We talk with Nate Lichte, VP of K-12 Solutions and COO of Lebra, about the challenges of retaining top talents in school leadership and the classroom. You can enjoy engaging insights into these important topics during Lichte’s presentation at the upcoming EdExec Summit, taking place September 10-11 in Chicago.

“I've always had a passion for leadership,” Nate Lichte says. “My mom was an eighth grade teacher. Growing up I didn't get the traditional bedtime superheroes and fairy tales, I got leadership fables."

Like most fables, Lichte’s path wasn’t a simple or straight one, but it resulted in a lesson learned he brings into his work everyday.

“I got into education because I struggled with my own educational journey, so I wanted to make an impact for educators and their students,” he says. “I started in higher ed working directly with college students, which eventually led to K12. I even worked with juvenile justice and corrections education programs. I’ve been spending the last seven years with school superintendents within a company whose core product helped leaders to better connect with their employees to build a culture of belonging and ensure that the employee feels seen, valued, and inspired to grow.”

Lichte says the education sector is extremely unique, and presents difficult challenges for school leaders, who are under tremendous pressure. Every district is distinct, but most are facing the same challenges when it comes to staffing.

“Right now a lot of districts are talking about recruitment because we're dealing with this shortage of teachers,” he says. “The immediate thought is, ‘Let's go get more teachers.’ We're not talking enough about retention. It's far less expensive and far more impactful to create an environment where the best people choose to stay. At the end of the day, the best people want to work for someone that genuinely cares about them.”

Determining what matters most to the brightest stars in your school’s universe is key to keeping them.

“Teachers are not in a role for the compensation,” Lichte says. “The reason people stay is because they have great leadership. They have purpose. They have opportunity to grow. There's trust. There's flexibility. There's an authentic relationship that's built between them, the leadership, and the entire organization. That's what sets a high-performing organization, whether it's a K12 school district or any other industry.”

Just knowing what your staff needs is the first step. For Lichte, this isn’t about selling a product, but selling a culture that can make life better for all the stakeholders.

“Culture isn't something you can write on a wall,” he says. “Culture isn't something that happens because you throw a building a pizza party or order a snack cart on Teacher Appreciation Day. Those small things are great and may lead to a positive culture, but nine times out of ten, that's not what builds a healthy culture of belonging. What builds a strong culture of belonging is small intentional actions. It's conversations, it's feedback, it's recognition, all of those small things that happen in seconds in the day that build trust and relationships.”

Becoming the GOAT of Joy and Belonging Might Take a Few Llamas

“Culture starts from the top down,” says Lichte. “It doesn't matter whether we're working with K-12 districts, hospitals with 20,000 employees, or a private organization with 6,000. We have to start with the CEO or the superintendent of that organization. If you as the head of that organization do not believe — or don’t take the intentional actions that it takes to build a culture of belonging, it’s going to be an uphill battle.”

Small daily actions, such as noting someone’s birthday, might seem simplistic or something that wouldn’t move the needle on culture.

“When you're the superintendent of an organization and you send a personal email birthday message to an individual, it has meaningful impact,” Lichte suggests. “A superintendent in Illinois sent a last-minute birthday message to an individual in his district. The gentleman responded that he didn't know that the superintendent knew it was his birthday, and was furthermore surprised that he took the time just to wish him a happy birthday, because he's the superintendent leading this big district. His final sentence? Sometimes, being a janitor I feel at the bottom, but today — I feel at the top.”

This made such an impact on the superintendent, the district adopted a bigger recognition of birthdays and milestones across the organization. Doors were decorated, and joy and a sense of belonging was spread.

“These are the moments that matter,” Lichte says. “That individual employee will stay retained and engaged in his role because of this one small email and then everything else that the district has done to kind of change their philosophy. That's when employees feel trusted, valued. They're inspired to grow, regardless of what position they hold.”

Lichte insists this conversation should not be about recruitment, because recruitment will come when you create an environment of joy with a culture of belonging. If that’s what you lean on you are focusing on the wrong piece of the puzzle.

“The challenge for superintendents is that right now is a heavy politically-charged environment,” he says. “They have budget constraints and reins tightened to the greatest degree they've ever experienced.”

Lichte says small intentional acts and inspiration matters. He cites Dr. George Philhower, Eastern Hancock Community Schools superintendent in Greenfield, Indiana, who has four key tenets, starting with joy.

“He wants every single individual to experience joy and that joy is exhibited not only when the kids are getting educated, but when employees and teachers feel like they're part of the school,” says Lichte. “It takes intentional work. You cannot do it on Fridays and special occasions, you as a leader have to do it every single day. If you're bleeding talent, it's because people don't believe; one, in you as the leader, or two, because your core tenets are in misalignment with what they want.”

This philosophy has attracted such a stir that 300 teachers from around the country come to Philhower’s annual Joy Jam educators’ conference. To be fair, this is the same man who sent a local farmer in uniform riding a horse past a history classroom yelling, “The British are coming!”

So how does joy express itself in Greenfield, Indiana?

Says Lichte: “The best way I can sum up that conference is as I'm walking down to the main session, George passes me and says, ‘Have you seen a goat? We've lost the goat.’ The next thing I heard was his voice calling down the hall, ‘The llamas are slipping on the floor. We need a tarp for the llamas!’ Because this conference brought in everything that exhibits joy. This is why George doesn’t have a recruitment problem.”

3 Takeaways To Gain From Nate Lichte’s EdExec Summit Presentation

Culture is not a pizza party. Leadership is building a high-performing organization around a culture of belonging, built on a foundation of connection. You can’t have one without the other.

Start from the ground up. Learn from the good work already taking place, such as the birthday note example. Sharing best practices starts a conversation to spark ideas. Other creative things are happening organically in districts.

Create environments that people don't wanna leave. You can't just do it on Tuesdays and Fridays or because it feels like the right thing to do. You have to block your calendar 5-10 minutes every day and go find someone to make feel seen. If you're not giving this culture the same intention that you give your budget, then you're missing the mark.

Collaboration is a hallmark of many of NASA’s endeavors. In 2020, NASA and the Department of State joined with seven other founding nations to establish the Artemis Accords, introducing the first set of practical principles aimed at enhancing the safety and coordination between like-minded nations as they explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond. A few days ago, the 70th nation joined the accord.

“When we brainstorm in the classroom, you're in a bubble,” says educator and NASA Solar System Ambassador Tim Needles of Smithtown School District in New York. “In some of these programs, much like in the space program, we will collaborate on a project with three or four different countries. Introducing students to other places gives them different experiences to pull from, even when they are back in that bubble. Every single time, there is surprise learning that happens.”

A cooperative perspective is key in advancing learning into infinite possibilities.

”It’s invaluable because yes, there's the things you expect in the curriculum, but we're learning about how to collaborate with people from different cultures and appreciate different perspectives within that learning,” Needles says. “When they put together the James Webb Telescope, it was a collaboration of a few different countries. So we collaborated with a class in Switzerland to actually build a model of the James Webb. They did part of it and mailed it to us, and then we did the other part. Just modeling that kind of international collaboration is a great lesson by itself.”

For helping students explore space and the world around them, and other efforts, Needles was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award.

Needles, also a nationally renowned expert on STEAM, shares his work with the NASA Solar System Ambassador Program and offers tips for those interested in getting involved.

Stepping (Way) Outside the Classroom

Needles has been a NASA Solar System Ambassador for a few years. “We work through the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in California, and we get trained on every mission,” he says. “The idea is to be able to communicate that information back in the world of education or in the community.”

Participating in events to support NASA helps others understand what space missions are about. Part of this message is also educating others on what the space program has already added to their lives without them even noticing.

