Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County School Board Regular Meeting, Thursday, April 23, 2026

Date: Thursday, April 23, 2026
Place: Albemarle County Public Schools / School Board meeting, Virginia
Length: 2h 6m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GiZYWhdu_E

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-14. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] reaffirm their shared commitment to justice dignity and excellence in education for every student

[00:00:07] adopted this 23rd day of april 2026 by the album he's still representing so all right let's get

[00:00:50] started for having me here just one last time if you haven't been living under a rock the past two years odds are you've heard about something called artificial intelligence odds are you've also noticed the vast implications that it's had on society and the planet this school year i've observed that there is one side where people feel like a feel like the sky is falling and then there's one side where people say AI will solve all of our problems tonight I would like to give you my take which hopefully doesn't result in the sky falling who knows for context I've spent the past two years learning as much as I can about AI I've created my own automations and AI agents

[00:01:27] and I started the AI Club at Monticello High School alongside Miss Panic to educate students on the topic before I go any further I'd like to assure you that my good buddies Claude, Gemini, and ChatGBT did not assist me in any way making this speech. I'd like to begin by looking at a study from MIT where scientists study the accumulation of cognitive debt in the brain when using an AI assistant for an essay writing task. This experiment consisted of 54 people in three distinct groups. One group used large language models like ChatGBT to write the essay, another used a search engine, and the third went old school, brain only. You're probably wondering what that weird image is, but I'll get to

[00:02:06] that in a moment. The results demonstrated that the LLM users showed weaker brain connectivity and lower memory retention compared to the other two groups by 55%. Essentially, writing is a cognitively demanding task that builds neural pathways. When students use AI in the wrong way or in excess, those pathways don't get built. In fact, when those same LLM users went to write an essay without using any assistive technology, they couldn't re-engage at the same level as the brain-only group, suggesting that those neural pathways supporting individual thought had already begun to weaken over a very short period of time. Second to our brains turning to mush,

[00:02:43] I would like to look at a study by the company Anthropic, the same company who created the large language model Claude, which researched AI's implications on layer markets. So looking at image two, the data from their research showed that AI isn't necessarily firing people immediately, it is simply closing the door to opportunities, mostly those in entry-level white-collar jobs like finance, law, and coding.

[00:03:06] Maybe even school board seats. Just kidding. The data shows since Chajwiti was released, there has been a 14% drop in the job finding rate for ages 22 to 25. Again, driven by slowed hiring, not layoffs. Here's a photo from the article which demonstrates the theoretical and observed AI coverage in different occupational categories.

[00:03:29] Already we see that Claude covers currently 33% of tasks in the computer and math category. Other areas of America is still growing as well. Zooming out all this data seems pretty scary and it is but that fear is what keeps people away from using AI Entirely you see using AI can absolutely result in cognitive decline But only if you're using it in the wrong way one thing I actually left out of the study from MIT was that there was a fourth round of testing where the brain only at Brain only essay writers came back and were then allowed to use an LLM

[00:04:02] The results show that their brains didn't disengage like the original GPT users did it actually improved because they used AI as a a tool on top of an already engaged mind not as a straight replacement for thinking. This is why it is more important than ever to educate our students on this topic. We need to teach them to use it the right way because it isn't going away anytime soon and the implications will only get bigger. If we don't start now I believe we're doing a disservice to our students. So my solution is to start with the basics. Students should be informed which jobs are most vulnerable to AI. They should learn to protect their cognitive foundations and students should be taught to prompt AI which I know we'll all do here shortly

[00:04:41] with how the world is going AI should be taught more like a course subject not a club which is optional thank you and go Mustangs anyone want to follow up with that that one I don't know thank you so much yeah that was impressive other other school board superintendent or committee updates tonight I have two things one I had the honor and privilege of attending opening night last night at western for high school musical and man it was incredible there

[00:05:18] are over 70 students involved in that production and um including one of our student reps claire curry is in it and um it was my mom called me today and she's like i cannot get over how good it was um so i encourage you guys to go this weekend i know the other schools have theirs coming up um but i think the arts are alive and well in acps and it was really beautiful to see so so I encourage you guys to go.

[00:05:43] And speaking of arts, the other thing I wanted to mention is the arts in Western education, which helps fund some of the needs of our various arts in the Western feeder pattern.

[00:05:59] I was looking for some new leadership. I guess they're having several people, their kids are graduating or they're moving on, and so they came up to me last night and asked to just give them a little bump tonight if you're interested in getting involved to contact them because they are doing some really amazing things and they need some more involvement.

[00:06:16] So if you're interested, please reach out to me and I can connect you or reach out to them directly. But definitely go see the musical. It's really, really fun and really well done. And congrats to Ms. Pitts at Western for a really great production. - Any other updates?

[00:06:31] - Then I will also give a shout out for the AHS musical, which is "The Wizard of Oz." And actually the opening night is tonight. And I'm sad about that, but I will be going tomorrow. - That's a fun production. And you're going to do Monticello. I guess I might as well shout out Monticello as well.

[00:06:46] Our opening night is tonight as well. They're doing Mamma Mia. It's awesome. So I suggest you see that as well. And what is Monticello? It's Mamma Mia? Is that right? Mamma Mia, yeah. That's great. And you can get tickets for all of them, I think, if you just go to the school website. The school website. That's right. And I think they're sold at the door.

[00:07:04] It was full last night, so I would encourage you to get tickets ahead of time. It was impressive. Nothing, well, I was going to say nothing that exciting, nothing that Artie. But I did, I guess Bob Beard and I attended the Student Senate meeting on Friday, which is really pretty incredible group of students.

[00:07:25] I got there when Senator Cree Deeds and representatives Amy Laufer and Katrina Coulson were on the panel. And there was quite a few sophisticated questions from the students and it was a very interesting event.

[00:07:42] I don't know if you were there. - I was there. if you wanted to add anything. - Yeah, I would say it's always just an amazing experience. We've had various leaders come give presentations, I mean, especially from our legislators come and letting us talk to them, and then they give their opinions on certain things.

[00:07:59] I know they talked about AI data centers in Virginia. I mean, a lot of people don't even know that we have the most data centers out of anywhere in the entire world, and that we're experiencing some brown spots in some areas. I don't know if that's currently happening, but they said if we continue on this path, it definitely will happen. So it's just really interesting get their point of views on certain topics. I want to give a quick shout out to the track and field programs at all the high schools. So coming up a week from this Friday and Saturday, the Dogwood

[00:08:31] Track Classic, which has been around for generations. One of the elite track meets on the East Coast outside of Penn Relays is happening. And we've had just amazing athletes from Western Monticello and Albemarle all as well as schools from four or five different states that'll come to UVA so this not this weekend but next weekend thank you so much as there's so much going on and for those of you here and for those of you listening remotely there's so many ways to support your your schools but

[00:09:09] one of the one of the honestly easiest ways is to support attending games attending arts shows and attending musicals orchestra and so if you're interested in any of those there's a ton of information on each of the schools websites so I encourage everyone to look at that and support our schools in that way by supporting the the amazing work that they do and their teachers do each and every day the next point on our agenda is 5.0 public comment and I am going to turn it over to vice chair Spillman for come to manage public

[00:09:46] comment. Thank you, Chair Berlin. We welcome public input at our school board meetings to sign up to speak during the public comment period. You can do so in several ways. Online sign up is available from 9 a.m. on the Monday of the meeting week until 2 p.m. on the meeting day. By phone, call the school board clerk's office to sign up until 2 p.m. on the meeting day. In-person sign up at the meeting is available from 6 p.m. until the public comment period for in-person meetings only.

[00:10:13] Please note that public comment is not received at special board meetings unless specified on the agenda each speaker will have three minutes to speak but the chair with board consent may reduce this to two minutes should there be more to be more 14 or more speakers the maximum number of people or groups that may speak at a meeting is 20 if there are more than 20 people or groups who wish to speak at a particular meeting each speaker will be assigned a number and numbers will be drawn to determine which people or groups will have the opportunity to speak those who do not have the opportunity to speak at a particular meeting may sign up to speak at a subsequent meeting and/or may submit written comments to the school board's consideration. Speakers should state their

[00:10:51] name, address, or voting district. Address comments to the school board as a whole. Limit comments to school board governance or school division operations. Comments may not be directed to individual board members, division leadership, or staff. Provide written comments, sorry, provide written statements and supporting materials to the clerk. The school board will have a timer to track each speaker's time. Once the time is up, speakers are asked to wrap up their comments to maintain respect please refrain from clapping or other audible forms of support you may raise your hand instead debate with the school board is not allowed and the projection system is for staff

[00:11:27] presentations only we have five people signed up tonight the first one is Jennifer McDonald hi I enjoyed as a teacher the AI presentation by the way hello I am Jen McDonald and I have been a teacher for 31 years and in Albemarle county public schools for 24 of those years and it has been a very disappointing and demoralizing time under the grading policy that was adopted by the county five years ago. These are some of my

[00:12:04] observations. First, a 50 for no work is untenable. Students, even high achievers, have lost motivation. They see peers doing reasonably well with little effort and wonder why they should try or take away from their own free time. Grades are also inflated and do not reflect the skills that many students do or do not have. Students can pass a class with very little effort. In fact, I have had a handful of students every year since this began pass on to the next grade without writing a single formal essay. I am not the only teacher this is true for. Many teachers in the division at the secondary level have confirmed it is also their experience. This is egregious. Teaching students to write is

[00:12:43] the core objective of an English class. We cannot say we are a division offering rigor and good faith. Second, retests, the way we are doing it, is eroding student accountability and learning. Students who study and do well the first time are getting frustrated that students who don't work can take the test again and sometimes score even higher than the student who showed effort. Students are losing the motivation to try. Many students do not prepare anymore for assessments. They have figured out that they can take a test, determine what is on the test, and then retake it. It is a waste of time and effort both for students and teachers. I have so many students regularly retesting that I have

[00:13:19] to take part of instructional time in order to accommodate them all. This is the primary reason my classes are further behind in curriculum than they were before this policy. Students are more interested in grades than in learning the material or skill. For many students, the only assignments they will do are those with a grade attached to them. Even if they see that it will help on the summative, they still avoid it. It has made a culture where the grade is more important than the learning. Finally, no late penalties for late work is problematic. Students often wait to do work until after the class is finished and gone over it. They're also trying to learn new skills when they haven't mastered the previous content they are trying to build upon. Having

