At some point this year, someone in your organization has said it: we need an AI policy. This issue is about what that sentence usually means, why the standard response wastes a year, and the faster move that gets you guidance people can use before fall testing season.
Episode 5: Four Apps in a Week
Episode 5 is out. A year ago I could not write a line of code. Last week I put four apps into TestFlight, and in this episode I walk through all four: a behavior and IEP data tracker that logs a trial with one swipe from a home-screen widget, a parent companion app that turns medical records and IEPs into parent-friendly language and walks a family from birth through adulthood, a family chores app that ended the constant reminders, and the kids point-of-sale app that started as a toy cash register for my daughter. The bigger point is what building did to my thinking. When you know you are going to make the thing, you stop hand-waving. The build is where the real design happens, which is the same instinct behind the memo further down: draft the thing, put it in front of people, revise as you learn.
State AI Guidance for Education by AI for Education. A living tracker of every state's AI guidance for schools. Before you write a word of local guidance, check what your state has already published, because borrowing beats drafting. I keep this bookmarked and you should too. Illinois readers: check where we sit before your next cabinet meeting.
How States Are Tackling Artificial Intelligence in Education Policy by MultiState. The legislative landscape in one read: a growing number of states, Ohio and Tennessee among them, now require districts to write their own AI policies rather than waiting on a statewide mandate. Useful for understanding whether your local decision is optional or about to become law. Share it with whoever owns board policy in your organization.
Students Will Take the Lead on Crafting a Model AI Policy for Schools by Education Week. A project putting students at the table for AI policy design. Whatever you think of the specific effort, the instinct is right: the people affected by the rules understand the loopholes better than the people writing them. If you build local guidance, borrow the move and put teachers and students in the review loop.
Draft the one-page AI guidance memo.
If your organization has no AI guidance, do not wait for the committee. Draft the memo. Here is the structure, and you can write the first version in an hour.
Section one, what you can do today. Name three to five sanctioned uses with the approved tools you already have: drafting parent communication, summarizing meetings, generating first drafts of routine documents. Be specific enough that a cautious person feels permission.
Section two, what you cannot do. The bright lines: no student personally identifiable information in any tool not approved for it, no AI-only decisions about students, no presenting AI work as your own where original work is the point. Short list, plain words.
Section three, the always rules. A human reviews everything before it goes out. You own what you send. When in doubt, ask, and name exactly who to ask. One name, not a department.
Section four, the promise. This memo will be revised as we learn. Date it, version it, and say when the next revision comes.
Then send it to five staff members and ask one question: what did I miss? Their answers become version 1.1. You now have living guidance while other organizations are still scheduling their second committee meeting. And when the formal policy conversation eventually arrives, you will walk in with a year of documented practice instead of a blank page.
Did this issue land?
One more thing. The same instinct behind that memo, publish what you know and revise it in the open instead of waiting to perfect it, is how I run my own work. There's a new page on the site, evalveconsulting.com/running/, that lists exactly what I'm running this quarter, what I'm building, and what I've killed, dated and versioned. I update it monthly. It's the one-page memo idea pointed at my own stack.
One more thing, and it sets up the month. The reason the policy question is on your desk at all is that ISBE delivered its statewide AI guidance to the Governor and General Assembly on June 30 and released it publicly in July: 409 pages, mandated by PA 104-0399. Most people I talk to think a mandate came down from ISBE. It did not. What came is a requirements spec, and that changes what you should do next.
So August is ISBE month here. The next three issues cover it: what the guidance actually says, the part it leaves thinnest (hint hint, no surprise, specialized populations), and how to turn 409 pages into a first-90-days plan.
And on Wednesday the 12th at 11am Central I am building one of them live. The guidance says districts have to benchmark what their stakeholders think about AI and report the results back, and it gives you question stems instead of surveys. So I am building the surveys, in Google Forms, from a blank screen, thinking out loud about every item I keep and every one I throw out. Free, 50 seats, and you leave with the teacher instrument I build on screen. Register here.
That's it for this one. If something here landed, share it with someone who'd get something out of it. If it didn't, that's part of the deal too. You can find more of what I'm working on at evalveconsulting.com, or book a call if you want to talk through what you're dealing with.
Talk soon,
Chris