“A lot of times, teachers don't even know the connections to space in what we are teaching,” Needles says. “If I'm working with a science class and we're looking at the environment, a lot of that data comes from the space program. As a NASA Ambassador I can help them understand how this upcoming mission is actually going to be really important to get new data to use.”

Exciting new developments will keep Needles busy sharing what he learns at NASA’s JPL. During the recent Artemis Project launch, he shared weekly videos and K-12 lesson plans — from designing a mission patch logo to using physics and math to calculate a flight plan — across his district and, as a NYSCATE board member, with all New York teachers.

“It’s really a new frontier, especially now with Artemis,” he says. “We're going to be building a base on the moon to be interplanetary at some point and try to get to Mars. We're going to have the first female on the moon in the next two to three years, which is very exciting. I watched Apollo 13 last night and it ends with them talking about when is the next man going to be on the moon? And I'm thinking, ‘Not exactly.’”

Through the program, Needles adds depth to his classroom by inviting people who work at NASA for a virtual meeting during which students can engage with one of the engineers, designers, or even the occasional astronaut.

“There's no better experience than that,” he says. “Whether it's involving AI or the environment, it all correlates to some of the things I'm doing within the NASA Solar System Ambassador Program. It’s exciting what we’re able to do in the classroom now. It’s just so interesting and really poignant at the moment, to be involved in this most important work.”

To Infinity … And Closer

Needles doesn’t need to bring students to space to build their global perspective.

“We went to the Galapagos two years ago. This year we went to Japan and Korea,” Needles says. “I think there's no better education program than going somewhere else and learning about a different culture and the different ways that people live. In today's AI world, those human skills of collaboration and openness to different perspectives are more important than ever. Travel opens your mind to different perspectives, which is more important than ever.”

Opening minds through bringing awareness of our place in the puzzle of the universe, first on a global scale, was good practice for becoming a NASA ambassador.

“So many of the students I bring on these tours haven't even been to New York City, and it's only an hour-and-a-half away by train,” Needles says. “Bringing them to somewhere like Ecuador, where it’s just an entirely different culture — it’s so exciting to see the impact. There's very few things you take on in education where you know that students’ lives are going to change from having that one experience. Every trip I take opens up the universe to these kids, many who then become world travelers in college and beyond.”

Students aren’t the only beneficiaries of gaining a global perspective.

“Now I'm traveling with teachers, which I've never done before,” Needles says. “I'm working with NYSCATE and a few other groups to do a teacher tour next summer exploring England, Scotland and Ireland. We connect with locals virtually before the trips to make connections and learn a little about their experience. We can really see how we're all one planet and how things are connected.”

Each destination has its own lesson.

“I went to Iceland for the first time last year and was entranced by how much of their energy is geothermal,” Needles says. “You go to a place like Amsterdam with the amount of people using bikes, or Europe’s reliance on public transportation, it's like, ‘Oh, so this is possible.’ It really opens your mind to what you could do, and how different things could be.”

3 Ways To Incorporate the NASA Ambassador Program Into Your District

Needles share how districts can implement the NASA Ambassador program into learning.

Plan an ambassador visit. The global program has over 145 ambassadors and another 1,200 volunteers. “You can access the website, look up the nearest ambassador to you and reach out,” Needles says. “They are always happy to come to the classroom and support the teachers or set up a book talk with an astronaut author. It's a free program — when we're working as Solar System Ambassadors, we don't charge.”

Volunteer with the program. If you have an interest and free time, you can start as a volunteer, and after participating in a few different events, apply for a bigger role. “The solar system is the overall topic, but you can have specialties such as working with a telescope or STEAM,” Needles says. “It is very flexible. They offer 2-10 trainings each week to hop on and learn about each new program.”

Apply to become an ambassador. You can apply through the program’s website. “There are a lot of opportunities and you get a badge and can visit the JPL on certain dates, as well as learn all about every new program or space telescope launch,” Needles says. Applications are considered annually for the three-year role.

Needles Teaching Videos:

• Artemis video
• Planet video
• Design with AI video

Tools They Use

• Discovery Education
• Adobe (Express, Aqua, Firefly, Photoshop, & Premiere)
• Google Education (with Notebook LM & Gemini)
• National Geographic Education
• SchoolAI
• Magic School
• Snorkl
• Claude
• Wakelet
• Quiver
• Sphero
• Phet Interactive
• SMART
• Wayground
• Lego
• Free Resources:
• NASA Solar System Ambassadors
• NASA Eyes
• NASA Learning Resources
• Okgo Sandbox
• Discovery Education AI Literacy

I was writing a speech for an end-of-the-year ceremony recognizing my students moving up to their next school. It’s one of many speeches, announcements, recommendation letters, and notifications I compose on any given day.

I entered a quote I had written into an AI prompt with instructions to produce a concise, inspiring speech for my fourth graders moving up based on it. I was impressed with the output: It was well structured, followed my conventions, and did a decent organizational job. Yet, it was missing the most important aspect, something I call “personification.”

The biggest mistake users make using AI to write is overlooking the visible lack of substance and eerie wording in LLM outputs. In fact, according to a study by researchers at four U.S. universities, AI chatbots have linguistic fingerprints that reveal which model is used: In five popular AI chatbots, distinct verbal quirks emerged.

It is the personification a human adds that’s absent in AI outputs. Understanding this can help everyone in your school community write better, not using AI as a crutch but rather as a partner–a partner who can put together good looking, well-structured passages, but with the need for the human touch to personify it.

The Personification Two-Step

Let me illustrate with a common example of what many school leaders are writing: letters of recommendation.

In years past, writing a good letter of recommendation would take me, a quick writer, 25-30 minutes to compose. Not bad, but when you add up the half dozen requests all happening at the same time, along with all my other writing tasks, it gets overwhelming. Normally, writing those six letters alone would take three hours.

Now, I take a copy of the requester’s resume, remove their name and identifying information, and ask the AI to write me a letter of recommendation. I can add into the prompt, positive, praiseworthy tone, or more neutral for someone with whom I am not so impressed.

Using this prompt and an attached resume takes 2-3 minutes to get an output. I will add their name and title that were previously removed. But the biggest gap is the personal touch: personification. This is where I go back and take very important steps.

1. I shift the tone from a rigid style even an AI that claims to know my writing style has. This reinforces that the human element has to be integrated and;
2. I add unique details only I know and on which I can elaborate. For instance, that one time the teacher stayed until 6:30 PM to make sure a student of theirs was picked up when the family had an emergency. I can speak to the empathy and character of the teacher in a way the AI neither knows nor understands.

As far as writing articles like this one, I remain dutifully old school. I prefer to write from inspiration, and then go back and edit. I may add a sentence, possibly even a passage that was adapted from an AI output, nothing more.

Don’t get me wrong–I have tested a concept article with AI. And then I scrapped it. The AI cannot give me the natural, conversational tone that I can. To me, good writing means the author is speaking to you. An AI speaks at you, kind of like an instruction manual.

As far as recognizing my tone, the AI can guess at my intonation, but not in a consistent manner. Here, you can feel it come off the page, like a story. An AI puts words together in a calculated, meaningful way but that substance is persistently missing. This is the nuance that is just plain absent.

Crafting A Partnership

As a school leader and author, I am selfishly happy AI doesn’t get nuanced, because that means learners and leaders like me must continue to develop the very abstract skill of writing. The exercise helps me work out my mental muscles.

Another significant challenge with relying on AI for writing is the odd tendency to mash nearby paragraphs together, often creating inaccurate or just plain false assumptions, or vaguely near estimates. AI outputs can give us help with those early questions when we query, offering options we may not have considered but when we dig deeper, when we really write from nuance, humans clearly own writing. Ignoring this will only illuminate AI overuse in student or adult outputs. AI lacks that embodied self awareness.