[00:13:56] long deadlines without penalty has made it normal for students to just wait to finish work, which creates a cycle of forever being behind and working on old assignments while new ones are assigned. It is unsustainable and doesn't teach them how to truly budget time. Most alarming, none of these grading policies are preparing students for the real world, much less college. Professors give zeros don't retest assign late penalties in the real world students will have to regularly attend a job be on time do work completely and in a timely fashion because of limited time here I emailed possible solutions to the board teachers are suffering moral injury by being made to participate in this policy and

[00:14:34] students are being done a disservice thank you thank you so much next I have Brittany Lyons good evening members of the school board my name is Brittany and I'm a teacher at Greer Elementary in the Jack Jewett District. I'm here to speak about the work happening at Greer, a Title I school where many of our students face significant challenges in reading and beyond. These challenges disproportionately impact students of color who are more likely to experience

[00:15:12] gaps in access to rigorous instruction, experienced teachers, and stable leadership. At Greer, we refuse to let that be our story. At that, start it all with our principal Dr. Steve Saunders. Under his leadership we came together to design a system that would not fail our students. We implemented strategic grouping so every child received on grade level instruction. Every student taught the full fifth grade curriculum. There's no watering down and no lowering of expectations. Dr. Saunders created a culture where teachers are trusted,

[00:15:49] supported, and expected to innovate on behalf of students. Because of that we partnered closer with our reading team through co-planning and co-teaching and expanded that same all-hands-on-deck approach into math. We operate as a unified team taking collective responsibility for every student and it is working. At the beginning of the year 81% of our students scored below the 50th percentile in oral reading fluency. Today that number is 46%. We've cut it nearly in half. That growth is not accidental. It is the direct result of strong and stable leadership. Research consistently shows that students,

[00:16:28] especially students of color, benefit most from that kind of leadership paired with high expectations and access to grade-level content. This work began with teachers, but it has been sustained and made successful because of Dr. Saunders. He trusts his staff, removes barriers, creates the conditions for meaningful, lasting change. Because of his leadership, our students are now meeting and exceeding district averages and we are just getting started so I have to ask what message does it send about equity when a leader who's driving success in a title one school is removed while being placed in a more affluent school that is

[00:17:07] struggling for Greer the message is clear that it is unacceptable for Crozet to be without an astounding leader but for Greer to be at a loss is the norm if equity is truly the priority then the students who have historically been underserved should not lose the leadership that is helping them succeed leadership matters stability matters equity is not just about where resources are sent it's about where they are sustained greer is a community driven school that deserves the opportunity to continue this work

[00:17:41] without disruption we are in a literacy crisis and failure is no longer an option the principal panel is tomorrow and why we would strongly prefer to retain our principal the teachers of of Greer will have high expectations for who is to come. I urge you to consider what is at stake if this momentum is lost. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next I have Claire LaPlante. Hi again.

[00:18:14] I'm Claire LaPlante, a reading specialist from the Rio District in Greer. I'm here again tonight to speak about Dr. Saunders' removal and its impact on literacy and student outcomes. Did you know 44% of American adults cannot read above a sixth grade level? Students who are not reading on grade level by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.

[00:18:35] It is possible for at least 95% of students to learn how to read. Our concerns about Dr. Saunders being moved are not just about him. They are about the systemic choices that directly impact whether students learn to read. On a personal level, my daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia in first grade. She was still not reading by third grade. My family was fortunate enough to access support she needed, but many families rely entirely on our public schools for that. Learning to read is a basic right and our students at Greer deserve the support necessary to achieve it. Greer is making that happen. Last year Greer was fully accredited. Some examples of further gains from our

[00:19:14] mid-year VALS data this year highlight the progress for our students are making. Kindergarten increased students in the low-risk category by 36% outperforming the division. First grade increased low risk students by 20.8% compared to the 12.5% of division growth. Second grade is outperforming the division in every single measured category. In fifth grade students below the 50th percentile in spelling decreased from 45% to 25% by mid-year. In oral reading fluency, fifth graders below benchmark have dropped from 81% to 36%. The achievement gap

[00:19:51] is closing with black students reaching a 57.8 percent pass rate surpassing the division's 54.5 percent rate. We are making these gains because we are working hard being innovative and having the support of a strong administrative team. That is why we are struggling with this change of leadership.

[00:20:08] It's hard to let it go and get over it when we know in our hearts the decision that has been made is not in the best interest of the students in our school community. Removing Dr. Saunders from Greer is like taking the engine out of one car and placing it into another and expecting the first car to continue to function. That is not how systems work. The district should be prioritizing our most vulnerable students. Strong elementary schools lead to strong secondary schools and ultimately leads to educated productive citizens. Teachers at Greer feel unheard. Morale has dropped significantly. At least 10 staff members are already leaving and more looking for other positions. We feel like

[00:20:45] no one is listening and no one cares. We feel like we are being punished. There is real concern about the stability and quality of future leadership. We want a leader of equal or greater quality than Dr. Saunders. We are not looking for someone to simply fill a role. We also want this process to be real and our school interview recommendations to be heard and not overridden. Please hear us. This is important. As a board, you're elected to support our schools.

[00:21:11] You're elected to make good choices for all students and you have the opportunity to make the situation right. I hope next year I'm standing in front of you saying thank you. and for making Greer a priority and not saying I told you so. Thank you so much. We're in it to win it, are you?

[00:21:26] Thank you so much. Next, I have Jana Bailey. Good evening. My name is Jana Bailey. I am the librarian at Greer Elementary, and I reside in the Jack Doett District.

[00:21:46] Thank you, Dr. Haas and members of the school board for allowing me to speak with you. More Greer community members would have been here, but tonight is also the annual Celebration of Cultures Night at Greer, one of our most treasured school events. here to talk about the reassignment of Dr. Steve Saunders. As you know Dr. Saunders has been the principal of Greer Elementary for the past seven years. Approximately 83 percent of Greer students are economically disadvantaged and the majority of our student population is black and latina.

[00:22:16] Greer is a title one school. It is a challenging yet extremely rewarding place to work. That is because of Dr. Saunders. He has built a community of inclusion, equity, and compassion at Greer. During his tenure, student attendance rates have increased, test scores have improved, and staff has stayed high. These successes are a testament to Dr. Saunders' leadership. Recently, the principal of Crozet Elementary announced her retirement. In contrast to Greer, approximately 17 percent of Crozet's students are economically disadvantaged, and the

[00:22:55] majority of Crozet's population, roughly 82%, is white. Crozet is not a Title I school. This gives me pause when I think about the reassignment of Dr. Saunders. Rather than engage Crozet Elementary Schools community in the search for replacement for their principal, it was announced that Dr.

[00:23:14] Saunders would be taking the helm, leaving the onus on Greer to search for new leadership. I find this both disheartening and confusing. The way this reassignment looks from the outside is most unsettling. An affluent non-Title I school with a majority white population has been given, in my opinion, the strongest and most effective elementary school principal in the county. In contrast, the Title I majority Black and Latina population school has had its leader taken away and is left to essentially start from scratch. In closing, I'd like to reference one of the guiding principles of

[00:23:52] ACPS, trust and transparency, in which the following tenets are promised. Communicate honestly, clearly, and proactively build community trust in ACPS and confidence in the division's ability to help students thrive ensure community members feel heard respected and valued make data and information used for decision-making easily accessible to the public I do not feel that any of these tenants were followed in the reassignment of dr. Saunders nor are they reflected in the subsequent search process for a replacement going forward it is my sincere hope that you

[00:24:31] change course for the inevitable transition, as it is not too late to lead with these values in mind. The Greer community deserves that. Thank you. Thank you. At last, we have Lori Aldridge. Good evening. My name is Lori Aldridge, and I teach in the Jack Jewett District. I'm here today to share my concerns about the decision to remove our current principal, Dr. Steve Saunders,

[00:25:05] from Greer Elementary School, and I wholeheartedly oppose this decision, and I want to explain why. I come to you as a member of two communities. First, as an educator with nearly 30 years experience across four school districts, three states, and three of them in Title I schools. And second, I come to you as a member of the African-American community, and I grew up in the African-American and community in inner city Philadelphia I earned two degrees from Penn State and I began my career

[00:25:43] in State College Pennsylvania in a mostly white predominantly white school district and in my early years in State College Pennsylvania I noticed a difference in the education I was providing my students and my own education in the early years in that school district I was the only black teacher my students had for many years and that experience it had me confront the inequities in education both theirs and my own and it shared it

[00:26:19] shaped my commitment to ensuring that every child receives a quality education and that's what they all deserve so when I speak today I speak from experience I speak with urgency. Greer already has a principal, Dr. Saunders, and he is doing exactly what you tasked him to do and what you say you value. And I just want to coin a term today: justice, dignity, and equity. He is an outstanding leader who has built trust in teachers, students, and families, and he communicates

[00:26:57] clearly. He leads with purpose. He understands and helps us understand the why behind our work. So I have to ask, why remove a leader from a Title I school who's been tasked with closing achievement gaps and he is actively doing that work? Make it make sense. Why disrupt progress? And from where I stand, it raises serious concerns. When someone is making meaningful change and when they are pushing systems to do better, it can make others feel uncomfortable.

[00:27:28] But that's not a reason to remove them, it's a reason to support them. And I want to be clear, the decision to remove our principal rests with you, the board. As the board, you are responsible for ensuring the leadership decisions serve the best interests of the students rather than undermine them.

[00:27:48] You are responsible for transparency, and you are responsible for standing behind what is right, even when it's uncomfortable. So I urge you to reconsider your decision. you so much thank you for everyone's public comment this evening the next item on our agenda is the approval of our consent agenda do i have a motion on the approval of our consent agenda i move we approve the consent agenda second moved by miss lee seconded by mr beard all those in

[00:28:23] favor of tonight's consent agenda any opposed tonight's consent agenda clearly passes the next

[00:28:32] item on our agenda is our last fiscal 27 budget adoption. Good evening. My name is Maya Mazawa, Director of Budget and Planning and this evening I'm here to support you all in the adoption of

[00:29:09] the fiscal year 2026-27 school board's budget. To begin I wanted to bring it back to the strategic plan which is where we started the budget process. The FY27 budget supports and is in alignment with acps's strategic plan mission to end the predictive value of race class gender and special capacities for our children's success through high quality teaching and learning for all we seek to build relationships with families and communities to ensure that every student succeeds while this has been another challenging budget process i think you will agree that this budget meets the

[00:29:49] adopted budget goals and just as a reminder i just wanted to share those again first plan prepare and implement a fiscally responsible budget that provides the resources necessary to support the mission. Second, engage community members including parents and guardians, teachers, staff, business leaders, volunteers, civic organizations, and the community in the development of budget priorities.

