Roanoke County lays out AI zones, teacher tools and integrity measures for classrooms

Roanoke County Public Schools staff presented a district framework for classroom artificial intelligence centered on ethics, human oversight and practical classroom controls. A staff presenter described "10 guiding principles for AI in education," stressing that "AI should complement, never replace teaching" and that teachers must retain human oversight. The district proposed a zoned model that restricts AI use by assignment type—Zone 0 for authentic student work where AI is not allowed, Zone 1 for limited guided use, and Zone 2 for higher-level professional presentation uses.

Staff demonstrated a teacher-facing, sequestered platform (described in the meeting as a Magic School GPT integrated in SharePoint) that produces standards-aligned lesson plans, sub plans and differentiation resources without querying public web sources. The presenter said the district is tracking usage from SharePoint and building prompt coaches and aligned resources so teachers receive reliable, local guidance. For the online academy, staff described tightened academic integrity practices: weekly deadlines, proctored midterms, random validation checks and analytics (Lightspeed) to flag anomalies, with staff following up by phone or in-person conversations rather than automatic discipline. "We're gonna make sure that our use of it is ethical and responsible," one staff presenter said, adding the goal is to "teach students to think with AI, not instead of" it.