An MIT meta-analysis confirms this: the combination of human and AI works best when each partner can do the thing they do better than the other, and there is a synergy in this partnership. AI excels at rapid data processing and drafting (essentially calculations), while humans add that critical thinking, empathy, and final context. Humans must check the output and revise, remove linguistic fingerprints, and personify the content.

Understanding this balance provides a hybrid method that helps us work better without losing our natural thinking skills. Ignoring it creates obvious, almost embarrassing attempts at professionals intent to be positive, such as this letter an administrator emailed, copied straight from a chatbot.

The Bottom Line

I have found AI to be a helpful and efficient writing partner for quick starter thoughts and organizational structure. However, human nuance and embodied self-awareness win every time when it comes to qualitative and intuitive writing. AI can assist with brainstorming, research and editing, but it cannot replace authentic emotions, life experiences, imagination and unique voice.

Consider this as a guideline for reminding students and school communities that writing is one of the most important critical thinking skills to help develop the mind and express creative thought.

Franklin Special District (FSD) is the only district in Tennessee to offer aerospace as a high school credit course to 8th graders. It has no entry requirements, making this CTE opportunity attainable for every student.

“We were hopeful that the students would connect with the subject and find it interesting, but they've really taken to it beyond my wildest dreams,” says Mary Decker, Associate Director of Schools for Teaching & Learning at FSD, who developed and leads the district’s aerospace program. “We have quite a few students who are now pursuing a career in aerospace. Many of them really weren't familiar with aviation before they took this class.”

A Tennessee Department of Education Innovative School Models (ISM) grant provided the district with $1 million to pursue college and career technical education (CTE) programming. Through this grant program, Decker reimagined modes of time, space, and learning in partnerships between middle and high schools, post-secondary, and the aerospace industry.

“It definitely gives them that real-world, hands-on learning that the students are craving,” Decker says. “There are some students who struggle with learning in traditional ways, but when you factor in the simulator time, it's really speaking their language. We've seen them become more open to the academic, book learning side of the class.”

For this and other efforts, Decker was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award. She shares details about her popular aerospace program implementation and tips for those interested in creating a similar program in their district.

‘Flying Before Driving’

Middle school might sound ambitious for such a program, but Decker says that’s not the case.

“I've had some people say to me, ‘Aren't they too young? Can they really appreciate the time on the flight simulators? Isn't this too much for them?’” she says. “They have absolutely risen to the occasion. They have excelled. Students rise to the level of our expectations, and I think this program has really demonstrated that.”

The program has created opportunities for in-demand and lucrative careers, such as future pilots, air traffic controllers, aircraft maintenance technicians, and aeronautical engineers. Some students will be poised to earn their private pilot license before they are old enough to drive.

“They are just finishing their freshman year of high school and already have aerospace in mind as a career,” Decker says. “They are thinking, ‘How can I start building up my flying hours? How can I start taking flight lessons? What other courses should I be taking? How should I be building my high school schedule so that it fits in with what I'm planning to do?’ Just seeing that sense of direction already in ninth graders is amazing.”

The program also offers other benefits to students.

“Getting the correct education and licenses for an aviation career is expensive and can be complicated,” Decker says. “If there are financial obstacles in the way, or students are intimidated by the process to get where they want to go, we wanted to take all of that away and just say, ‘If you're interested, we are going to do everything we can to take you as far as possible with aerospace.’”

Sims for the Win

Simulators aren’t just about sliding into a machine for a video game session. It involves navigation, management of emergencies, instrument awareness, taxi and hangar skills in a variety of aircraft.

Each FSD aerospace program classroom has at least five Redbird Jay Velocity Flight Simulators that students use daily, and at least one Redbird TD flight simulator, which is FAA-certified as a Basic Aviation Training Device (BATD) and a Redbird LD simulator.

“They can practice radio calls. They can simulate emergency scenarios. It continually gets more complicated and more realistic,” says Decker. “If they are working with a certified flight instructor, these are simulators that pilots can use to actually log flight time. They're authorized Federal Aviation Administration training devices. We offer students the best learning experience and the most realistic simulation of flight.”

The Redbird simulators allow different aircraft to be programmed for different scenarios in whatever type of flight the teacher wants them to learn for the day,

All this exposure sets students up for success regardless of which aerospace track they pursue.

“If they do go on to earn their pilot certificate, they've already banked some of that experience. If they are interested in becoming an air traffic controller, they have experience with radio calls. If they're going into aircraft maintenance, they have a better understanding of flight characteristics in different airplanes they've been introduced to through the simulators. It’s really just a win-win with the sims.”

Find a Teacher With Their Head in the Clouds

The first step in launching an aviation-aimed program is to find the right educators for the job. FSD has one dedicated aerospace teacher, who walks back and forth between adjacent middle schools.

“Not only is he a licensed teacher, he has a private pilot certificate and owns his own airplane,” Decker says. “We just got very fortunate that we have such a great teacher and he obviously knows the content exceptionally well. He has forged really fantastic relationships with the students.”

Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t hit the aerospace-superstar lottery in your district.

“I have talked to other districts where they've had a teacher come in who wasn’t necessarily knowledgeable about aerospace, but was very enthusiastic,” Decker says. “They were still able to use the curriculum, learn about the simulators and teach the class very successfully. We’ve had other STEM teachers attend professional learning around aerospace so that we have a team who are knowledgeable and are able to provide support, but our aerospace teacher handles all of the classes at this point.”

If there is one wish Decker had for the future of the program, it is simply to have more of it.

“I'd love to expand the program someday,” she says. “The way our master scheduling works, this class is an elective. It currently works very well for us to have the two classes at each middle school, so one teacher is able to handle it.”

FSD uses the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) High School Aviation STEM Curriculum, which provides a solid foundation.

“The AOPA sets the standard for a comprehensive aerospace curriculum,” Decker says. “They work closely with Redbird to incorporate the simulator instruction so the teacher knows the best lessons to integrate for a specific scenario in the simulator. The two definitely work hand-in-hand. It includes aerospace history, aerodynamics, engineering, flight characteristics of different aircraft, even a section on unmanned aerial systems.”

A Winning Pilot Program

Part of launching an education program based on the art of aviation is letting students’ ambitions and imaginations take flight.

“We're about three hours away from Memphis, where FedEx is based so a lot of FedEx pilots live in the area,” says Decker. “They have been very generous in coming in and talking to the kids, letting them know what their careers and path to flying looked like. We had a Southwest Airlines representative come in to tour the classes and meet with the students.”

Getting a pilot’s perspective on the industry is great, but seeing them in action is inspiring. Students get to attend the Great Tennessee Air Show in nearby Smyrna to see multiple types of aircraft, and interact with the pilots and various support personnel.

The flight and aerospace industry is broad and varied in the area. For example, pilots from a hot air balloon company have done demonstrations and students have visited the aviation program at nearby Middle Tennessee State University.

“We're definitely trying to involve the community, and specifically the aviation community, to show our students all the paths they can take to achieve their aviation dreams,” Decker says.

Taking the wheel isn’t the only option for interested students.

“We definitely wanted to develop pilots, but there are so many opportunities and jobs available in aerospace careers — air traffic controller, aircraft maintenance, aeronautical engineer, airport manager . . . .” Decker says. “Whatever their interest is, we are here to encourage it.”

3 Tips to Helping an Aerospace Program Take Off

Decker offers advice for others looking to launch a career pathway in aerospace.

1. Build Your Team — “If somebody's looking to start an aerospace program, think beyond finding a great teacher,” she says. “It really has to be a team effort to make it as high quality as possible for the students. Our instructional technology specialists, curriculum supervisor and technology supervisor and members of his tech team have really thrown themself into supporting this program. I’m really fortunate that they saw the possibilities this would offer students and have been enthusiastic from day one.”