[00:30:12] Third, provide a salary and benefits plan that supports the division's competitive position and reflects market adjustments where necessary. Fourth, develop and maintain a responsive and and systematic approach to building and grounds maintenance, technology services, transportation operations, child nutrition services that reflects industry best practices and ensures long range financial stability.

[00:30:37] Fifth, new budget proposals will align with the strategic plan and school priorities. And finally, schools departments and strategic proposals will incorporate logic models and/or performance measures to support decisions that align with the division strategic plan with a goal of using metrics as a management and decision-making tool during the budget process. In particular, I think this budget process has truly focused on community engagement more so than others. We heard from those groups listed in the budget goal from parents, guardians,

[00:31:12] teachers, staff, business leaders, volunteers, civic organizations, and the community and our budget priorities were developed based on that. So this is an overview of the FY27 proposed revenues. I just want to focus on the main categories here, which are the local transfer, the state revenues and one-time use of fund balance.

[00:31:35] So the first line represents the changes of the local transfer looking back at the current year's FY26 adopted budget, the FY27 requests approved by you all, and then what's being proposed here this evening. As you can see, the Board of Supervisors has approved a decrease of $6.4 million in the local transfer but to pull it out into the greater perspective the change from the adopted budget FY 26 is a nine million dollar increase or four percent increase that we are very appreciative of to have that increase in our local transfer the second piece is the increased revenues from the state it is

[00:32:14] an additional eleven point eight million dollars as a reminder this is largely a restoration from the spike in the LCI which we estimate of the eleven point about 10 million dollars is restoration so it really is a modest increase from the state when you compare the pre-LCI spike to now and then finally the 3.15 million in the use of fund balance is recommended as part of the FY27 budget as discussed previously in total the budget to

[00:32:46] budget change is an increase of 23.9 million dollars or about eight percent on the expenditure side I'll show a summary in a few different ways. The first one is what's changing when you compare the adopted budget from this year to next year's proposed budget. So this is a visual representation of the level of investment in each of the categories that we have reviewed. The first is 4.2 million dollar increase in non-discretionary increases. That would include things like health care and inflation. 4.3 million dollars in new

[00:33:23] school costs to operate Ace Academy at Lambs Lane and Mountain View upper elementary school 7.8 million dollars in increased compensation investments in alignment with the collective bargaining agreement 4 million dollars in working conditions improvement also per the agreement and then in order to get to a balanced budget we did have to propose 2.8 million dollars in reductions but now we could accommodate 3.3 million dollars in new proposals and just as a a scale reference 3.3 is about 1% of the entire budget in new programming. So the total FY27

[00:34:01] operational budget is $305 million with one-time expenditures of $3 million. That's $20.7 million in recurring new investments that is proposed here this evening. The strategic priorities that we heard from the school board and the community are shown here. We're investing in programming at Scholar Studios at Lambs Lane, which will open next year. We're maintaining our small class sizes.

[00:34:30] We're increasing the recurring investment in our instructional resources into the future. We're expanding our services for math intervention in our schools, and we're adding positions to support our special education services. Over the last three years, including this budget, we're looking at 10 million dollars in permanent service reductions to balance the budget as an indication of your fiscal stewardship and getting to a balanced budget this evening. And then this is the summary of how those expenditures are broken out and

[00:35:05] you can see this truly aligns with our strategic plan. We're investing 70% of our budget and instruction. You can see some examples of where that money is going. Other categories include transfer, transportation, building services, technology and administration attendance and health. So this evening you will our plan to adopt this FY27 budget but I will be back because the state budget has yet not been released so we will

[00:35:39] come back in May to provide updates on the state budget. So with that I'll turn it over to the chair Dr. Berlin. Thank you so much. Before we move forward I just wanted to see if we have any questions about the budget any comments um individuals would like to make access please when it says spending on resources specifically textbooks does that literally mean like real physical textbooks that we would buy or like online resources both yes but we have um

[00:36:18] completed uh curriculum adoption like to pick textbooks um for several subjects and so those funds will go towards the purchase of those as well as some online materials and and i was just going to say um max when i had the opportunity to join i think it was student senate one of the things we heard i heard um particularly um from some of our high school students was um the need for physical books, right, in textbooks as well as books in the English literature.

[00:36:56] And so I think one of the things, we know we need to, right now we've made a huge investment in computers and software technology, but we also know that we need to replenish textbooks. And I think one of the things you'll see over time is us beginning to look at all this research that you're talking about regarding screen time.

[00:37:21] We know we've made an investment, that's how we're teaching right now, but what do we need to do going forward? And so that piece was making sure we also had some of those textbooks for some of those adoptions in middle school and high school that we needed. - Okay, awesome. Thank you for recognizing that.

[00:37:36] I only wanted to ask, 'cause whenever I think of like a textbook, I think only like those big bulky things, and I'm like, I flip through them and I don't know what I'm reading. So that also includes school books for English classes as well. Yeah. OK.

[00:37:54] Thank you so much. Questions, comments? I know we've had lots of questions and lots of comments, but this is the time to lift anything up. I think Ms. Kumazawa and her team have answered, I don't know how many dozens or hundreds of questions so far. What's the number?

[00:38:10] 202. 202. So we've asked about every permutation of question we can, I believe. Thank you for the responses. make sure you write that that that will be on our trivia night yes if i do not see any more questions or comments um i need a motion for the approval of our um our budget the language is in front of you and i know this is one that um no one wants to do because you have to show your um your you have to go back into your math literacy to make sure you read your comments right so i move to

[00:38:45] adopt the fy 26 27 school board budget of 308 million 67 157 dollars for the school fund and 33 000 33 million 700 1221 for special revenue funds second i do want to do uh i don't think i mentioned this to to this thompson ahead of time so i apologize i would like to do a voice vote for this moved by dr aco seconded by miss lee miss osborn is absent this evening miss billman yes

[00:39:23] dr acove yes mr beard yes mr dylanbeck no miss lee yes chair berlin yes with a vote one with one absent the motion carries thank you so much thank you maya thank you for um thank you to everyone um for all of your work thank you to the community for all of your input i think this is re is the record um both i heard i listened to the the board of supervisors they

[00:39:58] had record attendance at their town halls um and 2002 was many many ahead of questions before so a huge thank you for all the work you've done and i've just a tiny token of thank you

[00:40:12] for miss kumazawa you can get a little bit of sleep and maybe have a thursday evening to yourself

[00:40:45] before you need to come back. So thank you very much. The next, we will now be moving into our school division work session. This was targeted very well by our school representative. We are talking about artificial intelligence in Albemarle County. Jamie Foreman, Deputy Chief Technology Office, Clay Todd, Assistant Director of Technology Integration, are going to introduce this to us.

[00:41:15] And I know they have a team coming forward that they will also introduce. So we will be spending time together to learn about both our policies and how AI is used within our school system.

[00:41:31] So for those of you listening, just a reminder that this is a work session, so it'll just seem a little bit different. We will, I believe there will be a presentation, and then we will be working probably in small groups.

[00:41:46] Do we not have a break? We have one. here it's just not on it is oh sorry oh did i miss the break oh let's yeah everyone's looking at me like we need a break so i apologize is it a 10 minute break okay we are going to do a 10 minute break um and we will come back at 8.05 sorry about that team and i'm going to welcome again our work session on artificial intelligence in albermar county public schools jamie foreman

[00:42:23] plate todd and i ask that you introduce the rest of your team we're excited to work with you tonight absolutely thank you all so much for having us i really appreciate your time tonight it's a topic that we're all very passionate about um and i especially want to thank uh max for for his uh excellent uh segue into this um i think you're gonna find that we all align when you're thinking here um it's a big topic uh that's uh disrupting schools but also presenting a lot of opportunities talk a bit about that today. Before, though, I introduce myself, I'm going to actually let my

[00:43:01] team step up and introduce themselves. Hi, I'm Megan Panik. I am the LTI at Monticello High School and Walton Middle School. Good evening. I'm Monica Kabarkas. I am the Secondary English Language Arts Career Coordinator at K-12 Libraries. Hi, everyone. I'm Katie Breaux. I am the LTI at Greer, Red Hill, and Ace Academy Seminole Place. Will you remind everyone what LTI stands for, just for those? I would love to. Oh, okay. Is that part of your presentation? Okay. LTI stands for

[00:43:36] Learning Technology Integrator. These are folks who are out in buildings helping teachers to think purposefully about technology integration, so you can imagine around the topic of AI. In particular, this has been a very important topic of discussion for our team, and a lot of the resources that you're going to see tonight have been created by our team. So, hi, everybody. I'm Clay Todd, assistant director for technology integration, and I supervise the learning technology integrator team. They are an awesome group of people that exactly what I just shared. I do want to start

[00:44:07] tonight very, very briefly. I know it's late with a story. Technology for me is a topic that is more than just a job. I grew up in a house where my father was a professor of kinesiology at James madison university uh he uh his one of his primary areas of research was the effects of electronic media that was the term back when before he was retired uh on childhood obesity rates uh you can

[00:44:43] imagine that my house was very interesting when it comes to electronic media um i grew up uh without a lot of access um our television had a box on it that had a little punch code and you would punch in your coat and it would let you watch tv for half an hour and then it would shut off you couldn't get back on for the rest of the day um so i i grew up in a house where we were uh taught to think about our technology use and reflect on it but i also loved technology i'm a gamer i no doubt love it i work in the field i say that and i shared this with family council a couple years

[00:45:22] ago because i think it's important that you all understand and that our families here that there are folks in this school division that believe in the power of technology but also understand its impacts when it's not used well. I've heard a couple school board meetings where we've been reflecting on that and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. But I just want you, I want you to hear that because I want you to know that within our department of technology, those folks making those decisions around our technical infrastructure, you have folks who are advocating for our kids and for instruction and we want to partner with you as you continue to think

[00:46:02] about the impact that it's having in schools so with that tonight we're going to kind of take a two-prong approach we're going to talk a little bit about tech and acps and the why behind it and that's going to lead us a little more naturally into our approach to ai and then we're going to kind of shift and do a professional learning session that some of our school administrators had the opportunity to experience just so you all get sort of a taste of what they learned about including some of the resources we've developed as well as the opportunity to learn about what AI can do for you. We

[00:46:39] will have time at the end for hands-on exploration. Again we're replicating experience that was done for school administrators so I'll kind of leave it up to you how hands-on we really want to get with that. I know it's late but when we get there I'll describe the activity and you all can decide what works best you tonight. As far as our strategic plan tonight, this topic really falls under all three goals.

