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Coventry board approves $7,499 contract with Magic School to pilot classroom AI
Summary
After a presentation and questions about safety and privacy, the Coventry Local Board of Education approved a $7,499 purchase/service contract with Magic School to provide NIST-compliant, teacher-curated AI tools for staff and students in 2026–27.
Courtney of Magic School told the Coventry Local Board of Education on June 17 that Magic School is a closed, educator-driven AI platform with multiple safety and evaluation layers aimed at keeping student interactions age-appropriate and aligned with district curriculum. The board voted to approve a purchase/service contract with Magic School, Inc. for an annual cost of $7,499 for the 2026–27 school year.
Why it mattered: Ohio recently moved to require locally adopted AI policies, and the district noted a July 1 deadline for its own board-approved AI policy. The board said adopting a vendor that emphasizes teacher-controlled templates, moderation flags and export controls would help the district move from policy to practice while maintaining oversight.
Courtney described three technical layers: (1) LLM partners that power outputs; (2) an internal evaluation and safety layer that moderates content for age appropriateness and bias; and (3) a teacher-facing top layer of curated templates and ‘rooms’ that limit free-form interaction. “AI earns its place when it does what a human cannot do alone at scale,” Courtney said, arguing the platform can help with differentiated instruction, accessibility and formative assessment without replacing teachers.
Board members asked how the system prevents unsafe behavior and whether Magic School uses AI to evaluate AI. Courtney said the platform relies on a human-centered evaluations team rather than an automated AI-on-AI approval process and that district staff and educators can pause or close individual rooms immediately if moderation flags appear. She also said the company’s stated policy is not to train on or sell district inputs; she described that as part of Magic School’s data protections.
Members pressed on privacy and student profiles. Courtney said the platform does not create persistent student training profiles (citing limits tied to Ohio Senate Bill 29) and instead gives teachers configurable profiles and templates so the system is educator-driven rather than tracking students across sessions.
The board discussed cost and rollout logistics. Trustees said about 15 teachers had trial access earlier in the year; the $7,499 sum was presented as an initial adoption/initialization fee plus related training and implementation work. Courtney and a partner from PSC are scheduled to return for staff training in August.
The motion to approve the contract passed on a roll-call vote with unanimous 'Yes' responses (Mr. Bowser, Mrs. McGraw, Mr. Sulich, Mrs. P., Mr. Fer/board member recorded as voting yes). The board directed staff to proceed with vendor onboarding and local implementation planning.
What’s next: Training and initial implementation are scheduled for August; the board will consider how Magic School tools are integrated into curriculum and which tools are enabled for each grade level. The district will also finalize its AI policy to meet the state-mandated deadline.
Sources: Presentation and Q&A by Courtney (Magic School); superintendent and board discussion recorded at the June 17 meeting.