2. Give the Team Support and Information — “Make sure the teacher has everything they need with regard to curriculum, provide them with professional learning,” Decker says. “Have your technology team and instructional technology attend training and learn how to set up and troubleshoot the sims so that they are always running perfectly. Make sure school administrators have all the background and are kept well-informed because their support is really important as well.”

3. Find the Finances — “We were fortunate that we have this ISM grant, but I also applied and received a smaller grant from the Tennessee Department of Transportation,” Decker says. “If you have money within your budget to allocate that’s great, but take the time to explore state grant funding sources. The AOPA curriculum is free, but plan funding to ensure simulators will be part of your program. They are not inexpensive, but they're worth it and really crucial.”

Tools They Use

• i-Ready
• aimswebPlus
• Discovery Education
• Learning.com
• Destiny
• Code HS
• Quaver Music
• QuaverReady
• Clever
• Skyward
• GoGuardian
• Parsec
• Curriculum-specific tech resources include: McGraw Hill Wonders (K-4); Savvas Realize Science (K-8); Studies Weekly (K-2); Gallopade (3-8); Open Up Reading (5); Savvas My Perspectives Reading (6); McGraw Hill StudySync Reading (7-8); Actively Learn ; McGraw Hill Math (5-6); Big Ideas Math (7-8, Algebra 1, Geometry)

The insights from a recent Ed-Tech Leadership Collective Briefing paint a clear picture: the traditional playbook for marketing to school districts is obsolete. Today’s educational leaders are navigating a perfect storm of tightening budgets, expiring stimulus funds, and an unprecedented volume of vendor outreach.

The Briefing, co-hosted by Tech & Learning, featured two speakers from T&L’s EdExec Summit, taking place in Chicago on September 10-11. The discussion offered a sneak peek into the kinds of conversations expected to take place at this event for education executives.

Collin Earnst, Founder and Managing Partner at the Ed-tech Leadership Collective, spoke with Trina Reeves (Director of STEM and Innovation at Clayton County Schools, GA) and Joe Ayala (Director of Information Technology at Santa Clara USD, CA), to hear their candid feedback to education companies looking to market to them.

Below are the insights education companies can use to evolve their marketing and sales strategies and build lasting partnerships with schools.

The New Era of Budget Scrutiny and ROI

The days of easily accessible ESSER funds are gone. Districts are now managing the realities of inflation, cost escalators, and, in many cases, staff reductions.

Consequently, the scrutiny placed on spending has never been higher. Superintendents and school boards are demanding concrete proof of a product’s Return on Investment (ROI).

"One thing that is being asked more than ever is, ‘Is your product actually making a difference?’” Ayala said. “From the superintendent level to the board members, I've been asked more about ROI than I have in my entire career over the last six months."

Trina Reaves echoed this reality, noting that shifting leadership brings intense new focus on metrics. Sharing a recent conversation with her new superintendent, she detailed his strict mandate: "’I want to see the data, I want to see usage. I want to compare it to scores, how the students are performing.’ He says if it's not making a difference, it's going to go."

To market effectively in this environment, vendors must proactively assist district leaders in proving this value. Enter conversations armed with data, usage metrics, and a clear understanding of the district’s specific strategic plan and needs. Don’t put the burden of justifying a product's cost on the district.

Cutting Through the Vendor Noise

District leaders are inundated with sales pitches. With some administrators receiving upward of 200 calls per day and countless emails, the push for a "quick win" or an immediate long-term contract can permanently damage a relationship.

"I've actually fired quite a few vendors,” said Ayala. “If they went really hard on the first sale, I'm like, ‘Okay, I'll give you one sale, but we're not going to form a partnership. You got that one PO from me, but you're not going to get any more POs.’”

To break through the noise, education companies must pivot to a value-first, relationship-based approach:

▶Go slow to go fast: Building a genuine partnership can sometimes take years. Rushing a district into a long-term commitment before they have secured funding or proven the concept through a pilot will likely burn bridges.

▶Show up without an ask: Support district events, attend regional STEM collaboratives, and send check-in emails that offer value rather than a sales pitch.

▶Respect the chain of command: If an initial pilot or conversation is moving slowly, do not bypass your primary contact to pitch directly to the superintendent or principal. This is a surefire way to get blacklisted.

When you do earn that trust, the loyalty is profound. "Once you're my partner, we're partners and 10 toes down for you all the time," Reaves said. "When I think of something, I'm calling you. When I need something, I'm calling you."

Flexibility in Pricing and Implementation

Rigidity in software licensing is a major friction point for modern districts. If a tool is primarily utilized by a specific subset of teachers, vendors should not force a district-wide site license.

"There is no way I should pay for 5,000 licenses, and only 100 kids are using it,” Reaves said. “If those 100 kids are doing great but we’re spending $2 million, that's a problem."

When budgets are tight, vendors who adapt their pricing and packaging to match actual usage will retain clients. Furthermore, successful implementation requires ongoing PD. Because teacher turnover is high, Reaves suggests packaging PD deeply into the adoption rather than treating it as a massive, recurring separate line item that eats into a district's limited PD budget.

Standardizing and Sharing Meaningful Data

You cannot prove ROI without accurate data, yet many edtech platforms make data extraction unnecessarily difficult. Beautiful, high-level presentation dashboards are nice, but district IT leaders need raw, exportable data to integrate with their own internal systems.

"I think the next iteration of edtech is developing some data standards of reporting data back,” said Ayala. “One easy thing that you do is make sure the usage data is easily exported."

Vendors must collaborate with districts to define what constitutes an “active user.” Is it one login per month, or five interactive sessions per week? By establishing shared metrics and making data sharing agreements seamless, vendors empower district leaders to confidently defend the product to their school boards.

The Ed-Tech Vendor Playbook: Do's and Don'ts

The Bottom Line

Marketing to K-12 educators today requires empathy, patience, and a willingness to adapt. Vendors who listen to a district's financial constraints, respect their time, and prioritize slow, authentic relationship-building will ultimately thrive.

As the conversation with Reaves and Ayala makes clear: once you prove your value and earn the title of a true "partner," district leaders will advocate fiercely for your continued presence in their schools.

To build a winning strategy for the post-stimulus education market, join us at Tech & Learning's EdExec Summit on September 10-11 in Chicago. Featuring tailored tracks for every functional leader, each session is co-facilitated by a district buyer—providing exclusive, direct insights to help you craft an actionable business plan.

In today’s digitally rich environments, the value of knowledge lies not simply in its availability but in how effectively it is created, refined, and applied over time. Knowledge management addresses the use of data for instructional and school improvement, and should ensure that administrative processes and procedures are clearly outlined in such a way that organizations do not lose knowledge or efficiency when personnel leave, rotate, or are otherwise unavailable.

The process facet of knowledge management should be a continuous cycle in which educators and institutions intentionally capture insights, reduce complex tasks to clearly defined processes, and systematically share and apply that knowledge to improve practice. This process-driven approach enables schools and districts to learn from prior initiatives, sustain institutional memory, and adapt more effectively to change. By embedding knowledge management considerations into daily practice, institutions can strengthen their processes and reduce the costs associated with personnel transitions.

One of my students recently raised the concern that she worked within a team of five. Even though they all effectively shared the same job title, each covered a specific group of students. When someone was absent, however, there was a loss as the specifics of dealing with that student group were not always documented.

This kind of approach causes delays when someone is out sick or on vacation, and can be significantly more detrimental when a key player leaves an organization, and no one has been cross-trained to deal with the totality of the vacated position.

What should technology leaders do to ensure this facet of knowledge management is embedded into their instructional practices?

1. Capture What Employees Know

Too often, valuable knowledge remains locked in the experiences of individuals. Effective knowledge management begins by intentionally capturing both formal and informal procedures, from routine office workflows to exceptions that staff learn to handle through experience. When clerical employees document what steps they take and which systems they update, who must be notified, and how they verify accuracy, they convert individual know-how into transferable organizational knowledge. This is particularly important in a world where change control is usually controlled by a cloud-based provider and not the institution itself.