[00:47:05] Thriving students in the sense that students live in a digital world, we know this, and tech can help or hinder. It's all in how we use it. Affirming and empowering communities in that technology presents opportunities to bring our community in and to connect students with those in our community, again, when done well. And equitable and transformative resources, thinking through how technology can be transformative in the classroom, but also how it can be used when

[00:47:40] used well to close achievement gaps. So we're going to talk a little bit about tech in school. So first off is why. Why do we have access to technology in our buildings? Technology can be an accelerant or a decelerant in the classroom. It all depends on how it's used.

[00:47:59] when it's integrated well it supports digital literacy including ai literacy so skills that students need to have to succeed in the world because technology is a part of our everyday lives workforce readiness the different skills specific to the job or a career that a student might choose accessibility of learning materials and resources some examples of this might be We have a new tool called Read&Write, which does some read aloud for students.

[00:48:32] It allows students to do some voice dictation. Some of our students even have this in their IEP. Digital citizenship skills. Digital citizenship is exactly what it sounds like. It is being a citizen in digital spaces. So what does it mean to be kind online?

[00:48:48] What does it mean to understand what misinformation looks like and be able to parse through that? There is also, this is new to this slide deck as of tonight, new legislation that just came through, you may or may not have heard, around instructing, around the addictive qualities of technology that we are going to need to wrestle with over the next couple years.

[00:49:15] We need to develop resources around that and helping students to think through what healthy media use looks like for them. And also understand the ways in which technology can, not always, but can be developed to encourage addictive behaviors because we want to bring students back to those platforms that, you know, making money, right?

[00:49:36] Delivery of content and assessment, our SOL tests on just on a basic level are taken with technology. So we want to make sure that our students are prepared when it comes to assessment time to access those platforms that are needed to take their tests and do well on those tests.

[00:49:53] And then finally, the VDOE, if you're not familiar, actually does have standards around technology integration. They're called the Digital Learning Integration Standards. They are currently about to be revised. And these sort of govern what good technology use in the classroom looks like and what those digital literacy skills are that students need to take away when they graduate.

[00:50:15] So for all these reasons and more, we believe it's important that students do have access to technology. But tonight, I want to then kind of shift to some other questions around, well, what is it that they're doing and how are we helping students and staff to think through technology use in a way that is accelerating, right, and not decelerating.

[00:50:39] So what technology do students have access to? Our K-2 students have iPads at a one-to-one ratio, and the decision around iPads is specific to developmental needs. Students are not keyboarding at that age yet.

[00:50:54] It's a more limited environment in terms of what students can get to. And then by the time we're in the third grade, we see in some of our standards those keyboarding skills coming in, and we start to just scaffold up towards a more workforce ready platform, which is in our case a Windows laptop.

[00:51:14] All of our classrooms also have interactive displays. These are meant to be collaborative. They're more than just a projector. They allow students to get up together and work on a display. They also allow the teacher to have a higher degree of interactivity so that they're not tethered to the front of the classroom in the same way that they might be with just a projector.

[00:51:33] And then a document camera. So that's what you can expect to see if you were to walk into a classroom. In terms of resources that are currently available, up here you'll see the majority of our guaranteed viable curriculum. There may be one or two things missing from this list, but these are the curriculum resources that we would expect students to be engaging with when they're on technology.

[00:51:59] There are also a vast array of other supplemental resources that are available to students. And these are used at teacher discretion. They are vetted through a set of criteria that I'll share with you in just a moment. But you can see that list of resources at resources.k12.albumal.

[00:52:21] We had a question from Camp Family Council that I think some folks here were also interested in and that is what resources are used for intervention and you can see those here as well if you're a family member watching tonight and you're not sure which resources your child is using the best thing you can do is ask their teacher or their case manager and now the million dollar question how much time do students spend on technology in school my answer for this is I don't mean it is a cop-out I mean honestly and that is that it depends it depends on

[00:52:58] the course the difference between being in a CTE computer science course it's going to be very different than being in a band classroom, right? So the best thing you can do to know exactly how much time is being spent on technology in a classroom is to check with the with the teacher. They know their classroom, they know their instruction best of all. I do want to note around research that there's a lot of research out there about screen time and that research has been conducted in a lot of different ways. Some studies look at screen time in a very broad set screen time period I'm on a screen what is the effect it

[00:53:35] has some studies look at what is actually happening while on a screen and what has been found with those studies I'm going to share they're actually a couple linked there at the bottom for you is that the quality of what a student is doing on a screen is more indicative of outcomes than the quantity of time so it's an important question to ask what are kids doing we We aim for our screen time to be high on what we call the EdTech Triangle, which is a framework for technology integration I'm going to share with you momentarily.

[00:54:13] For families listening tonight, it is important to have conversations and to co-view with your kids. If you're going to watch a movie at home, watch it with them. Talk about what they saw. If you're going to allow your child on social media, be having conversations with them about what they're doing on social media.

[00:54:32] These are very important things, and studies show that when we actually are having conversations about what is happening on those devices, that's what leads to more positive outcomes. We also have a digital citizenship curriculum that is designed to help students reflect on their own tech use in school, including both the quality and the quantity of time spent.

[00:54:52] There are lessons where students take an inventory. And then finally, as I mentioned, you have LTIs out in buildings prepared to work teachers and families around the healthy integration attack. I want to point to a little bit of research here. The American Academy of Pediatrics actually just a couple months ago released their new guidelines around screen time and they conducted, they arrived at these guidelines through their own studies and also through some meta-analyses of other studies and these were kind of their top three conclusions. One is that students do have a right to devices that

[00:55:29] they are going to be going into a world where they have to use them and so we should be teaching about that in school. Also the lack of access to a device they have found exacerbates inequalities right and that some students at home while others may not and so it's important that in school we are addressing healthy thoughtful technology use. They talked about just kind of what I was mentioning before which is that we want to move the conversation from quantity to context. So really what are kids doing? So instead of asking how many minutes, we want to ask how it's being used. And then we want to differentiate

[00:56:08] between active and passive screen time. So passive screen time, which we all engage in, it's not that it's a bad thing, it's just that we want to think about when we're doing it. That's screen time for entertainment's sake. That's playing mindless games, that's watching TV, that's again not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm not actively engaging with an experience in those cases of screen time.

[00:56:36] Active screen time looks like I'm doing something with the technology that is involving me in some way. You're gonna see some examples of things that have happened out in buildings, but an example might be coding.

[00:56:52] I'm actively creating something, I'm programming. An example might be developing a presentation. It might be collaborating with peers over a Google Doc. Very different than just simply writing on my own.

[00:57:07] They also focused on the three C's. This is new in their guidelines. The first is context. So when we're thinking about screen time and context, we want to think about the details in which technology is being used or implemented. What is the context of the screen time experience?

[00:57:24] And in the case of school, this looks like the instructional task. So what is it that we're asking kids to do? and what are the parameters around that. Second is content. So it's, we wanna make sure that families, teachers have a clear understanding of what students are actually learning, right?

[00:57:41] We don't want it to just be, you know, free time on the iPad. We want it to be, we understand the content that we're delivering. In the case of school, this is our learning targets. And then the last is control. And we're not saying, you know, control our students, but what this really means is what are the parameters being put in place to allow us to manage the learning environment when technology is being used.

[00:58:05] You're gonna hear some examples in just a moment of some of what that can look like. So, to reframe the question about how much time, the important question to ask is, what are students? Now, I don't ask this question to say that we shouldn't pay attention to quantity.

[00:58:24] There are studies, there is emerging research to say, especially for very young children, we're talking prior to kindergarten, the screen time does have an effect on cognitive. We still wanna be paying attention to the research, but we also wanna make sure that we're not just looking at it from a quantity perspective, but what are kids doing?

[00:58:46] What are kids doing? And now to speak of some things that kids are doing here in our schools, I'm gonna invite Katie up to share a little bit about an example in our elementary school.

[00:59:01] - So hopefully, as you maybe already know, a majority of our elementary schools do have student broadcast teams. So these are typically fourth and fifth grade students. some of our schools get started a little bit younger where the students are working with a teacher mentor to create the daily news. So they are getting to interact with all the different components of a news crew. Some of them are writing the script, some of them are doing the actual filming, and some of them are on camera and it gets streamed to the entire school. So that's a technology we use is called WeVideo, but that's one example of how we are doing that in the

[00:59:39] Elementary setting I believe Megan is gonna talk about middle and high school. Oh, sorry. That's okay actually the LTI that supported this project was honored tonight as One of our licensed staff of the year, but I wasn't gonna make him stay until 10:00, so I let him go So this is a project that recently happened at Lakeside where students in a computer science course were working with Arduinos which is a if you're not familiar it's a microcontroller and it can be programmed to create and control all sorts of different things and so in this case it was I think we were near

[01:00:17] Halloween and students made animatronics but through making animatronics they were using their devices to actually code how these animatronics were going to so great high level use of technology in that case and Megan's going to share about one of our high school experiences.

[01:00:41] - So at the high school level right now, we have about 30 Oculus that can travel around to any of the secondary schools in the division. And this year we just started being able to use them with middle schools, but we've been primarily using them at the high school level. Students have been able to travel to all different locations all around the world and even beyond the world.

[01:00:59] They've gone to the International Space Station, to the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City. Most recently, just a few weeks ago, I got to take seventh graders to Anne Frank's Annex in Amsterdam. So these devices really allow students to feel like they are in these locations, like they are experiencing these locations.

[01:01:18] And when that happens, we also, after they finish the experience, often do reflections. And when we compare kind of the experience with the reflection afterwards, it really does help the learning stick. - And so I mentioned a bit ago, how do we know?

[01:01:35] How do we know that the technology experience with screen or otherwise, is having an impact. And the framework that we recently adopted, we used to use a different one called SAM, you may have heard of it, but we switched to something called the EdTech Triangle about a year ago.

