Artificial intelligence, or AI as it’s commonly known, has the capacity to bring innovation to the classroom and modernize education in previously unimaginable ways.
But with that comes the challenge of ensuring AI tools— the chatbot ChatGPT, for example — are used ethically rather than as a resource for cheating.
“School departments around the country and school boards around the country are grappling with this question about what to do,” said School Committee member Jeff Liberty, who is also chair of the policy subcommittee. “The policy is the smallest part of it. The biggest part is what happens in the classrooms. This is an emerging field of technology. Therefore, the ethical and pedagogical implications are still evolving. It’s in that context we’re thinking about whether we should and shouldn’t have a policy and, if we do, what it’s going to consist of.”
The Massachusetts Association of School Committees “does not have, right now, a template we can use on AI, because it’s new to them, as well,” Liberty said. As a result, the School Committee must decide whether to “forge its own path” or wait for a recommendation from the association.
Liberty said the policy subcommittee, meanwhile, has been involved in a multi-year process of revisiting and revising all of its policies. The timing works out, he said, in that the School Committee is now focused on completing Section I, which includes all or most of the district’s technology-related policies.
“I noticed that we had and have policies on the books about social media and about the internet, for example … but we do not, right now, have a policy in place for AI, and AI is here,” Liberty said. “So it made sense to me, as an individual member, to take up a conversation about whether we should have an AI policy in a moment where we’re reconsidering all of our policies.”
Liberty explained that, typically, a policy item is discussed at the subcommittee level, after which a recommendation is made to the full committee for a first reading. Feedback from that discussion is then returned to the subcommittee to refine before it returns to the full committee for a second reading and, if called for, a vote.
Superintendent Jill Geiser said when and if the discussion returns to the committee, her role will be to provide the educator’s perspective and possibly recommendations.
“It’s obviously a very complicated question for educators, not just here in Belmont but across the board,” she said.
According to minutes from a policy subcommittee meeting on June 10, Alicia Mallon, a consultant with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, said districts with AI policies at this stage focus on three things: the aspirations for the future of AI, delegating the responsibility for developing a procedure to school administration, and the idea of a periodic review by the School Committee.
The minutes also note School Committee Chair Meghan Moriarty, who was a member of the policy subcommittee at the time, expressed concern about whether the draft language was already addressed in other policies, and member Amy Zuccarello, also a member at the time, expressed a desire for further guidance from the association before the School Committee evaluated any draft language.
“Last year, I was chair of the policy subcommittee, and I am again this year … and we touched on some sections on AI,” Liberty said. “Unfortunately, the way that the process works, we only have a certain number of hours in the day and we can only accomplish a certain number of policy revisions all the way through to approval.”
He said that, towards the end of last year, a number of Section I policies were voted on, but the committee ultimately decided not to vote on technology-related policies.
“There was so much going on with the override and the other work we were doing at the School Committee level,” he said. “There wasn’t enough time to give it the proper thought that I and others wanted.”
Liberty added that the policy subcommittee’s membership has since changed. He wanted to allow some time for members Matt Kraft and Amy Checkoway to “get their footing before going into deeper water.” As a result, he said, a few other policy discussions will come ahead of consideration of an AI policy.
“I expect that sometime in November or December, a first reading of the AI policy will come before the full School Committee,” he said. “That’s pending a few other issues, like what else we have to consider.”