multi-year scope-and-sequence, professional development for teachers, and a media-literacy specialist to lead implementation.
Why it matters: The presenters said media literacy gives students enduring skills that transfer across jobs and technologies. They flagged equity risks if the district relies on automated AI-detection tools, which they described as biased against multilingual students; instead they proposed a human academic-integrity team of trained teachers to compare suspect work with known student samples and recommend restorative responses.
Key recommendations included establishing a district media-literacy and tech team with at least five teachers (including special education and EL specialists), attaching an AI/tech vetting form to unit plans so teachers document educational purpose and privacy safeguards, and pursuing a News Literacy Project district-fellowship grant the presenters said is worth $30,000 over three years to seed the work.
On student access, presenters said the district should continue to limit broad generative-AI access for students. They cited a contained high-school example in which a teacher uses a "notebook LLM" that runs only on teacher-provided documents and keeps student use inside the school environment; such uses should be vetted and approved as part of curriculum adoption.
Presenters also urged replacing a punitive acceptable-use approach with a "desired digital behaviors" guide to set expectations and rely on restorative responses rather than automatic discipline for suspected AI misuse.
Board reaction and implementation hurdles: Board members and the superintendent welcomed the recommendations but raised a practical concern: the district's only media-literacy specialist has been cut to 0.5 FTE and proposed high-school and middle-school electives were removed in the current round of budget reductions. The presenters said implementation will require restoring staffing capacity and aligning funding.
The board asked for follow-up materials and said staff would return with options for pilot implementation, community engagement on parental consent, and a staffing plan that identifies trade-offs.
Next steps: The district will review the AI-vetting form and consider a pilot at the high school, explore the News Literacy Project fellowship, and provide board members with the presentation packet for further feedback.