[01:01:54] And what this basically shows us is it allows, it gives staff a framework to think about when students are on screens, what is the role that technology is playing? We're aiming for the top of that pyramid. And what we're looking for are examples of technology integration where we are producing a unique outcome developing some kind of high level skill.

[01:02:17] In particular, I think about the animatronic example I just gave you, that's giving students, students are coding, they're engaging in those computer science standards. They are making things happen. There's excitement, there's engagement. Technology is doing something to the learning that would not have happened with them.

[01:02:35] Supportive, these are places where technology is supporting the curriculum. Some examples of this might be some of our digital curriculum resources. It's functionally improving it by maybe a smaller margin than a true transformative experience, but it's still doing something that would not be achieved without it.

[01:02:56] There's a little kick up, so to speak, a plus one. An example of this could easily be using Seesaw, where students are sharing their learning with others. So maybe I did a project, I took a picture of it, I posted it in Seesaw, now my family can see it and other families can see it and we can we can we now have authentic audience right so the technology is just it's it's adding a plus one um restrictive uh this is when technology is not functionally changing anything but it's not also functionally like hurting it's just kind of standing in an example of this for us might be email right uh we could write memos

[01:03:33] back and forth to each other and stick them in our mailboxes but uh email is it's just a little easier but it's not fundamentally changing what we're doing and in a learning capacity just putting my responses in Google Docs it it's easier for the teacher it's maybe for some students it's it's easier for them if they like to type but it's not fundamentally changing anything about the learning you'll notice there that I noted that restrictive tasks sometimes increase efficiency but they don't change the learning itself and so with teachers, we'd like to think through that because we want to ask that question. Is the technology

[01:04:10] bringing something positive to the learning experience or is it just making it easier for us? Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Teachers have a lot to do and so sometimes, yes, it is appropriate for technology to make their lives easier so that they can focus on the learning experiences. But those are restrictive examples. And the reason that we switched to the EdTech triangle is that it includes the category of disruptive the previous model we used did not we know that technology when not used well can take away from the learning it can be a distraction

[01:04:48] it can take our focus away from what we should be doing in school so we want to make sure that there's a category reserved for that and this is that technology for entertainment now that's not saying technology for entertainment is bad i'm not telling you all to go throw your televisions away But in school, we want to make sure we are avoiding this category, and an example of it might be using technology as free time.

[01:05:16] So what's in place? I mentioned our LTIs already are there to help staff. We have our digital citizenship curriculum, which I briefly mentioned, and this hits six categories that you can see there. I'm not going to hit all of them. And we also have a family field guide, which accompanies that curriculum, and that goes home to families to help them have conversations at home regarding technology use.

[01:05:39] You can see it there. I should note that that is under revision and almost done, and will probably launch in the fall. So you may see a broken link or two there as we continue to revise that document. But it is aligned directly with that digital citizenship curriculum. And finally, this is a new program for us.

[01:05:56] called Lightspeed Classroom Management and it gets at that control when we talk about the three C's. This is a program that we've, that teachers now have access to that allows them to see student screens. It also allows them to sort of manage that technology environment in the classroom through different functions like allow lists where we only allow certain resources through the block lists where maybe we're blocking certain resources that we know are maybe a particular distraction that day. And we're continuing to provide professional learning and whatnot on how to use Lightspeed classroom management. And then finally, around general

[01:06:36] technology use, what are we doing to keep kids safe? We have a firewall and a web filter that sort of work in tandem with each other. The firewall kind of looks at all the incoming traffic and says, this is an unsafe thing, or this is a security risk. And then sitting behind that is the web filter and the web filter we're allowed to we were able to more granularly allow certain things through or block certain things based on grade level that sort of thing i should note that filters are not perfect they are actually maintained by a third-party company

[01:07:11] in terms of what's on that list we can customize it and we do constantly we're adding things we're we're removing things based on things that happen out in the field and on feedback but it is it does happen that occasionally something might get through and we have our LTIs help teachers think through how to handle those situations so close your computer raise your hand get a teacher those sorts of things our resource vetting process the resources that you see on the resource library have all gone through this and that's where we vet our resources our technology resources for instructional value and we partner with our department of instruction on that

[01:07:50] for safety and security of student information that's one thing we haven't hit today is the federal laws governing that and that's a whole other presentation but we do check to make sure that these tools are compliant with those regulations and that student data is not at risk redundancy and compliance with our existing system so we don't want to be buying stuff that doesn't work with the stuff that we have or we've already got a tool that does this really well we we don't need to spend money.

[01:08:16] And then finally, keeping students safe, we have the responsible use policy. There's one for both students and staff that governs what appropriate use looks like. And we actually revised this, oh gosh, it's been a year now, to include more student-friendly language around what responsible use looks like.

[01:08:33] There's the data governance policy, which governs the way that we handle student data. And then, to transition, the AI policy, which is new, that governs our use of AI. If you go see that policy, well, you all have seen that policy 'cause you approved that policy.

[01:08:49] It is relatively general right now because AI is changing so quickly. So it does a lot of referencing of other policies. And that is the first part of our presentation. So before we move into AI, I'm curious if y'all have any questions.

[01:09:07] - Clay, at what grade level are students taking devices home? - That's a good question. They start taking them home in middle school. Yes, our elementary students leave devices at school.

[01:09:26] - Questions? Just remind me, the training for LTIs, you have both certification in education and in technology? That is correct. Our LTIs are licensed teachers, and they need to have been in the classroom for at least five years.

[01:09:45] So they need to have had that experience, to have that empathy for what teachers experience and go through. But then we have our LTIs go through a certification program through VISTI, the Virginia Society for Technology and Education, who actually, if you don't know, Katie runs that program for the state, which we've got a star in the house here.

[01:10:06] So that prepares them for some of the, there's no college degree to be an LTI. It is a state required position, but the training for that, we have to provide in house. So we do a lot of onboarding. There's also a lot of technical components to being an LTI.

[01:10:22] You have to understand the way technology works and able to advise the department around the instructional impacts of the decisions that we make. So there's a lot of on the job learning around how a filter works and how different systems work and all that sort of thing.

[01:10:43] - And beyond like individual working with teachers, do you provide some professional development sort of generally in the summer? - The division at large? - Correct. - Yes, we do. So we tailor it based on the need at the time.

[01:11:00] An example would be AI. Last year we gave pre-service PD around AI to all staff. So yes, that does occur, but it's on an as needed basis. We actually recently developed a professional learning, technology professional learning plan that addresses the different needs.

[01:11:17] Another example would be anytime we onboard a new system, LTI needs to understand that system and then develop the training for that system or the professional learning for that system. Lightspeed was a great example. about to onboard a new communication system so the lti's have been in the room through the selection process for that and will help develop that professional learning for teachers and staff thank you questions no i was just gonna say i thought the use of the um oculus was really cool like i would have loved that as a kid to be able to go to anne frank's annex um is that um mainly

[01:11:57] towards elementary school or is it across specifically the vr yeah uh we have it against there are the experience is different across grade levels um megan mentioned the oculus that's a very sort of robust high-end headset that can do a lot it's got controls we do have it in elementary as well but it's more of a seated experience they pick it up they hold it there they put it down we want to make sure it's not strapped to their face you know developmentally that's important but but yes it is available across all grade levels it's just the experience - And how do teachers get to use that experience?

[01:12:32] I mean, do they sign up for it? Do they go to their LTI and say-- - Yeah, they reach out to their LTI, and the LTI, it varies by interaction. In some cases, the LTI might come in and model the lesson and deliver the lesson for the teacher, and a teacher that's done it a couple times and had that experience, we might just check out.

[01:12:49] It's really fun, actually, they're in a suitcase, so you see the LTIs going around with suitcases in school. They might check out the suitcase and drop it off. Just depends on the context. - Yeah, that's very cool. - Thank you. - Yeah. - I'm just gonna say I appreciate the context that you gave us, 'cause I know we asked for AI, but I think helping us understand how this fits within the broader instruction, particularly broader instruction around technology is important as well as the triangle.

[01:13:17] 'Cause again, I think it's important of like, how do you balance what is high quality, high content with something that's just like repetitive use? - Yes, yes, absolutely. and having raised four kids and taught high school for a number of years I recognize the fact that young people are extremely sharp and creative and can often figure out ways to get around firewalls and such I'm guessing because technology is changing so quickly you guys have to be really

[01:13:52] on the ball to keep up with the changes and it must be sort of an ongoing evaluation of light speed actually working i call it a dance we're dancing all the time with with with the kids right like they are figuring stuff out and we're responding sometimes we're ahead of it but it is yes we have to be responsive because technology is changing all the time yeah and not everybody's as responsible as max no no i guess max is quite responsible as a as we saw tonight i guess that begs the question then are do you have students involved in like letting you

[01:14:28] know what the new like vpn might be or like whatever because i know as the mom of teenagers i ran into that with my oldest or he was like it's okay i used your credit card to get a vpn i was like i'm sorry what um never mind i'm on school board um so i'm just curious you know they seem to always be one step ahead of us um how are the students involved in letting you know what the so we do seek student feedback on occasion i was at a talking about ai actually at a student council meeting recently but i would say that our ltis are actually really crucial to that because they are out in buildings with students right and so they they have their

[01:15:06] ground and they're able to bring back to us as a department like what specifically is going on what sort of tweaks and things we need to make great thank you hey i noticed that uh this week Los Angeles is banning iPads, I believe, in K1. I'm wondering, talk about the iPad use in K1 and ACPS.

[01:15:29] What do kids do with it? What do they use it for? That's a very good question. What do you think about the banning? That's a loaded question. What they're doing with it in my observations, K2, and I would actually like to hear from our instructional leadership on this as well.

