NORTHVILLE, Mich. — Northville Public Schools is in the first months of putting a districtwide set of rules on artificial intelligence into every school building, after a task force spent all of last school year working out when the technology helps students learn and when it gets in the way.
The district, which spans parts of Oakland and Wayne counties, formed the task force from educators, administrators, students and staff. Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Emily Pohlonski led the group, and a senior served on it and argued for ways AI could be useful.
The framework rests on four principles: keep learning student-centered and future-focused, use AI to amplify human intelligence rather than replace it, narrow opportunity gaps by widening fair access, and push for integrity, privacy and attention to bias.
In practice, some teachers have moved more work into class time, with paper, pencils and group debate instead of laptops. Teachers can block websites on school-issued laptops during the day, and one writing program shows whether large chunks of text were pasted in from somewhere else.
AI is still part of the day in limited ways. Children as young as kindergarten use a reading program called Snorkel that gives instant feedback on fluency, said Jen Lawson, the district instructional technology integration coordinator. Superintendent RJ Webber said schools have to teach responsible use, and he is not aware of a single local student being punished in a serious way over AI.
The district also plans to vet new tools for safety and data protection, trim the number of piloted programs, and build AI literacy lessons by grade level.
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