A year ago, AI policy lived with the technology department and maybe a committee or two. This fall, it's on campaign mailers.
In Chicago, which will seat its first fully elected 21-member school board after next Tuesday's election, an advocacy group called Illinois Families for Public Schools asked every candidate to sign a Pledge to Protect Human-Centered Education. It calls for a three-year moratorium on generative AI in Chicago Public Schools, limits on screen time, a ban on collecting biometric data, and a chief privacy officer. Twenty-four of 42 candidates signed it, including all 15 endorsed by the local teachers union. The district, for its part, told WBEZ it remains committed to a deliberate, responsible approach to AI.
In Maryland, more than 135 candidates are running for school board seats across the state's 24 districts, each of which state law requires to adopt an AI plan by the start of October. When Capital News Service surveyed them, the answers spanned the spectrum: one Cecil County candidate supports banning AI in grades K-5, while a Wicomico County candidate called prohibition unrealistic and wants students taught to use AI responsibly.
So, whatever happens next Tuesday, many boards will have members who ran on AI. This issue is about getting ready for that.
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IN THIS ISSUE:
AI has become a school board campaign issue, and what that means for how you govern
How to bring new (and returning) board members up to speed on AI in their first months
24 of 42
Chicago school board candidates who signed a pledge calling for a three-year pause on generative AI in Chicago Public Schools. Source
21
Seats on Chicago's first fully elected school board. Source
135+
Candidates running for school board seats across Maryland this fall. Source
24
Maryland school districts required by state law to adopt AI plans by the start of October. Source
3 years
Length of the generative AI moratorium in the Chicago candidate pledge. Source
It's not hard to see how we got here. This fall, New York City and Los Angeles paused student AI, Frederick County banned it, and a Wall Street Journal investigation into student dependence made the rounds. Parents noticed, and so did the people asking for their votes.
Read the candidate responses, though, and most of them aren't extreme. The Maryland survey mostly turned up worries you've probably heard in your own district: critical thinking, student privacy, and age-appropriate use. And about half the Chicago candidates chose not to sign the pledge.
OUR TWO CENTS
To be clear, we're not telling anyone how to vote, and we're not taking a side on the Chicago pledge. The concerns behind it (critical thinking, privacy, kids on screens too young) are fair concerns, and plenty of educators share them.
But a campaign pledge is, by design, a blunt instrument. A three-year moratorium fits on a mailer. Governing a district doesn't. Once the new board is seated, someone has to answer the follow-up questions: does a pause cover the kindergarten reading tutor? How about the IEP accommodation a student with a disability depends on? What about the AI literacy lessons the state now expects? Those answers usually come from the superintendent's office.
I'd also argue much of this backlash comes from a lack of transparency, and that's fixable. Across many districts, AI arrived without fanfare or clear communication: one classroom trial here, a new tool turned on there, and minimal context for families. When parents can't see what the district is doing, they fill the gap with the worst headline they read that week, and a candidate promising a three-year pause starts to sound pretty reasonable.
So, the districts that will handle this best are the ones that can show their work: what AI is in use, for which grades, set up to do what, under which contract, and with what results so far. If you can lay that out plainly, a new board member who ran on "pause AI" and a staff that has spent a year on careful pilots can probably find a reasonable middle. If you can't, the most restrictive campaign promise tends to win by default.
As part of my job, I travel all over the country to talk about AI. Recently, I gave a presentation with one of my favorite district leaders, who described their choice this way: they could “stiff-arm” AI or “embrace” it. I understand the instinct to stiff-arm it, especially this fall. But AI isn’t going away, despite how we might feel about it. One thing is certain: our students will graduate into colleges and a shrinking job market that already expects them to use AI well.
If we aren't teaching kids how to use it, I worry the graduates we're turning out could end up being the ones who get stiff-armed.
Write a one-page summary of where AI stands in your district: tools in use by grade, what each is set to do, and what you've learned from pilots so far.
Read your local candidates' public AI positions now, so you aren't learning them at the first meeting.
If a pause comes up, be ready to describe what it would and wouldn't cover, including accommodations and AI literacy.
Maryland lawmakers considered a bill this year, SB 375, that would have required county board members to complete AI training. The Maryland Association of Boards of Education opposed it. Whatever you think about mandating it, the bill pointed to something most superintendents already know: a lot of board members are being asked to govern AI without having spent much time with it.
New members often arrive with a campaign position and little information about what the district actually runs. That's not a criticism; it's how the job starts, and incumbents haven't necessarily kept up either. When Burbio reviewed school board meetings across the country last year, it flagged a lack of AI familiarity among board members with less exposure to it, and found board members in several districts asking for AI training themselves.
OUR TWO CENTS
Treat AI like you treat the budget: brief every board member early, not something they piece together from news coverage and public comment. Within the first month or two, give the full board (new and returning members) an hour on AI. Cover the tools in use and who uses them, what your state now requires, what your contracts say about student data, what you're measuring, and what decisions are coming up. Then let them use the tools the way a student or teacher would. A board member who has watched a tutoring tool coach a student through a problem instead of answering it asks different questions than one who has only read about chatbots doing homework. None of this is about steering a new member away from their platform. It's about ensuring they make the decisions they campaigned on with the same set of facts your staff has.
Schedule an AI briefing for the full board within the first two months after new members are seated.
Include hands-on time so board members can see the tools from the perspectives of parents and teachers.
Opinion: 4 Questions School Leaders Are Asking About AI by Julia Rafal-Baer and Scott Muri, GovTech
Rafal-Baer and Muri (a former Texas superintendent) run a network of 68 school systems that work on AI strategy, and their piece argues the field is moving from experimenting with AI to holding it accountable. One finding should interest any board: more districts in their network reported buying enterprise AI licenses than having a board policy, an approved tool list, or a dedicated budget. Their four questions (is it safe and good enough for students, how will we know it works, who decides, and are we building lasting capacity) would make a solid agenda for a new board's first AI briefing.
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Russ Davis, Founder & CEO, ClassCloud ([email protected])
Tracy Walters, Director of Customer Growth ([email protected])
ClassCloud is an AI company, so naturally, we use AI to polish our content.
