How to Develop an AI Policy for Your School: 5 Steps
- Dr. Jacqueline Arce
- 12 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Most school leaders aren’t wondering if AI will impact their schools anymore—they’re wondering how it already has, and whether they’re behind. While some schools and districts are racing to adopt tools and others are busy banning them, most are stuck in a fog of mixed messages, half-formed policies, and quiet uncertainty.
The real risk isn’t choosing the “wrong” AI tool—it’s operating without a clear strategy at all. Because without one, decisions about teaching, learning, assessment, and even academic integrity start getting made by default instead of by design.
The real risk isn’t choosing the ‘wrong’ AI tool—it’s operating without a clear strategy at all.
Addressing AI in schools is about more than preventing students from cheating, but it can feel overwhelming as a school leader.
Well, you’re in luck. I spent the past year attending education conferences, attending every virtual workshop I could register for, and reading multiple books focused on AI in education to figure out how to tackle it.
Here’s what I did to develop an AI game plan for my school and what you can do in yours.
Step 1: Learn How Generative AI Works
I learned about Generative AI → you cannot lead your school through this if you don’t understand how it works.
You cannot lead your school through this if you don’t understand how it works.
I am singling out Generative AI here because AI can mean a million different things… and things we’ve been using for decades. Right now, Gen AI is impacting us in new and different ways.
You should start by learning how an LLM (large language model) works, if you don’t already know. The entire Code.Org “How AI works” video series is excellent, but if you want a quick way to get your bearings, I recommend this one: “How AI Works: Chatbots and Large Language Models”.
Step 2: Collect AI Tools and Policy Resources
Resources right now are kind of like a firehose, and it can be incredibly overwhelming.
I collected two types of resources: those on AI tools in education and those on AI policy. Here are my top resources… like I said, there are millions, so I am sharing just the ones I found the most useful.
AI tools and instruction | AI policy |
|---|---|
ISTE Hands-on Guide for AI Projects in the classroom for elementary and for secondary and guide on ethics | AI with Intention by Tony Frontier (I had my whole committee read this book) AI Competency Framework for Students by UNESCO |
Step 3: Form an AI Strategy and Policy Committee
I formed a committee → We called it the AI Strategy and Policy Committee. I made it voluntary to join, but I did tap some people on the shoulder that I felt needed to join, including members of the tech team, librarian, counselors, and computer science teacher.
I established the goals of the committee, which for us were: (1) Write an AI Strategy & Policy (2) Develop implementation plans and training.
I asked everyone on the committee to read Tony Frontier’s AI with Intention and the CDT Survey (Center for Democracy & Technology) prior to our first meeting.
We spent the first meeting sharing why we joined the committee and our top takeaways from these readings. Here is the agenda I set for the committee and our goals:
Goal 1: Write an AI Strategy & Policy
Section 1- Generative AI basics: explanations & definitions
Data protection considerations (FERPA/COPPA)
Environmental impact
Section 2- Teacher use of AI and Teaching with AI
philosophical beliefs to guide teacher use of AI for job-related tasks such as lesson planning and comment writing
philosophical beliefs to guide when we use AI for teaching & learning purposes
lists of approved and discouraged tools/platforms for both of the above
Section 3- Student use of AI for learning
philosophical beliefs to guide student use of AI
academic honesty considerations
AI literacy
lists of approved and discouraged tools/platforms for both of the above
International students
Section 4- Student wellbeing & Special considerations:
Mental health implications
Ethical use
Deep fakes/Chatbots/sycophancy
Goal 2: Develop an AI Implementation and Training Plan
Policy implementation
Scope and Sequence of AI literacy: Student learning on ethical and responsible use of AI/ dangers of AI (advisory/ Health & wellbeing curriculum)
Teacher training on both policy & AI tools
Parent training/ communication
In our committee, we split into subgroups based on the policy's four sections. Each group did some research about their topic and created a document for note-keeping. We went through a few iterations of this before the subgroups shared with the larger group. The groups used this information to start drafting their section of the policy.
Step 4: Collect Data on Generative AI Use in Your School
During this group work, we decided we wanted to survey our students, parents, and teachers to better understand how they are using Gen AI, how knowledgeable they are about it, and what their concerns are.
As I mentioned in my data analysis blog, survey writing is a science and needs to be done with care in order to result in meaningful data. We used the CDT survey to design most of our questions.
I also hosted a parent focus group for the survey. We had ten parents come in and take the survey, after which I asked them the following questions:
What were your overall impressions of the survey you just completed?
Were any questions confusing or unclear? If so, which ones?
Did the survey feel too long, too short, or about right?
