AI policy for schools without pretending it is simple

Most school AI policy conversations start too big. People try to solve every classroom, every grade level, every cheating scenario, and every tool update at once. No wonder the document turns into mush.

I know because I have had to make this work in a classroom. The policy has to answer normal teacher questions first: what students can use and disclose, and where the teacher still makes the call.

This is part two of the AI Teacher Toolkit. I wanted something smaller than a giant district rulebook, something a teacher could use when a student turns in work and the AI question is sitting right there.

Video version: YouTube

Audio version: Podcast

I use four buckets because they keep the conversation from turning into mush: policy, skills, tools, and applications. If one is missing, the classroom plan usually gets weird fast.

Step one: policy

What's my responsibility as a teacher now that AI is here?

AI policy works better in layers than as one blanket rule. I think of it like this:

State, district, school, then your classroom syllabus.

Let's do an example. Does your state currently have AI guidelines? Check your state guidance first, because that number changes too often for an old post to carry the scoreboard by itself.

A lot of teachers that I talked to didn't even know their state gave guidelines. Of all the stuff in your state's guidelines, here's the most important thing: How should students be using AI?

Here's what Wyoming says:

"To prepare all students for the AI rich future, it is imperative that they all learn about AI and have opportunities to learn with AI."

AI access has an equity side. Students should understand what the tools can do, where the limits are, and when use is allowed. Why does that matter? If somebody comes at me and says, "How come you're teaching my kid AI?", I say, "Well, have you read my state's guidelines? Because I'm following that guidance."

The big three

I can't write your district policy, but most classroom AI questions still run into the big three: FERPA, CIPA, and COPPA. What do those mean? You have to protect students' identities online. They shouldn't be sharing their name, address, phone number, or email. Your school district has to have a way to filter harmful content from the AI tools. With COPPA, don't have students sign up for accounts if they're not over 13. You can ask AI companies, "Are you guys CIPA and COPPA compliant?"

Most teachers I work with say, "I don't have any policy on AI." A lot of them are just leaving it up to the schools and even the individual teachers to figure out. If you're in that boat, ask your administrator the real question: does the lack of policy mean I can't touch the AI topic, or does it mean I can responsibly start doing these things?

A flat AI policy breaks fast. Label the assignment instead: what tool use is allowed and disclosed, and where the student still has to do the thinking.

Transparency: citing AI use

The final aspect of AI policy is, how are you going to address transparency?

What not to do: Please don't have kids cite the AI tool. That's like citing a library.

What I did instead: students turned in links to their chat logs. I started it in 2024, and it changed the use of AI in my classroom.

No matter how a student uses AI, they turn in a link to that chat log. It lets you see the questions they asked and where they got stuck, plus how much of it they actually understood.

For me, that meant changing some skills and tools without throwing out the fundamentals or the content.

That is the policy choice: make AI use visible enough to discuss, or keep pretending the mystery submission is the real problem.

I would rather coach the process than grade another submission and guess how much AI was involved.

If you want sample syllabus language, the integration scale, or lesson plan ideas, start with my links page. I keep the classroom resources there because they change faster than a blog post should.