AI Policy Is Necessary But Not Sufficient
This isn't another post telling you you need an AI policy; you already know that. In many of my AI posts, I casually mention that readers should "always check with their school's AI policy first." But what worries me is that I know many schools still don't have one.
Across recent industry surveys of independent school leaders, a significant share report having either no schoolwide AI guidelines yet, or guidelines that are still in development.
And having a policy alone is not enough. Policies provide guardrails, but the risks remain without AI literacy training. A few risks:
Data privacy breaches: A teacher uploads class rosters or grade data to an AI tool for "quick formatting help," potentially violating FERPA (or state privacy laws) by exposing student information to a third party. Data entered into consumer-facing AI tools creates a risk of exposing sensitive student information to third parties.
Biased or discriminatory outputs: AI trained on flawed data can unintentionally perpetuate bias. For instance, an AI tool used to analyze student essays or applications might flag certain writing styles as "lower quality" based on biased training data. Without proper AI literacy training, staff won't recognize these patterns.
Inaccurate or "hallucinated" content: AI sometimes fabricates data or facts, which could end up in board reports or communications. Without AI literacy training, staff may not know techniques for verification and fact-checking.
Here is my key point: AI policy isn't fundamentally new or different. Every online tool that a staff member or teacher uses—even those without AI—faces the same core issues of data privacy, bias, and reliability.
What is different is how quickly AI has entered our workflows and how enticing these tools are because of their incredible capabilities. The speed of adoption and the allure of "cool" AI tools mean schools must pay attention faster and more intentionally than with past technologies.
We've all learned over time when to trust or not trust Google searches or Wikipedia content. Eventually, we'll reach that same level of discernment with AI tools. The difference is that Google and Wikipedia slowly crept into our daily work, with less immediate impact, whereas AI reshapes actions almost overnight.
That's why AI literacy training matters just as much as policy. Staff need the same intuition we've built for evaluating online information—but for a far more powerful set of tools.