[01:15:45] not putting on spot tonight dr hayes maybe another time but um i it should be tied to curriculum right it should be those if we're on hmh we're using those digital components of hmh when appropriate and sometimes we're not using those digital components um it it should be tied to curriculum um we do have you know examples of some of those higher level learning experiences that we might see use of but that would be the other use we'd like to see so an example might be if you've heard of scratch before there's a kid-friendly version of scratch which is like an introductory coding um and it they they sort of teach the the cat to to do certain things

[01:16:23] and jump around the screen and i've seen like literacy tie-ins where we're retelling stories that we've learned about by programming characters to do certain things so we'd like to see a lot of that um as far as the bands go um i i think we need to look at the research and that's the answer i do actually have a follow-up on that just for dr hayes just for kind of for later is i am interested in finding out again we talked about this a little bit last time is you know we know that there are um curriculum components that are that are embedded in the that are embedded in the curriculum like you mentioned for technology so i would be interested in just understanding on the

[01:17:02] just on the k2 level okay one and two um i'm trying to have to think about what the question is but like like the proportion maybe of hmh and kitam activities or follow-up activities that are coming through an ipad versus um uh paper and pencil or books so that you know you know is it is it that the majority of those kitam and hmh activities that are being done are actually you like more three to five or or how many are really in that k2 because i think you know that's something

[01:17:33] we'll i think we'll be looking at going forward seeing other questions if you're ready to go for yeah moving the ai works the exciting stuff okay so ai in acps um as i mentioned what you're going to see today is a presentation that has been given to our school administration so i'm just giving you that context ahead of time in case anything feels like why are we learning about this specifically it's through that frame okay but we want you i felt it was important that you all have the the opportunity to hear what our leadership is hearing about as you are

[01:18:10] also leaders in our school division. As we all know AI is one of the most pressing issues right now in our classrooms and frankly in our communities and Max spoke about data centers this is this is a real thing and it's not going away so we can't bury our heads in the sand about it but we we need to address it and we need to address it in a way that's measured and balanced. So I'm going to turn it over briefly to Megan to talk a little bit

[01:18:38] what AI is to lay a foundation for us. So AI really is not new. It has existed for a long time. The type of AI that has changed pretty dramatically in the last few years. We've had traditional what we call assistive AI for a long time. So assistive AI is those kinds of machines that run on an algorithm, right, that interpret data and help us make decisions. If you have an Alexa in your home, if you have siri on your phone if you have netflix that recommends different things that

[01:19:13] you could watch this is ai it's been in our lives for a long time does anybody know what happened on november 30th of 2022 that changed everything max knows yeah chat gpt was released to the public november 30th of 2022 so it's only been about three years since really the ground started and moving underneath our feet.

[01:19:40] Generative AI, that really brought generative AI to the public. These are tools now that don't just interpret data and help us make decisions, but they create entirely new content. So generative AI can create something completely new from all of the patterns and all of the data that it has been trained on.

[01:20:02] So the way that generative AI, in a very simple, simple explanation here, a very simple metaphor, the way that it's trained is that we, take a bunch of examples of something so lots and lots of data so if we wanted to make an ai model that recognizes cats right we'd feed it tons and tons of images of cats so that assistive or traditionally i would say okay i've seen enough cats that i can recognize that thing is a cat and everything else is not a cat well generative ai blew everything out of the water and it said well now i've seen enough cats i'm trained on enough data that i can create a

[01:20:38] cat for you and so that is an actual ai created image of a cat using i'm not sure which dolly from chat gpt so you can imagine you've heard all of the challenges that this presents from academic integrity issues to learning uh loss issues stealing the thinking as max was talking about these are all very important things but at the same time we know again this is not going away it is accelerating and we need to address it in schools. It presents both a challenge but also an

[01:21:17] opportunity, right? You all have probably had a chance to try it at some point and maybe it's helping you in your life right now. It's helping me in my allies. So how do we balance those things? One thing that I want to state that we have tried to make very clear is that when it comes to AI in the classroom, our teachers, our staff are in the driver's seat. They know their students, they know their curriculum and we want to empower them to make the best decisions that they can while also providing the resources and the professional learning to learn and grow as this thing continues

[01:21:53] to impact us so what are those resources a couple years ago myself our manager on our team sat down and started drafting some guiding principles that we then worked alongside a group of division leaders who went to some professional learning experiences dr haas came to a couple of those where we then took those refined them and as a division came up with a guiding principles document this is a what do we believe about ai and what it basically says in essence is exactly what i said before is that there are challenges and there are opportunities and we need to address

[01:22:32] both of those you are welcome to click in and take a look at that document it is linked we will continue to revise this document it's probably time to do that already even feel like we just finished it but again ai is changing so quickly on top of that myself and a couple folks from our team partnered with a couple folks in the department of instruction monica's to share with you a little bit in a minute to develop some instructional best practices so this is this says okay based on what we believe about ai based on those challenges and those opportunities what are are the recommended best practices when it comes to how they impact learning.

[01:23:12] If I'm a teacher that's going to use AI, what are some cautions to look for, some things to consider? And then on top of that, we have our resources. And these resources are extensive. There can be more, and there will be more.

[01:23:28] But we're gonna hear a little bit about them now. And Monica's gonna come up and talk about some of those resources. - So one of the first resources that we framed was a syllabus statement. And the purpose of this was to send consistent messaging across all content areas.

[01:23:45] And that syllabus statement appears on everyone's syllabi at the beginning of the year. It does lay out to students that when they don't follow the AI guidelines, they will be subject to the same academic misconduct and integrity violations. And it lays out four points. The first point is really that the teacher, once again, is in the driver's seat.

[01:24:01] And they are the ones who are defining the degree and the role of appropriate use of AI in a particular assignment. If a teacher does not say any specific use, then the default is no AI should be used. And if a student is confused or needs clarification, we've encouraged students to just further ask for that.

[01:24:20] But the default is if I don't mention anything as a teacher, then you really shouldn't be using AI on this assignment. If you are using AI, I should be clarifying some type of role and we'll go into the roles in just a minute. The second point that we lay out on that syllabus statement is when AI is permitted, the student should be ethically using it inciting the source that they use, the platform, and how they use it in what way.

[01:24:42] The third point that we have is that the AI results can be biased and inaccurate. So when you like to use the tool, then you are responsible for checking the accuracy and the biases that are in that piece of material or research that you are using. Finally, the last point is we students pay attention to the privacy of their data because these prompts may be public or you don't need to say your first name, your last name, your location, and all of those pieces.

[01:25:08] The other resource that is accompanied by this is the student usage scale. I'm gonna try to click on that right now. - Can I get full screen? - Yeah.

[01:25:31] - So there are four categories for AI use. The first one is a teacher says, we don't need any AI on this particular assignment. The second level is AI is appropriate for planning. And if you look towards the right hand side, there are some examples that you might use this as a citation generator. You might use it for brainstorming.

[01:25:47] You might say, give me five resources that I can use as leads in this research piece. I'm gonna scroll down. The third piece is a little bit more hand-in-hand, and it's AI collaboration. So at that point, you're using it to analyze data. You're using it to look and create an illustration, such as a pie chart for data.

[01:26:08] You're using it to edit. So it's doing a little bit more work than that planning stage. And finally, there's the fourth stage, which is full AI. You can openly use it to create text, to create images for you. The part that gets a little bit gray in the landscape that we're living in is the level two and level three.

[01:26:25] With AI planning, sometimes a student might use a tool like Grammarly, and Grammarly may pick up little pieces of punctuation and fix them for you. However, if a student crosses over to the paid version of Grammarly, you've now probably, if you're a student, you may not realize you're crossing over to level three, which is collaboration.

[01:26:42] At that point, it's probably not just fixing the commas and the punctuation, it's actually changing the tone voice of your writing and maybe you know changing word order or changing specific words so there is kind of this this landscape and then if a student does that you have to think about what was the intent there was it done unknowingly was it done intentionally so like this piece is something that we encourage the to use to clearly define the role of ai and to to make it as clear as possible like if students don't know about grammarly advising that you're not using a paid version just because this is all a new landscape for students and for teachers. I'm going to try to return, there we go.

[01:27:19] The last resource is just referring back to our Virginia state standards. The secondary curriculum, the 2024 English language arts SOLs actually dictate that from grades 6 through 12 that we actually discuss the use of AI. In fact if I read the exact text you I wrote, I scribbled it down before I came up here, it says that students will demonstrate ethical and responsible use of all sources including the internet AI and new technologies as they develop so teaching the ethical use teaching how to cite this material how to create a prompt so that you can generate something beneficial these are all

[01:27:55] pieces that are tied to our curriculum every year we offer two lessons through middle school level classroom and two lessons through the high school English level classroom where we discuss some of these pieces of ethics and understanding AI and they kind of progressively get more complex we also offer a lesson that comes through the history classroom and if you notice history and English are the two subjects where the humanities where we are writing the most so I don't want to misconstrue some of the teachers feelings but you know in this in this area this becomes really difficult for teachers because the students are writing essays and especially as you go to dual enrollment in AP you're writing

[01:28:33] it's such a fast clip and turnover for essays that you can't do it all in class you can't use some of it has to be done at home away so we're navigating this landscape and this is kind of an entry point for teaching students the touchstone of this is the ethics if it's used this is the way it's used correctly and then the last piece is the computer science standards so computer science standards go across K through eight after that they become an elective course and it's much more complex we're interested in it so you chose that but K through eight those computer science standards are infused across all content areas and all

[01:29:08] teachers are supposed to have a role in shaping that it doesn't necessarily look like I'm teaching coding in my English language arts class you know it's probably more about a habit and a mindset of computer science so you're teaching ethical use machine learning like when you enter data this is what it might look like this is a rationale and logic that we're using so some of those pieces That those habits of mindset with computer science are kind of Taken across all content areas and supported K through eight. So these are our entry points for where we Try to infuse the correct use of AI because as we said, you know

[01:29:48] It's a double-edged sword the teacher is in the driver's seat and these are our two Curriculum points that the video expects us to touch on these topics. Thank you, Monica I will also note that we have Over the course of this year received some feedback around the existing lessons and curriculum from staff and students and we're incorporating that into a process right now.

[01:30:12] We are currently undergoing revision of those resources, which we'll probably need to do every year with how quickly this is changing. And finally, in terms of resources, I've mentioned our LTIs tonight. They are out in schools helping with this. They are working day in and day out with folks, particularly at the secondary level because that's where we're seeing the most impact.

[01:30:33] And you can just see some stats there around things that we have done this year. We've also provided through our LTI program some of the opportunities to bring teachers to different events to learn about this as well. So examples of through VISTI, through ODU, there have been a few opportunities that we've brought teachers to.

[01:30:55] And then finally, professional learning sessions. We have some developed. We've got a plan in place. Our snow really dinged a couple professional learning days this year. and we're really looking forward to picking those back up next year as we continue to provide PL around this.

