Kenai school board weighs AI classroom rules ahead of the school year

Kenai Peninsula school leaders are trying to write AI rules for their classrooms, and running into the problem facing every district right now: make the rules too specific and they're obsolete by the time the ink dries; make them too loose and they don't mean anything.

The proposals, which the school board saw for the first time in July, would bar teachers from feeding student data into AI platforms the district hasn't approved, and would rewrite the academic honesty policy to spell out acceptable AI use and set consequences for misuse. Other AI use would fall under the same rules that already govern social media. Rather than write a standalone policy, the district's AI committee, which built on the state education department's AI framework, is folding the language into policies that already exist. Staff already have access to two approved tools, MagicSchool and Google Gemini, with training on both.

The debate was over how sharp to draw the lines. Board member Mica VanBuskirk said the academic honesty language doesn't tell teachers or students where acceptable use ends, and wants it clear enough that a teacher can say a given use is fine here, not fine there. Kari Dendurent countered that drawing the lines too tightly would mean rewriting the policy constantly as the technology moves.

Administrators are hoping to have the rules in place by the start of the school year.