A Careful Path on AI in Schools
AI is arriving in classrooms fast, faster than anyone can evaluate its impact. Given the real risks to student learning, mental health, and data privacy, we’re asking the district to slow down and ask the right questions.
OUR POSITION
AAPS should not roll out AI tools in classrooms until it can demonstrate they are safe, effective, and genuinely serve learning.
Questions to Ask about AI
AI is an incredibly powerful technology. The people who created it admit they don't understand its impact on adults, much less on children with developing brains. No wonder they don't want their own kids using it.
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Rather than rushing to force an untested and unpredictable technology onto vulnerable minds, we encourage AAPS to asks these questions.Â
1.
For which grade levels is generative AI harmful to students and therefore inappropriate?
2.
For grade levels in which AI might benefit students, what evidence do we have that it will produce these benefits rather than encourage students to cheat or skip learning?
3.
Even if AI were shown to improve learning in certain situations, how do we weigh this against the risks to students’ data privacy, mental health, critical thinking, and social skills?
4.
What happens to student data captured by AI tools?
Three Reasons This Matters Now
The district is moving fast and without asking families and teachers.
AAPS is plunging in without a formal policy, without parent input, and without evidence that these tools are safe or effective for students.
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What's the rush?
AI poses serious risks to kids’ learning and development.
AI may impair the foundational skills students are still building: reading, writing, critical thinking, and the ability to reason independently. Our kids shouldn’t be guinea pigs for science experiments or beta tests for product rollouts.
Student data privacy is at stake.
AI tools collect and use student information in ways most families don’t fully understand and haven’t meaningfully consented to. Before taking further steps with AI, AAPS owes parents transparency about the use of student data and a reliable method of protecting it.
Our kids shouldn’t be the beta test. Let’s ask what AI is for, how much is too much, and who gets to weigh in.
What the Evidence Tells Us
We are pro-learning, pro-teachers, and pro-evidence. Our request of AAPS is simple: uphold your own stated standard of evidence-based practice.
1.
AI is great for productivity and terrible for learning. What’s more important for our students: being productive or learning to think, write, and reason?
2.
According to neuroscientists and child development experts, forcing AI onto kids denies them the critical thinking skills they’ll need to use AI successfully as adults.
3.
Doctors don’t prescribe untested drugs. Why are schools introducing untested technology to developing brains?
4.
The research on AI in classrooms is genuinely unclear. Even the U.S. Department of Education acknowledges that long-term effects on how children learn and develop are not fully understood. That uncertainty is a reason to pause, not proceed.
Have a Perspective on AI in AAPS?
We’re gathering parent and teacher input to bring thoughtful questions to the district. Tell us what you’re seeing and what you'd like us to ask.
