The East Providence School District put forth the first reading of an official policy dictating proper and improper uses of artificial intelligence (AI) at the Feb. 11 meeting of the East Providence School Committee.

“I think we’ve tried to be proactive, as we started to see more and more AI tools become available to both staff and students,” said Dr. Sandra Forand, school superintendent, in an interview discussing the policy. “We felt as if we really needed to put something out there that discusses the appropriate use of AI. So staff would have guidance and students would have guidance.”

When asked, Forand said that school faculty had already caught students at the middle school and high school levels using AI tools, like the popular ChatGPT, to generate homework assignments and essays.

“Probably more than we know,” she said.

Such an act would be akin to plagiarism, and a punishable offense under this policy.

The policy — which still needs to pass through a second reading before being approved — includes definitions on what an AI tool is, how they should be used to advance educational goals of the district, and gets into specific dos and don’ts regarding what students would be able to use AI for within a classroom setting and for assignments.

It further dictates that only those above the age of 13 should be allowed to use it (due to privacy laws that already prohibit data collection on individuals under the age of 13), and that individual classroom teachers can have the ultimate say as to whether or not they want to allow AI tools to be used.

Importantly, according to Dr. Forand, the policy is also intended to be updated often.

“Given the rapid evolution of AI, this policy will be reviewed annually or as needed,” she said. “Unfortunately, we end up learning a lot as we go because students sometimes are a step ahead. So there may be uses that we didn't identify in the beginning that we might have to add to either the prohibited uses or put some parameters around those…it's going to be a policy that we have to constantly look at.”

Like it or not, AI is already a part of education
Asked about the potential reaction from parents in the district who might be alarmed at the notion of artificial intelligence being used in the classroom, district IT Director Patrick McDonald said that it was important to communicate early and often about such a policy due to the newness of the technology.

“I think it’s going to be a lot like when I was growing up and spellcheck and the internet was so much more readily accessible,” he said. “It’s a new technology, and that’s scary. It’s just trying to come to people where they're at and being willing to have those conversations. I think I'm going to end up talking to school committee a lot more I have previously.”

Dr. Forand also added that, even prior to this proposed policy being written up, students were already using AI in and out of their classrooms in helpful ways. Whether that’s using browser tools like Grammarly to improve their sentence structure, or a tool McDonald mentioned called Screencastify, which enables teachers to record lessons for students to review later.

“We have a wide range of different language speakers in the district,” he said. “And so teachers have been able to use Screencastify to create closed captions for their lesson in the student's native language, which has been really helpful for them.”

“I think there's a lot of examples of it in use right now,” Forand said. “Teachers are using it to supplement different lesson planning, to generate projects and different ideas, to really enhance learning. We're using different adapted platforms, like our iReady platform. Students do a diagnostic and it will identify where the student is and then place them on a level that's appropriate to where they are at the time.”

Forand mentioned how tools that utilize AI functions, like “Kahoot!” — an interactive trivia game which can instantly create quizzes specifically tailored to the day’s lesson plan — drive enthusiasm among students.

“You can call on a student to raise their hand, and maybe one student in the class raises their hand,” she said. “But when you put up a Kahoot, you notice that every student is participating.”

What’s allowed, and what isn’t?
According to the policy, students would be allowed to use AI tools to do things like assist their problem-solving abilities, enhance understanding, and to explore different perspectives on complex issues; create study tools like flash cards and self-generated quizzes; draft outlines and check grammar; and for accessibility benefits such as text-to-speech and language translation for multi-lingual learners.

As far as prohibited uses, the policy outlines specifically that AI cannot be used for:

• Cheating, plagiarism, or academic dishonesty
• Submitting AI-generated work as original
• Using AI to impersonate oneself in class settings
• Translating assignments where language learning is the objective
• Creating artistic/auditory materials in creative-focused courses (unless explicitly permitted)

The policy also states that students must always disclose when they used AI in their work, including the specific tool that was used.

“Direct AI-generated content should be treated like any other quoted source,” the policy states. “Text copied from AI sites must be treated as any other direct quote.”

Violating the policy can result in grade penalties, revocation of technology access, and suspension.

For teachers, the policy specifically dictates that they cannot rely on AI tools to provide assessments of students, however Forand said that hopefully it can reduce the time burden spent on more administrative tasks.

“It's a difficult job as it is, as we all know. So even just giving them that little bit of extra support and time savers in the classroom,” Forand said. “I think it's a starting point for a lot of things, even like letters of recommendation for students. If you can give it the criteria that you want it to follow, it becomes a starting point so that you can modify the letter to fit the student. But it it does give you a base to work off of. As long as it becomes your own, too. That's the important thing.”

McDonald said the district would be providing professional development sessions for teachers to learn more about how to utilize AI, and how to look out for students who might be potentially abusing it.

Forand said that ultimately, AI cannot take the place of a dedicated teacher, but it is a transformational technology that has a lot of upside, and so ignoring it is not an option.

“There always has to be that face-to-face interaction with the teacher, but I just see a lot of possibilities for it,” Forand said. “And there's always going to be the downside to it, so we're going to have to stay ahead of as it evolves.”

You can read the full policy as it has been drafted below.