[01:31:12] Lastly, I just wanna call your attention back to those instructional best practices. I think you'll find them interesting if you have an opportunity to take a look at any point. And I wanna end this portion with a video before we jump into the experience.

[01:31:29] This is, in their own words, students and their perspective on AI. okay class today we're going to talk about ai what have we heard about it everly i see you back there if you ask it to write an essay about something it will like write your essay for you and that some people like cheat on their essays you can put fake videos of people

[01:32:07] online it could give me wrong information i searched a question and the ai overview literally said the opposite of what was right one of my real big worries is about it taking jobs like you're already seeing that ai is trying to be teachers well i'm in trouble then huh are you allowed to use it for school work so be honest how many of you are using it anyway it seems like we have a problem here so how would you fix it today you're going to create our new ai policy

[01:32:47] Like right now, desks together, groups of four, please. Let's do this. I think that we really need to learn a lot about AI now because we can already tell that it's going to be a huge part of our lives.

[01:33:10] So I've heard about people making friends and socializing with AI, and I feel like that's a little bit concerning. AIs don't have personalities. They kind of just agree with everything you say. You need a friend that's willing to tell you, like, if you're wrong and tell you if you're right, if you're actually, and be honest with you.

[01:33:32] AI should be a tool and not a friend. Not everybody has access to AI, whether it's because they don't have a device at home or they don't have internet or stuff like that. So only use AI if everyone can use AI. Okay, that's a great idea.

[01:33:49] It can't answer certain things and it can't, like, write essays or something. But it can pull trustworthy sources for you. It was really fun to kind of just pool all of our knowledge together because we were all learning a lot from each other.

[01:34:07] AI can track your digital footprint. So just be careful with it. AI safety should be mandatory. Kids never get to make the rules at school. I'm not even sure who does. says I like what the principal does. I have no idea who actually makes the rules at my school.

[01:34:25] Over-reliance on AI will make it so you don't learn anything. Yeah. I feel like we just need a class that will teach us how to navigate AI and make sure that our brains don't turn into mush because of it.

[01:34:41] It's really important to use AI responsibly and do what your teachers say. I don't want an AI teacher, you know, there's, like, no emotion there. A better combo is the teacher using the AI, and then they're both teaching the children.

[01:34:59] AI is really empowering if you have some guidelines around it. Honestly, I'm just curious how it works, and I think that a lot of kids are. I would love to learn how it can be used in everyday life, and how it can be used as an accurate source of information.

[01:35:19] AI is like taxes. It's unavoidable, and if you don't learn to evolve with it, you're going to be left behind. I definitely want to be a part of solving big problems. We need to have a say in AI policies because AI literacy is really important.

[01:35:42] All right. Very cute, right? But also very important. And what struck me about that video is that all the things that I know that my team has been thinking about, to hear kids be thinking about the same thing, to hear Max tonight share that he's thinking about the same stuff, we're all on the same team here, and we, yeah, we just got to get to work.

[01:36:08] And with that, we're going to step into the remainder of our presentation. I'm going to say from this point forward, I'm going to leave it up to you. I know it's very late. So we can continue to go through things as planned and get interactive.

[01:36:29] We can also just share with you about what we would do if this were an interactive experience. That is up to you all in the interest of time. What would you all like? Yeah, I'm fine with you just sharing it with us.

[01:36:46] Want to share? Yes. Okay, I'll share. Sounds good. All right, so you are a group of principals. When we use AI, there are some core guardrails that I really want you all to think about. These are very important to make sure that it's used responsibly as an administrator in a building.

[01:37:06] First guardrail is that we want to make sure that all ACPS policy still applies to the use of AI. They include the policies that you all heard about earlier tonight. Data protection is very important with AI. There are a lot of tools out there that will use AI to train their model, or excuse me, use your data to train their model.

[01:37:25] and we want to avoid those tools for use specifically in school and the reason for that is due to the protection of student data and the laws that govern that we need to make sure that student information is not being used by a company to profit and that student information is not making its way into somebody else's results so we want to make sure we are only using the aligned and approved tools that we have in the school division you can see those by clicking on on this link. Note to the board, we are looking more closely at these tools and maybe refining this list a little bit further in the future. We have an AI steering committee that includes a lot

[01:38:05] of departments that is currently having this conversation. Guard rail number three, Google Gemini is the division adopted AI tool. The reason for that is because we use Google and we have an enterprise subscription to Google as a school division and part of that includes a provision in our contract that they don't do anything with our data we own our data so by using Google Gemini we're ensuring that there's in there's more data security involved additionally by using Gemini we

[01:38:42] we do have the ability as needed to just see what's going on in there so something concerning or something alarming happens we're able to as a technology department take a look and help our school administrators out with addressing issues additionally as a member of acps with the subscription you have access to google's pro model which if you didn't know cost you 20 a month otherwise so big pro there it's very important to remember that we want to anonymize or pseudonymize any data that we put in even if we're using gemini we want to take that extra step in

[01:39:19] precaution with student data so if you're going to use ai to process data in any way you either want to strip those identifiers those names out or change them use initials use numbers something so that the ai doesn't know who that data ties back to um we want to remember that no ai ai tool is perfect they are all prone to what we call hallucination ai is designed to give you an output it will give you something and if it can't give you what you what you want or it doesn't know what to give you it's going to make something up that is how the technology works

[01:39:55] so always always always check what it gives you garbage in garbage out right and then finally we are if we're going to be using it with staff or students we're going to reference those instructional best practices and we're never ever ever going to use ai to create items for for sensitive student documents such as IEP.

[01:40:20] Now, Katie is going to share with you a little bit about what you can do in terms of improving your own productivity through effective prompting. - All right, so how many of you have used an AI chat bot before?

[01:40:37] Okay, so it's, yeah, I just wanna know so that I know where we're moving from. So whenever you are talking to an AI, there are three basic components we want you to keep in mind. so that Clay was saying garbage in, garbage out, we wanna make sure you're getting the best possible result.

[01:40:55] So those three big components are perspective, purpose, and parameters. - Should I skip this one? - Okay, so if you were just to look at these two prompts, we have an instructional prompt and we have an operational prompt.

[01:41:12] The instructional one says, give me a 45 minute professional development session with staff to help improve classroom management strategies. So if I just put that into Gemini, what am I missing? And if you were with the principals, we'd have you turn and talk.

[01:41:29] And if we were doing this with our operational staff, the alternative is, all right, make a communication that's gonna go to all staff, students, and families saying that we have a two-day closure due to snow and ice. So we're just kind of thinking about what are we missing from this?

[01:41:46] It's very generic, right? We're not giving it the specifics that it needs. So when we are thinking of perspective, this is where we are giving the AI a role. There is emerging research coming out of the University of Pennsylvania that actually telling the AI, hey, you're gonna be the superintendent of a school district, or hey, you're a fourth grade classroom teacher with 25 kids in your class.

[01:42:11] That kind of nuance actually isn't as important. Personally, what I love to do is I like to tell the AI what my role is. So if I wanted a specific output, going to tell it i'm a technology coach something that my team really likes to use when we are using ai is something called the 80 20 rule we can have the ai do 80 of the work for us but we need to make sure that we're going in and doing that other 20 so if i tell the ai hey this is my role that kind of is an extra safeguard to make sure that whatever the output it is giving me i'm then going

[01:42:47] to have to put it into my own words we also have the purpose so those two examples we gave that's really all it was it's the purpose this is the meat and the potatoes this is the part of most prompts that people are really good at we're really good at telling ai what we want it to do but what we really need to work on are the parameters something that's really come up with our students is really these concerns about how ai is impacting the environment and guess what the more conversations we're having with AI the bigger of an impact we're having so if I can put in one

[01:43:26] conversation that's going to give me everything I need that's going to take me out of this kind of iterative cycle because the AI is going to keep talking to me it never wants to stop so if I tell it exactly the output that I need that's going to encourage those conversations to get me to my end goal which is to actually for me to get to the classroom to work with teachers not to be sitting on my computer talking to ai so to take those prompting examples and expand upon them the same

[01:44:01] two that you just saw here is what that might look like if we actually follow the three p's let's take it quick on yes the parameter on um i never thought about using that with this idea of because we have because we translate officially or through google translators so many of our

[01:44:36] communications that they use use vocabulary and syntax easily translated via machine translation like that's an like interesting ad important ad that i never thought about yeah we're teaching you to think like the ai thinks yeah yeah there are many more examples of really awesome prompts that follow the three p's at that link if you're ever curious and just as a quick example for you here are two different one prompt with output that's just purpose driven and the same prompt

[01:45:13] with all three p's and a different output and you'll see an example there of how much higher quality that output is i want to state very important we've heard scratch the surface of it tonight ai uses a lot of natural resources we care about this our communities care about this our students care about this and i encourage you if you're using ai to think about that using the three Ps as a way to be more efficient with your AI use so that we're not prompting it over and over and over and over again and using more water, using more energy. Megan's going to

[01:45:51] quickly touch on the Gemini model. So as we stated before, one of the main reasons that we are using Gemini, and that's our preferred tool, is that it's, you know, packaged in our Google education accounts that we already purchase within the division, and it gives us access to all three models so when you are prompting Gemini on the right-hand side you can toggle between these three models fast is really just meant to be it is fast I mean it works instantly and it's meant to be for simple questions like drafting really simple communications or summarizing something just quick you know quick quick questions thinking is now going to go a little bit deeper it's

[01:46:31] going to take a little bit longer to get a response this is where you're going to use if you're trying to analyze data sets maybe you're trying to make a decision on a complex topic and then the pro version is going to take the longest to generate an output and we want to reserve using the pro for really mostly like creation of materials creation of content this is going to it's going to take a while and it's going to use the most energy so again thinking about energy consumption you want to be thinking about what model you're using and for what purpose when we look at the three models of gemini just a question actually two questions

[01:47:08] on that one is how are you it sounds like you are thinking about this use of natural resource and is that part of the training for students teachers leaders so that people are always like aware of that is that yes i mean this you're seeing a presentation that was just given um and called out to additionally some of the curriculum that monica was referencing earlier uh one of the the threads and themes in there is this exactly.

[01:47:34] - And then the other one on data sets and I'll ask this as a principal, right? My question would be, where is my data safe, not safe? How do I decide what is our school policy around data?

[01:47:50] If I want to look at some data deeply, sometimes I use Patrick who I forgot about earlier. But sometimes I might want to do that and what am I allowed to do, not allowed to do? - That's a good question. Right now, our answer is that we wanna consider the personally identifiable information in that data.