For example, when a clerical employee changes a student’s bus route, the process may require updating the student information system, notifying transportation, alerting the classroom teacher and office staff, confirming parent or guardian communication, and checking that the old route no longer appears in any active roster or report. If those steps are not clearly documented, the change may be completed in one system but missed in another, creating confusion for staff and potentially inaccurate information for families.

Leaders should ensure that routine clerical tasks such as address changes, attendance corrections, schedule adjustments, or transportation updates are supported by clear, step-by-step procedures that can be followed consistently by any trained employee.

2. Reduce Critical Single Points of Failure

One of the most significant risks facing schools and districts is the existence of critical single points of failure. These situations in which essential knowledge or processes reside with only one employee seem to be more common as school budgets are stretched. These vulnerabilities often go unnoticed until a key individual is absent, retires, or accepts a position elsewhere.

In many educational organizations, long-serving employees develop expertise that is never formally documented because "they have always handled it." While this arrangement may appear efficient, it creates organizational risk. For example, a district technology coordinator may be the only person who knows how to submit annual state technology reports, manage key integrations between the student information system and learning management system, or update user provisioning rules. If that employee unexpectedly leaves, the district may struggle to complete required reporting, restore system functionality, or troubleshoot issues that arise during critical periods such as student registration or state testing.

Technology leaders should routinely identify processes that depend on a single individual and prioritize documenting those workflows, creating backup procedures, and assigning secondary personnel who can perform the task when necessary.

Institutional knowledge should belong to the organization, not to any one employee. One of the best ways to address this issue is to cross-train staff.

3. Build Cross-Training into Organizational Culture

Documentation is an important first step, but written procedures alone do not guarantee organizational resilience. Employees must also have opportunities to learn and practice responsibilities outside their primary roles. Cross-training helps ensure that critical functions can continue even when key personnel are unavailable while also fostering greater collaboration and understanding across departments.

In educational settings, cross-training might involve office staff learning basic attendance reporting procedures normally handled by another clerk, instructional technology specialists learning the fundamentals of student account provisioning, or technology support staff becoming familiar with the district's purchasing and inventory systems.

Consider a school district in which only one employee manages the onboarding process for new staff members. If that individual is absent during the busy summer hiring season, delays may occur in creating network accounts, issuing devices, assigning software licenses, and granting access to instructional resources. By cross-training at least one additional employee and periodically allowing that person to perform the process independently, the district can ensure continuity of service and reduce disruptions. Periodically performing the process is essential so cross-training employees remember what they are doing and can catch any small changes to software that might modify the process that went unnoticed.

Effective technology leaders view cross-training as an ongoing investment in organizational capacity, employee growth, and operational stability.

4. Use Technology to Strengthen Process Consistency

Rather than relying on employees to remember procedures or learn through informal conversations, schools should leverage digital tools to create systems that guide staff through established workflows and provide easy access to current information. Knowledge bases, internal wikis, shared cloud documentation systems, workflow automation platforms, and ticketing systems can help standardize processes and ensure that a critical task is completed consistently regardless of who performs it.

For example, when a student's address changes, a documented workflow can guide staff through updating the student information system, notifying transportation services, communicating with teachers, and verifying that all related records have been updated. By embedding procedures within technology systems, organizations reduce the likelihood of missed steps and create greater continuity when employees are absent or positions change.

Artificial intelligence further enhances these capabilities by making organizational knowledge easier to access and use. AI tools can summarize lengthy procedures, generate first drafts of documentation, create frequently asked questions from existing manuals, and help employees quickly locate the information they need. A staff member unfamiliar with a process may be able to ask an AI-powered knowledge assistant how to complete a particular task and receive guidance drawn directly from institutional documentation.

Similarly, a short video demonstration or screen recording can provide visual instruction that is often more effective than pages of written directions. (It is important that these videos and other instructions are representative of the school’s version of the software. One cannot simply use “off-the-shelf instruction” in many cases, as they can cause confusion.)

Technology and AI cannot replace the need for strong underlying processes, however. Poorly documented procedures simply result in faster distribution of inaccurate information.

The effectiveness of AI and other knowledge-management technologies depends entirely on the quality of the knowledge contained within. Technology leaders should therefore view these tools as mechanisms for preserving institutional memory, improving process consistency, and ensuring that organizational knowledge remains available long after individual employees move on to new roles.

Effective Process Management

Ultimately, effective process management is an essential leadership responsibility. When schools intentionally document procedures, cross-train employees, and use technology to make knowledge accessible, they reduce disruption, preserve institutional memory, and improve service to students, families, and staff.

Successful leaders and organizations do not depend on one person knowing what to do. They build systems that ensure important work can continue accurately, consistently, and confidently, regardless of who is available to perform it.

Watch above or listen/download below.

For nearly 30 years, E-Rate has been what one might call the most boring of utility programs — a broadband subsidy that quietly connects America's schools and libraries. Now the FCC is asking whether it should exist at all.

Reg Leichty, founding partner of Foresight Law + Policy and a longtime E-Rate advocate, joined the Tech & Learning podcast to break down the commission's newly opened review of the program. His first message: don't panic. His second: take this seriously.

"Sunsetting," he notes, is the polite framing — the proceeding is an inquiry into whether the investment should be terminated.

Leichty pushes back on the review's central premise, which ties E-Rate to concerns about student screen time. Questions about how much time kids spend online are worth asking, he says, but these fall outside the scope of the program and the FCC's telecommunications mandate — an inappropriate merger of two different streams of work.

The stakes are concrete. E-Rate is a need-based subsidy, scaled to community poverty levels, that supports everything from dark fiber projects to wireless access points. Remove it, and those costs fall on local communities — hitting hardest in low-income districts and expensive-to-connect rural areas such as the Nebraska town where Leichty grew up. He also sees a contradiction in questioning school connectivity at the very moment the administration is championing AI readiness.

Still, Leichty argues periodic review is healthy, and this proceeding is a chance to modernize the program's badly dated cybersecurity provisions using early learnings from the FCC's cybersecurity pilot.

The timeline offers breathing room: a 60-day comment period once the notice hits the Federal Register, 30 more days for replies, and likely no implementation before 2028.

Leichty's advice for district leaders: contact your members of Congress this month to educate them about what E-Rate does in their district, and file comments through the FCC's electronic filing system when the window opens.

Take action: The FCC's comment window opens once the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is published in the Federal Register, and as Leichty notes, the commission is obligated to review every comment it receives.

- District leaders can file directly through the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System — reference WC Docket No. 26-133 — using either a written document or the express comment field.

- The full NPRM and commissioner statements are available on the FCC's website.

- For advocacy resources and updates on the proceeding, CoSN has issued a statement on the review and maintains ongoing E-Rate advocacy tools for members.

- And per Leichty's two-part strategy: don't wait for the comment window — contact your House member and senators this month and tell them what E-Rate funds in your district.

Watch above or listen/download below.

Most conversations about education equity focus on helping students who are struggling. AJ Gutierrez wants to talk about those who are achieving yet are still being overlooked.

As the new CEO of Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS), Gutierrez is leading a national nonprofit that partners with more than 900 middle and high schools across 35 states to identify students who are prepared for advanced coursework but aren't getting access to it. In this conversation with Tech & Learning, he offers insights for district leaders on how to do more for students that may be off the radar.

A recent Mathematica study found that EOS partner schools identify more than 2.5 times as many underrepresented students ready for AP, IB, or dual enrollment compared to traditional methods — and that those students, once placed, perform just as well as their peers.