Were there any important topics about AI that you think were missing?
Did any questions make you think differently about AI or your child’s use of it?
As a result of this, we were able to determine that the parent body was ready and eager to participate in the survey and hear from the school about how it could address AI.
The parent survey was later sent out via our weekly school newsletter. Luckily, we gave the students the survey during an advisory period, so we were able to get a nearly 90% response rate from students.
After the surveys, we participated in an Evidence to Action protocol to analyze the results. We identified some key takeaways which I then shared in a written report for parents and a slideshow for students.
Teachers received a separate survey that was focused on how they use Gen AI for teaching and what training they feel they need. We were able to use their responses to plan some targeted professional development for the upcoming school year.
Step 5: Revisit and Refine Your AI Action Plan
We revisited our action steps, and we are still very much in this work. However, as a result of our research, our data collection, and our teacher survey, we were able to refine our steps for the remaining few months and into the next school year within the original action plan.
We will finish writing our policy with the above stated sections.
We piloted a few different software options that support student writing in a lockdown browser with a teacher-coded chatbot to discourage academic dishonesty while encouraging effective use of Gen AI (there are many options out there, but we settled on TrueMark)
We explored data protection considerations and decided to formally endorse Gemini over ChatGPT/others due to its alignment with FERPA and COPPA (which are policies for online data protection for minors in school)
We brought in a consultant/speaker who is an Educational Technology Professor at a local university to present on various Gen AI tools and introduce some ethics topics
We will develop an AI Literacy curriculum from grades 6-12 to be delivered during advisory with various scaffolded AI topics both for use of AI tools and for ethics
We did set a timeline for this work. Our goal is to have the policy completed by the start of the next school year, embed parent training into our August orientation programming, and begin implementing the AI literacies curriculum in the fall. While ambitious, technology is moving fast! And we need to try as much as possible to keep up.
The five steps above gave us a structure for moving from learning about generative AI to putting an action plan in place. The one-page summary below brings the process together before I share a few additional considerations from our work.
Free AI Strategy
and Policy Guide
Keep the five-step process and reflection questions close at hand. Download the free one-page guide to use as a quick reference with your team.
Additional Considerations for Developing an AI Policy for Your School
Adapt Your AI Policy to Your School Context
Every school’s policy is different. Context does have a lot to do with it. Because we are a relatively expensive private school, most of our parent student body work in high-paying jobs that have already fully embraced AI to streamline tasks and maximize efficiency.
This affects the parent training that is needed (or not needed) and the parent body's willingness to discuss and embrace AI.
You can find example policies on every corner of the internet, but you will need to ensure they meet the needs of your school, context, and community.
Define Learning Before Deciding How AI Should Be Used
In “AI with Intention”, Frontier recommends that schools determine their definition of learning and then they can determine how AI can and should be used by whether or not they support learning the way it is defined or replace it. I find this an incredibly helpful lens to frame our policy.
Support Teachers at Different Stages of AI Adoption
Teachers are at different stages of acceptance. I found the Roger’s Innovation Adoption Curve to be helpful for understanding this. You might have teachers who are skeptics and saying things like “I believe AI has no place in schools” and you might also have tech enthusiasts who were trialing ChatGPT with student feedback before we even knew it was a thing. Your training should allow for all of these people to engage. When we brought in our consultant, she presented on how LLMs work to everyone. We were clear that learning about Gen AI is a non-negotiable. However, she later ran a breakout session on specific tools that teachers could use in the classroom– this session was optional.
We need to scaffold for teachers the way we might for students.
I know not everyone is ready, and that’s okay. We need to scaffold for teachers the way we might for students.
Keep Your AI Policy Flexible as Technology Evolves
Technology innovations are moving fast. Every day, Gen AI tools change and develop. For this reason, we decided not to commit to certain tools or mention them by name in our policy. However, the number of tools available is overwhelming for some of our late-majority adopters. For that reason, we decided to "endorse" a few that we know we can sustain. Google NotebookLM is an example of this. As a Google Workspace for Education school, it makes sense for us to use a Google AI platform. This way we can train teachers on this tool and help them feel capable of implementing at least one form of Gen AI.
Taking the Next Step
Ready to move your school’s AI work forward?
ACP partners with school and district leaders to develop thoughtful, context-responsive AI strategies through leadership coaching, professional learning, and implementation support.
Begin Developing an AI Policy for Your School
I hope my experience guiding this process at my own school can help you as you begin your own journey.
Schools are at all phases of this, from not even started to fully implemented. Just reading this blog is getting you on your way– you are right where you need to be!
At ACP, we are committed to transparency in our content creation. Learn more in our AI Policy.
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