[01:48:09] If there is no PII, then we are okay. If there is PII, we need to either take it out or we need to, as I said with one of the guardrails, pseudonymize that data. So that's the threshold for us right now, yeah.

[01:48:24] - So I would actually love to comment on this sort of after the section is finished, 'cause I'd love to give you my perspective as well. - I would love to hear your perspective. What we would then do with our administrators is give them a chance to put the three P's into practice through the lens of our instructional best practices.

[01:48:42] So it's a chance for them to dive into those, but also a chance to actually try out Gemini for themselves. So they would open up Gemini, they would choose an instructional best practice and then click on the links. So let's just say, for example, I clicked on communication.

[01:48:58] It's gonna take us to the slide around communication and it's gonna give example tasks. Notice these aren't prompts. are tasks you have to engineer the prompt to complete the task around the theme of communication the first two tasks would be for our school administrators and the third would be for our operational administrators these are just examples to get people thinking to get their you know get the juices flowing but folks in this experience were also welcome to trial prompting for themselves with whatever tasks that they were dealing with in their day-to-day and our LTIs would walk around and help facilitate and help out

[01:49:33] So what's next? We are looking to collect more student staff feedback as I mentioned right now. We are looking at curriculum We are also currently conducting our technology survey, which I've spoken with you all about in the past It's our main feedback mechanism for our community and for our staff and students Around technology use in school and we use that to drive a lot of decision-making There's a lot of questions on AI out there. We are currently waiting on the translations for our family survey but if you're a family member or community member you'll see that come out in a in a communication

[01:50:12] soon and you're welcome to take that and provide your own feedback we're revising our existing resources the ones you've seen tonight as well as the curriculum we are looking at creating additional curriculum we know that right now mostly it's um in ela and social studies those have been the areas most impacted by the introduction of ai but that doesn't mean that other subjects are not so we're looking at other subjects as well we're also looking at identifying and refining our core tool list of what's out there and what's available there's a lot out there and a lot of it's good and a lot of it's not and again it's all in how you use it and so we are

[01:50:50] taking a look at what it means to have a robust ai environment that's also very curated and then finally we're keeping an eye on legislation there is some pending legislation out there that could have impacts in terms of curriculum even the availability of ai in schools a couple additional resources for you there's prompt engineering libraries that are really worth checking out to see examples of what great use of ai looks like in the education setting our general resources document you saw tonight and then finally we do have an ai website

[01:51:29] that is publicly facing, that shares about our philosophies tonight, and has information for family. I do want to say, before I switch to questions, I made a small mistake in a slide earlier regarding curriculum. Savas was on for some of our high schools, and it turns out that is in one high school, so I just wanted to make that correction. And with that, any questions that you all might have. Max? I just want to give you my personal take and like kind of an explanation

[01:52:05] of what I've personally noticed what my friends have like said to me about AI. I mean starting like the AI club it seemed more controversial than I would like expect it to be. I know people have seen like the posters around school and they'd be like oh Max you just love it so much. I'm like no i want to educate you on it right to use it properly and it brings into the fact i love that you mentioned that with the three ps whenever you use it it's more environmentally friendly and online this is also something i want to bring up there's a lot of nuance you see so many creators

[01:52:42] saying oh you have to be learning about ai like you have to be using it right but they don't exactly explain how you know people interpret that as oh i go to chat gbt i'll ask it something right and then it just gives you another bad output and they don't say oh learn prompting or anything like that whereas you could just go to google and then you could do a normal search like you don't need to use ai necessarily for like simpler tasks like it's just using it more energy i know personal friends around me they've used certain ais that are cooled by wind instead of water so it's more

[01:53:15] environmentally friendly but i guess back to the idea of cognitive decline i've had i've literally had people come to me and say Max I've like lost the ability to like write an essay I used to be able to do it so fast and now I've used it so much and even for me personally I don't mean I've used it a decent amount but there's two things that you really need to have and it's accountability and it's discipline right so I think it's just always something that we need to teach and we need to keep in mind or else we're gonna become so reliant on these things I mean it's like social media right now that kids are like growing up with social media their brains are like so trained like it's just like a normal

[01:53:54] thing but you know i guess it's just the whole idea of like over over reliance yep absolutely max and i i'm so glad you bring the over line reliance point up i hope the message that you're hearing tonight is that's what we want to avoid we want that balanced approach that says what is appropriate use what how and how can i be metacognitive about my use if you have a friend saying, yeah, I've lost the ability to write an essay. Are we helping students to think and

[01:54:27] recognize, oh, that's a problem, and I need to reflect on my use, right? And what do I do about that? And those are the kinds of things we want to see in our curriculum and in our resources. Also, one more note on that cognitive bias thing. I think the reason we've seen so much divide is specifically short-form content because, you know, these students, they're being fed things from their like Instagram feed and it gives the statistics of oh it's using this much water which is like absolutely true but it forces those students to like see more of that content and then you become less open to looking at opportunities where AI can actually like help you and like where it's going so

[01:55:07] you tend to put it off entirely I feel like that's a problem as well but just us talking about it now it can lead students more to like look into like other options absolutely I think it's interesting to those of us that are older and went through school without laptops or phones or Blackberries or and pagers I mean we we had no technology right so we wrote all our essays by hand or typewriters that's how we learned to type right and typing class on typewriters but I find it interesting now I use AI a lot in my

[01:55:44] profession profession my husband's an attorney and he's actually leading a charge on how it's changing the legal field in that it's making people more efficient so that they can take what they're really good at and focus on that and kind of like when email and and you know smartphones came along all of a sudden you don't you're not tied to your desk and working till midnight on a project because you can do it at home or you can do it on the go but it's interesting to bring up the fact that our students are learn are not getting that cognitive like engagement of writing an essay of having a debate of doing those things because they're being overly reliant on AI.

[01:56:23] So it's a really interesting thought to think about how it is shaping society now and how things are becoming much more efficient and allows us to maybe do our jobs better in some ways, but on the flip side of that, a lot of our students are probably hindered by this.

[01:56:41] And so it'll be interesting to see how we develop it so that it becomes an aid and not a hindrance because you're right, it is a part of our society now. It is a part of business. You're not gonna get around technology, but how do we use it, again, as an aid to make ourselves better at our jobs, more efficient, and not in place of learning how to do these things?

[01:57:04] And that engagement with AI is very much knowing what the prompts are, knowing that you already have the knowledge ahead of time of what exactly you're asking and knowing what you're expecting to come out of it. you're going into it blindly and just saying write an essay on Romeo and Juliet and this theme you know they're not learning anything it's just giving them I have to have the skill to know right what the exactly what's good yeah so it's pretty fascinating yeah I um I can't claim credit for this quote I can't remember who said it um what was at a conference and someone said that what we want yeah right that way what we want AI to do is to offload the procedural productive stuff

[01:57:43] so that we can do the human stuff yeah exactly exactly and how do we maintain the humanity in our students absolutely i think that's the most important thing is um and and i will say you know having kids in all three uh levels in acps i've been really impressed especially at the elementary level i know this was a big concern of you of the amount of time that we're there on ipads or whatever and i have really noticed minimal use my daughter's in fourth grade and i really thought it's going to be ticking up and i'm really impressed this year all of her homework is nothing is on technology no none at home we have she has to write all of her paragraphs in complete

[01:58:21] sentences and even when i've been in the classroom their chromebooks are put away their ipads are put away and it's for very much instructional piece in that lesson and then it is away and they are hands-on and so i hope and pray that that's the case in all of our elementary school classes but i will say that i've been really impressed because that was a concern for us is that there was over reliance on it in elementary school and i haven't seen that in the last year or two it seems to be moving after covid you know of course that was a big thing but we've we seem to have been moved away from that in the last year or two yeah i want to move towards intentional use

[01:58:58] yeah it would be really helpful for me at least and probably for all of us to have access to studies that sort of cover both perspectives.

[01:59:15] I'm sure there are studies that say technology is bad, and there are other studies that say the opposite. So I think it would be helpful for us to hear from sort of both sides of the argument. So I don't know if we can have access to your slide or other resources.

[01:59:35] - And I will say too, my son who has a lot of special needs, it's been such a gift to us because he can't write. He can't read very well, but during the day I will get a notice that he shared a document with me in Google Drive, and I can see stuff that he's working on that he doesn't bring home worksheets and things like that. So for us it's been a way to see and pour into what he's doing at school that previously we were not given any access to that, and so it's a way for him to continue to learn in a different way. Put that high on the EdTech

[02:00:10] triangle right yeah right any other questions other comments questions i mean one my only kind of parting words i first this is very helpful um and i appreciate it and as i think about policies and like like this is one i mean that worries me just in the fact that you like we you we like need to stay on top of this just like you know i just can't like you know when i think about your jobs and like as Ms. Spillman said like how did the way you stay ahead of both on the technology side

[02:00:45] like what's happening but particularly AI and how it could and does impact in this rapid changing world and so I mean what I would say is just however we can help continue to partner with you and support you under in understanding the fact that yeah normal policies are in this five-year review but in this situation you know this might be something every six months and that's a big part of why we wrote the policy the way that we did to be more open and flexible so that regulations can be adjusted but really like yeah we can't it moves too quick that's right and I will say too that our

[02:01:22] team that's part of their role and that's part of why we're here is to help do that research to help stay ahead that's R&D is a big part of the LTI framework well i'm just thinking that chat gpt is three years old and how much how much it has changed just in the last year um is mind-boggling so to be able i mean i don't even know how you do stay on top of it when it's changing that rapidly and then trying to protect our our kids that's a you have a tough job last question remind me i should know that because we just passed the

[02:01:56] budget but how many lti's do we have and how are they deployed we have 14 and they are deployed across we have a secondary team and an elementary team small exception to that is katie currently also supports center one and they are most share schools we have one or two exceptions to that at some of our really large high schools it's really just the one we actually we're at 13 right now we just we just made a hire for next year well thank you so much thank you appreciate it i appreciate you all staying so late yeah thank you all for staying late we know you're early mornings as

[02:02:36] well so thank you so much for everything that you do we so appreciate it thank you do we have any other business before the board um by the superintendent or any board members or staff looking to my right yep looking to my left um seeing no nothing before us i am going to adjourn us at 9:25. Thank you all so much. Appreciate it. Thank you.

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