"There's a huge subset of students who are ready for advanced coursework who were, for many reasons, being overlooked," Gutierrez says. "If you look at things like the PSAT, there was a large study EOS conducted with EdTrust where they were missing on 80% of students who would have qualified."

What makes the EOS approach distinct is what it measures. Beyond grades and test scores, EOS collects student survey data on factors such as whether a student feels connected to a trusted adult at school, their future aspirations, and their sense of belonging. When those insights are combined with academic data — and increasingly, with AI-driven predictive analytics — patterns emerge that no dashboard alone would surface.

"Education is always going to be human-led, but technology-augmented," Gutierrez says. "You can't just share a dashboard or a widget and expect big change. You're talking about shifting mindsets and shifting human behavior."

Gutierrez brings a personal dimension to the work. A product of Boston's Match Education program, he credits rigorous coursework and personalized support as pivotal in his own trajectory. He went on to co-found Saga Education, which helped catalyze a national high-impact tutoring movement and secure more than $7 billion in public investment between 2020 and today.

At EOS, his next focus is chronic absenteeism — using the organization's survey data and emerging AI tools to identify students at risk of disengaging before it's too late.

"If we focus on individual students," he says, "we can increase the odds of improving average daily attendance."

Watch above or listen/download below.

Cybersecurity has topped CoSN’s annual State of EdTech report for at least eight consecutive years. For Jeff Carlson, Head of Education Strategy and Advocacy at Clever, that streak is not a failure of imagination — it’s an honest reflection of how hard the problem actually is.

“Even if you’ve solved one thing, there’s another thing,” Carlson said during this week’s Tech & Learning podcast conversation. “K-12 has become one of the most targeted industries for cyberattacks, and the threats keep evolving.”

Clever, which provides single sign-on and rostering services to between 75 and 80 percent of U.S. schools — both public and private — has watched that threat landscape shift in real time. What once centered on credential theft and unauthorized access has expanded to include third-party vendor vulnerabilities, with Carlson citing an eightfold increase in two years of districts worrying about attacks on vendors that then cascade into school systems. The data at risk is not just administrative: it includes student health records, special education documentation, and mental health communications.

“The biggest concern we hear from tech teams is that student data is going to be released,” said Carlson, who spent time as a special education teacher before moving into ed-tech strategy. “You’ve got health data, comments going back and forth about mental health challenges. That’s not just a technical problem.”

The arrival of AI has added a new layer of complexity. Carlson described a moment that has become familiar to many district leaders: waking up to find that an app updated overnight and now includes student-facing AI features no one vetted or approved. His advice is pointed — focus on enabling AI for educators before enabling it for students, prioritize tools built specifically for K-12 over consumer products retrofitted for classrooms, and establish clear data minimization standards that apply whether or not a vendor calls itself an AI company.

“We’re pretty quickly moving from having AI companies to just companies that are using AI,” Carlson said. “We used to have internet companies. Everybody has a website now. We can’t assume that just because somebody hasn’t told you they’re using AI that they’re not.”

For district leaders feeling overwhelmed, Carlson’s closing message was direct: take a breath, communicate openly with families and staff before a crisis forces the conversation, and treat AI governance as an ongoing dialogue rather than a policy set once and forgotten.

“The best thing you can do with fear is try to understand where it’s coming from,” he said. “And see how you can get over it one step at a time.”

When Kadion Phillips first joined Shrewsbury Public Schools in Massachusetts as Director of Information Technology a few years ago, one of the first tasks on his agenda, like many other district leaders, was tackling how to implement artificial intelligence.

To that end, Phillips and district superintendent Joseph Sawyer established a special committee of approximately 20 staff and faculty members to address the rapid development and implementation of AI.

Ultimately, the Shrewsbury AI committee came up with five pillars to guide the district’s use of AI:

1. Preparing students for an AI future - Focusing on readying students for a future in which AI tools will be infused throughout society, higher education, and the workplace.
2. Effectively utilizing AI learning tools for students - Using AI tools to appropriately support student learning across all classrooms.
3. Implementing AI working tools for staff - Finding the right AI platforms to help faculty and staff to work more efficiently and effectively.
4. Establishing guardrails against inappropriate AI use - Putting effective rules and best practices in place to protect data and discourage inappropriate use of AI.
5. Ensuring AI practices promote academic integrity - Creating an effective framework for acceptable use of AI by students in the context of academic integrity.

Rather than selecting specific tools, the committee has worked to align these pillars with the district's "Portrait of a Graduate" skills, such as critical thinking and innovation.

“We also started creating a guiding document, more of a framework, that we're hoping to get out to staff in terms of, ‘Here's where we are right now, and here's what we're trying to get to,” Phillips says. “We're also developing a one-pager of AI dos and don'ts to release this year.”

For this and his other work in his district, Phillips was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award. He shares his continued efforts around AI and for improving the district’s cybersecurity.

A Work In Progress

The son of a math teacher from Jamaica who eventually went on to be a school principal, Phillips was exposed early to the possibilities of a career in education and technology. He was working in tech support for a startup company near Times Square in New York City with plans on going to grad school for physics when he heard that there was a local teacher shortage.

“I decided the best way to study for grad school is to teach physics,” Phillips says. He became a teaching fellow since he didn’t have a teaching degree, which was the shortest path to certification. “I was basically kind of thrown into the classroom in New York City after doing a summer intensive, and it was definitely rewarding but also challenging.”

While teaching, his tech expertise helped him become the de facto tech guy at his school, helping to resolve any issue, from fixing the copier to helping in the computer lab to running data analysis. Although he eventually became an assistant principal, following in his mother’s footsteps, a colleague suggested another path.

“I met the tech director in Rochester and he was telling me, ‘Hey, this is what you should do, you should be a tech director,” Phillips recalls. “And I'm like, ‘a tech director, what’s that?’ I'd never heard of that role. I know you had one person help send emails, but I never really thought somebody was in the back end coordinating it all.”

Phillips and his wife, also an assistant principal in NYC, were looking for a better work-life balance at this point, so they moved to suburban Massachusetts where she had been raised. After diving into tech leadership positions in a few districts, Phillips eventually ended up in Shrewsbury about two years ago, just in time for AI’s arrival in education.

As mentioned, Phillips has been proactive in implementing AI, although there are always challenges, such as staff who still are resistant to allowing it in their classrooms because they can’t get past the potential for cheating, and navigating the student data privacy aspects. Like for many districts, it continues to be a work in progress.

“We aren't necessarily picking a tool and saying this is what you need to use but it's like thinking about, ‘Hey, what are the opportunities where AI could be useful?’” Phillips says. “We figured out the skills that we want kids to get with AI is going to be similar to what we did with our portrait of a graduate, such as critical thinking, content mastery, innovation, resilience, collaboration, and even the global citizenship piece.”

‘Locking Down Without Locking Out’

In addition to a focus on AI, Phillips has prioritized cybersecurity as a foundational element of the district’s technology plan, which has earned his team a Massachusetts Governor’s Citation for Municipal Cybersecurity.

“We try to lock things down as much as possible,” says Phillips, adding that they have multifactor authentication on all systems now. “We also have tiered access, like limiting who needs to get access to what. So like our main account doesn't have access to our domain controller, for example, so even if our regular account were to get compromised, it wouldn't have any access to our other internal systems.”

Or, as he puts it, “locking down without locking out” users.

Despite his best efforts, however, Phillips knows cybersecurity is sometimes out of his hands.

“It's just one of those things where we're trying to do best practices but the vendors for our most critical systems, we also have to trust that they're also doing the same,” he says, noting some recent high-profile data breaches. “I think that's what keeps us IT workers up at night, you know, showing up in the morning and seeing that your system potentially could be compromised.”

The district utilizes a state-funded grant to provide training and conduct phishing campaigns, which has improved staff awareness and the reporting of suspicious activities.

Even so, cybersecurity needs to be a constant commitment.

