Priorities
Artificial Intelligence in Our Schools
AI is already in our classrooms: in students' pockets, in teachers' tools, in the software the district buys. The question isn't whether GHAPS deals with AI. It's whether we deal with it on purpose.
This is the issue I know best. My professional work focuses on how public institutions govern artificial intelligence: where it helps, where it causes harm, and how to write rules that hold up in practice. Most school boards will face these questions with no one in the room who works on them daily. GHAPS doesn’t have to be one of them.
What I’ll work for
A clear, practical AI policy for the district
Students and teachers deserve to know what’s allowed, what isn’t, and why. A good policy isn’t a ban and isn’t a free-for-all. It distinguishes between using AI to learn and using it to avoid learning, and it gets revisited regularly because this technology changes fast.
Where our current policy falls short
Right now, GHAPS handbooks list using AI to complete an assignment or test as academic dishonesty unless a teacher specifically authorizes it, and the high school handbook treats unauthorized use as a form of plagiarism subject to discipline. I understand why the policy was written that way, and I’ll serve alongside the people who wrote it. But I think it’s shortsighted. Treating AI mainly as a cheating risk pushes students toward using it in secret, on their own devices, with no guidance at all. Even if certain tools stay off-limits during the school day, GHAPS should give students sanctioned tools they can use for studying and projects, with clear expectations for how.
Guardrails matter, but skills matter more
Rules about when and how students can use AI are worth getting right. But the bigger risk is students losing skills they’ll need long after they leave GHAPS, or outsourcing so much of their thinking to AI that they never build it themselves. At the same time, AI lets students do real things they couldn’t do before, like building a website or working through a problem nobody handed them a template for. Getting there still takes knowing how to think a problem through and dig into a subject deeply enough to understand it. That’s the balance I want GHAPS to strike: use the tool, keep the skill.
Supporting teachers, not replacing their judgment
Used well, AI can give teachers time back: drafting, differentiating materials, handling paperwork. Used poorly, it adds surveillance and busywork. Teachers should help write the rules they’ll work under, and professional development should come before mandates.
Protecting student data
Every AI tool the district adopts is also a data decision. Before GHAPS signs a contract, we should know what student data a vendor collects, where it goes, and how to get out of the deal if the answers change. This is basic procurement discipline, and it’s exactly the kind of unglamorous work I’ve done my whole career.