Broward presents "Broward Powered by AI" plan as residents press for clearer safeguards

Broward County Public Schools on Thursday presented a broad plan to introduce artificial intelligence across classrooms and operations while many parents, teachers and students urged the board to slow the rollout until safety and oversight measures are in place.

District staff, including Dr. Kevin Cohn, who led the presentation, said the initiative — branded "Broward Powered by AI" — will pair governance, training and pilot testing. The district has supplied staff with Microsoft Copilot licenses and run a small pilot for about 371 students in the AI academy; another vendor, Magic School AI, passed the district's safety rubric and is being prototyped for classroom uses that include differentiated practice and teacher time savings, Cohn said.

Manny Castaf1eda, the district's analytics director, said the AI task force spent 18 months producing an implementation guide and vetting tools. He described four pillars: human oversight, instructional integrity, student safety and equity protections, and said the district requires stronger moderation and real-time threat detection from any student-facing tool before scaling it to more students.

At the meeting, dozens of public speakers urged caution. Parent Heather Velasquez and technology professionals raised privacy and accuracy concerns, warning that some commercial generative models can "hallucinate" confident but false answers and may not flag self-harm or violent content in real time. Technology entrepreneur Matthew Borty said there is no technical filter that can stop hallucinations without human review and asked, "Who is the human safety net?" He asked whether the district or vendor would bear liability for misuse.

Student advisors and teachers who support carefully limited use said controlled, teacher-led access can strengthen learning when paired with literacy and ethical guidance. Student advisor Lily told the board Magic School, used as a tutoring mode during testing, produced helpful step-by-step practice and coaching when she trialed it, but she and others pressed for robust moderation and clear classroom rules.

In response, the board asked staff for a set of follow-ups: make the AI-vetting rubric public; provide board members test accounts; schedule monthly implementation updates that include task-force representatives; publish a clear parent-facing implementation plan and park-level outreach; and return an AI policy draft for board review in July or August. Staff said a drafted policy and implementation guide exist and that a formal public hearing and adoption could be scheduled after board feedback.

The district emphasized a phased approach: staff tools will be rolled out first, and student-facing tools will require teacher credentialing and demonstrated moderation (the district said Copilot does not yet meet the real-time-flagging threshold to deploy broadly to students). Dr. Cohn said the district aims to protect students while building teacher capacity and to measure effects on teacher time and student outcomes before wider adoption.

Next steps: staff will publish the rubric and a parent communication toolkit, provide board members trial access to approved tools, and bring a draft AI policy and implementation timeline back for formal review and adoption.