“You can create all this security, do all the training, and build this wall around it,” Phillips says. “But then somebody just leaves the door right open.”

Tools They Use

• Google for Education
• Schoology
• Seesaw
• ParentSquare
• Zoom
• Apple MacBooks and iPads
• Epson
• Fresh Service

Watch above or listen/download below.

About two-thirds of U.S. districts and states have some form of AI policy in place. The other third is, as Sasha Luks-Morgan puts it, the wild west. And even many of the policies that do exist, she argues, aren't doing what they're supposed to do.

Luks-Morgan is a policy analyst at SchoolAI, a K-12 AI platform they say is built around teacher visibility and student engagement, and she spends her days meeting with districts across the country helping them figure all this out.

In this conversation with Tech & Learning, she offers a clear-eyed framework for where AI policy in schools stands — and what it's going to take to move it forward.

Her three-pillar framework for any district starting from scratch: understand how your students and teachers are actually using AI right now; lock down student data privacy and personally identifiable information; and address academic integrity in a way that keeps students in the driver's seat of their own learning rather than offloading cognition to a machine.

"Systems only move as fast as the humans in them," she says. "That's the starting point."

She also draws a sharp distinction between two policy philosophies that often get conflated. Acceptable use policies, she says, are essentially lists of prohibitions. Responsible use policies are something different — these model good behavior, explain the reasoning behind expectations, and treat students as participants in the process rather than subjects of it.

On the vendor side, she is equally direct: the edtech industry has not taken enough responsibility for making tools work in ways that support good policy. SchoolAI's response is a free policy-writing service — available to any district, partner or not — in which a member of the team will sit with administrators, hear their concerns, and draft or revise a policy document they can take to legal counsel and implement.

"Bad policy is worse than no policy," she says. "We really want to see districts succeeding."

She also addresses district scale: the fundamentals — student privacy, ethical use, data governance — apply universally, from a 108-student K-8 district in the Mid-Atlantic to New York City Public Schools. What changes is implementation, committee structure, and who carries the weight. In small districts, that often means one superintendent or tech director holding the entire AI portfolio alone.

Her advice for the path forward: review your policy annually, build teacher expertise so your bench runs deep, and accept that the technology will always outpace the paperwork. The goal isn't to catch up but to stay close enough to matter.

Since AI came onto the scene, a lot has changed with it while some recurring themes have sustained. AI continues to act as a broad tool that provides remarkably imperfect productivity.

While significant cautions abound assuming its reliability, understanding AI’s usefulness while recognizing its limits makes my day as a principal more efficient AND effective. This brought me to consider what a typical day looks like for me using AI tools to offload administrivia.

With so many options, I wanted to break it down for your use. I don’t expect to use all these tools everyday, but try a few and walk away liberated, with more time and availability for students, staff, and parents. That’s a win for everyone.

I start my day thinking about rising concerns by my faculty over religious opt outs, based on a Supreme Court decision this fall. They were receiving template emails people find online (hilarious when they forget to replace ‘student name’ with their child’s name). My nervous teachers want guidance, so I use AI to clearly and comfortably provide them with direction:

DOE Memo Converted To Slides (Time spent: 8 minutes)

I google my state's DOE guidance on handling parental opt outs and find a state memo that is a great antidote for insomnia. It is the standard boring, lengthy legalease. I add the link to Gemini and select canvas mode.

What I like is it follows my prompt to be pleasant and supportive. The slide deck gets me “mostly there,” my common phrase for AI giving me a terrific start that I edit, ensuring my voice is present. I then export the slides and edit as needed.

This process takes me under 10 minutes, during which I transform a dry, boring memo into a meaningful presentation for my faculty. This would have taken about an hour analog-style, so I get back 50+ minutes to be present for my school community!

Text-To-Email Blast To Parents (Time spent: 5 minutes)

Principals are mediums of communication, and often, are expected to funnel information into a digestible explanation, even when that information is shared in fragmented bursts, as it typically is.

Next on my list is a field day announcement. I need to communicate to ensure everyone is prepared for our big day of events. My physical education teacher sends me this text (at right).

It is timely, but to stop and rewrite it in a cohesive format will take time I often don’t have during a busy day. (Time that is better spent outside my office as improvement doesn’t happen there but in classrooms.)

I copy and paste the phys ed teacher’s text with a simple prompt: Convert this into a message for parents of our school, Central elementary for our field day.

The output is thorough, better than I expect, done in about a quarter the time it would normally take. Better, to get all this into a 140-character text message, I prompt from the output, “140 characters” and voila! This way, parents get an email and a text, increasing the likelihood they see it. All from a single text message!

Letter Of Recommendation (Time spent: 7 minutes)

I can write fast but when I get asked to write letters of recommendation, these all happen within weeks of each other. Drafting a good letter with fidelity takes time. This is the next task on my list.

For this, I have the requester send me their resume, copy it into my chat, and prompt the AI to write a letter of recommendation based on the information–2 minutes!

The other 5 minutes is me editing, revising, removing those weird AI words, and most importantly, adding a sentence or two about something I know personally regarding the candidate. What took a half hour now takes a quarter of the time, and the quality is sound.

Email Summary and Reply (Time spent: 5-10 minutes)

Every principal gets the dreaded email that is seven pages long, often emotional and hard to decipher. It is nearing lunch time and I need to get through it fast!

Typically, I prompt the AI to summarize the email, and then reply in a tone that is kind but firm, or whatever is necessary. This is a big time saver! I am not glued to my laptop, reading and rereading run-on sentences to find the essence of a message buried deep. AI does a great job of siphoning this off and producing a quality reply. Onward!

Sensitive Guidance (Time spent: 5 minutes)

Speaking of emotional challenges, every principal has gotten a charged call or email from a parent upset that a school official called the Division of Child Welfare. This is my next task, after lunch.

While school personnel are compelled by strict legal guidelines, parents see it as a personal attack on their parenting. Understandable. I didn’t get this one right the first time, and have to add my state specifics, as well as the tone: sensitive, understanding, pragmatic, etc.

What is produced is excellent. I am provided references to the legal obligation, integrated with an ideal tone. I edit it, print it, and show the parent. Its well-organized format helps me work through the document, and the parent expresses acknowledgement of my understanding.

Picture Of Calendar Events Added To My Calendar (Time spent: 3 minutes)

My day has to have some fun mixed in, right? It’s mid afternoon and I think of that dentist post card for my next visit that I always lose.

I just take a picture and prompt Gemini to add it to my google calendar. This works with Copilot users, too. Even better, I can use it with an email with a series of meetings or events, or my Penn State football schedule from this ugly screen capture–and instantly, I have 12 events (games) added. That’s fast and reliable!

NotebookLM for navigating lengthy documents (Time spent: 3 minutes)

My day is almost over and I spent most of it out of my office because of the AI tricks above. Next, I decide to check on a contract question.

I head over to Google’s NotebookLM, into which I upload a pdf of the teacher contract, and ask how many minutes of pupil contact time a teacher can have. Boom, 287 minutes with the link to the direct reference!

This is priceless for the administrator who often gets questions and different interpretations of contract language. Time-saver, and response can be within the spirit of contracts.

A few more AI time-savers that I have embraced, but not all on the same day, include PD planning, form feedback, and evaluation feedback referencing our evaluation model. I estimate a few hours saved daily–not minutes–and my school wins when I’m present!

Note: Much of the information I use with AI may contain names or other personal data, so I am sure to remove any of that before prompting.

“We have been on this planet for a very long time and we've evolved,” says Kimberly Zajac, a speech language pathologist at Norton Public Schools in Mansfield, Massachusetts. “Society changes with time. Communication has always been a basic human right. Too often we put the onus of the work onto the wrong people to be able to access, engage, and be part of the community and what's happening in this world.”

