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Pelham outlines cautious AI guidelines, pilots teacher‑controlled SchoolAI for grades 6–12
Summary
Technology staff presented K–12 AI guidelines emphasizing ethical use, data privacy and classroom controls; district is piloting a teacher‑controlled platform, SchoolAI, for grades 6–12 with monitoring dashboards and restricted student access.
District technology leaders gave a detailed presentation on April 21 about how Pelham intends to introduce artificial intelligence into classrooms while guarding academic integrity and student data.
"I'm John Spos, director of tech," said the district's technology director as he introduced the work of the AI user group and the rationale for a cautious rollout. He and Alicia Del Mastro described a multi‑year process of teacher professional development, parent workshops and a K–12 AI user group that produced both teacher and student guidelines. Presenters said the district chose SchoolAI as a pilot platform because it is age‑appropriate, ED‑law compliant and teacher‑controlled: teachers set up a curated "space," define prompts and monitor student interactions through a dashboard or 'mission control center.'
The student guidelines allow AI for brainstorming, feedback, assistive technology and documenting use for transparency, but forbid using AI to produce assignments or assessments without authorization. On detection, presenters cautioned against relying on current automated detectors: the district cited higher‑education guidance that these tools can produce false positives and linguistic bias. "We currently do not recommend using current automatic detection detection algorithms for academic integrity violations," the presenters said, citing research and pilot results.
Staff described classroom technical measures to protect in‑school assessments — for example, using GoGuardian kiosk mode so a student can be limited to a single document during a timed evaluation — and emphasized that human judgment and process‑based assessment remain central to detecting misuse.
The board asked about age thresholds and rollout plans; presenters said the district has limited SchoolAI to grades 6–12 so far and will gather teacher, student and parent feedback as the rollout expands.
Provenance: topicintro SEG 630 / topfinish SEG 1840