Zajac aims to end this burden by smoothing the road for all students using technology and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. She has developed a replicable model for integrating Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) as an inclusive practice, providing comprehensive professional development and embedded coaching, ensuring that all educators—not just special education staff—are equipped to support students with complex communication needs. This dismantles systemic barriers, creating a learning environment in which students who have been historically marginalized are given the tools to thrive academically and socially.

Zajac, who was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award for this and other efforts, shares her “Guide to Preparing for Title II Accessibility Requirements” as well as tips for those interested in creating the best program possible.

An Evolution in Education

“The work I do around accessibility and inclusion and communication in tandem with policy that we've gotten from the DOJ with the ADA Title II and the WCAG guidelines really elevates this idea that we need to take a long, hard look at what we're doing and how we're doing it,” Zajac says. “We need to redesign that to be more accessible and eliminate the barriers in order to evolve as a human race.”

As communication continues to evolve alongside technology, Zajac suggests it was “a ripe time” to learn about the new developments and new ways to support students with their alternative and augmentative communication needs, and to fill in any gaps. Collaborating with district leadership, Zajac and her team did a survey and came up with a five-year plan to build capacity and elevate access and inclusion through communication from pre-K to 12 plus.

“We were able to articulate and apply to grants on a local level, which were well received,” Zajac says. “We received a significant amount of funding locally and at the state level to not only purchase hardware and software, but also to invite professional development and coaching, which is really the glue to helping things turn into actions and experiences for our students and their families.”

This effort brought positive results for everyone.

“The stewards along that path — the teachers, the stakeholders, the parents — are all in it together to bring our learners into the future and make sure their full capacity is realized,” Zajac says. “The point is that it takes a village. The stakeholders are far, wide and vast — they bring valuable individual-lived experience to the table that creates connection and benefits the learners we serve.”

5 Reasons Digital Accessibility Is Important Beyond Compliance

• One in Five People Have a Disability - Actions help more than you think.
• Legal Risks - ADA complaints, costly investigations, and lawsuits with private right of action.
• Educational Barriers - Digital inaccessibility means students with disabilities cannot access the same education.
• Reputational Damage - Non-compliance signals that equity is not a true district priority.
• Universal Design Benefits All Learners - Accessible design principles — captions, clear contrast, keyboard navigation — improve the learning experience for every student, not just those with disabilities.

How Implementation Looks in the Classroom

Zajac hasn’t reached the end of her five-year plan and is realizing it to be just the tip of the iceberg.

“We've experienced a wonderful transformation,” she says. “We have seen increased use of alternative and augmentative communication processes, systems, devices, strategies and assets within a great number of classrooms in our target range of pre-K to 12. It's making significant impact in the way that students are able to be engaged in and included in all aspects of their day.”

Zajac is seeing improvements in academics as well as in social-specific areas, ranging from circle time to snack time, lunch time extending into extracurriculars. Increasing inclusivity into these social-centered elements of a school day are critical to giving all students a sense of belonging.

“I just can't say how important it is that we inspire educators and families and stakeholders at scale to think about learners from the margins as we develop our systems and policies,” she says. “It's a human process to have blind spots. It's impossible not to have them, but that's where the stakeholders come in. Lived experience can inform who might have accidentally been excluded. You can then move forward with policies and strategic system approaches that do honor all the voices that should be represented.”

This has led to more participation from students, who are more eager to contribute to the conversation. Students who do not face communication issues are also curious and interested about how the technology works.

For example, Zajac says, “I was in a group this morning that included one of my non-speaking students who uses an iPad to support the expressive communication element of his participation. Every single student involved in the activity was choosing to utilize the iPad in addition to their verbal communication. Each time a student reached for the iPad, the non-speaking student’s smile grew bigger.”

The 5-Step Compliance Plan

• The Audit Comprehensive review of all digital properties to understand scope.
• The Roadmap Timeline to bridge gaps; prioritize high-leverage systems first.
• Procurement Reform Update RFPs to include accessibility requirements for all vendors.
• Staff Training Build internal capacity so accessible content is created from day one.
• Documentation Record all actions; publish a public accessibility statement online.

Zajac feels one of the most important things we need to establish for students in schools today is that when they arrive, they feel like they belong there—that they are seen, that they are heard, and that there are more things in common among their classmates than there are differences.

“We've known about UDL in the past, but there hasn't been this call to action for the tools to actually have features that make it possible for teachers to design, deliver, and execute the end goal with the student,” Zajac says, adding there's nothing more exciting than seeing it coming together.

“Today, my student— his face just lit up when other students were choosing to use the iPad,” Zajac says. “It hit me, ‘Oh my goodness, he feels so comfortable here. He's letting his emotions out.’ That's that ‘sense of belonging’ indicator. There is no finish line. You just have to commit to that dynamic ongoing process. But we're doing things right when students can let their guard down and be who they are in the space.”

Compliance, Whose Responsibility Is it? Know Your Role

• IT & Technology System configuration, assistive tech support, platform audits.
• Curriculum & Instruction Accessible lesson plans, screen-reader-friendly materials.
• Procurement Vetting vendors for WCAG compliance before purchase.
• Special & General Ed Aligning classroom tools with individual student needs.
• Leadership Steering the cross-functional team; accountability to the board.
• Families & Community Providing feedback on real user experience.

Tools They Use

• Google Gemini
• Glint by NerChat
• Lightspeed
• Everyway
• Canva

Educational technology teams are often evaluated based on uptime, system reliability, ticket closure rates, and, of course, cybersecurity compliance. Those metrics matter. Schools and universities depend on secure, stable digital environments to support teaching, learning, and operations. Yet, many IT departments unintentionally overlook the most critical metric that directly shapes trust in technology services: customer experience and usability.

When faculty, staff, students, or families contact an IT help desk, they are not simply engaging with a technical system but interacting with people. They almost certainly have a problem and often feel frustrated or rushed for time because they need a piece of technology for a meeting or a class. The tone, responsiveness, empathy, and professionalism displayed during those interactions often determine whether users see the IT department as a collaborative partner or as a barrier to getting work done.

Technology support in education is ultimately a service profession. When I used to hire frontline IT staff, the customer service orientation was what I looked for, as technical skills can be taught. Developing customer service skills is much more difficult.

The Human Side of Technical Support

Educational institutions increasingly rely on technology for every operational and instructional function. Learning management and student information systems, classroom presentation tools, cloud storage, multifactor authentication, and digital assessment platforms have become foundational infrastructure.

At the same time, many educators and staff members are under significant pressure, so when systems fail or access becomes difficult, frustration escalates quickly. In those moments, customer service matters as much as technical expertise.

A help desk interaction may only last a few minutes, but it can influence a user’s perception of the entire institution. Small gestures of professionalism and courtesy make a measurable difference. For example, many institutions now require users to verify their identity through live video before account recovery or password reset procedures can occur.

Security concerns make these processes understandable and often necessary. However, if an IT staff member asks a user to turn on their camera and display identification, basic professionalism suggests the support staff member should activate their own video feed. The interaction should feel reciprocal and respectful.

Turning on a camera, introducing oneself, and explaining the process helps establish trust and transparency. Such actions are simple examples of customer-centered thinking.

Courtesy Is Not Optional

In many educational environments, IT departments unintentionally adopt cultures focused primarily on compliance and enforcement, rife with rigid policies, transactional processes, and impersonal communication. This can result in users avoiding support interactions, faculty members delaying the reporting of problems, students disengaging from required security processes, and staff members creating risky workarounds.

Effective IT support teams understand that professionalism includes patience, clarity, and empathy. Users do not always understand technical terminology, nor should they be expected to. An educator struggling with multifactor authentication during class preparation is not primarily concerned with the underlying architecture of identity management systems; they simply need to regain access quickly so they can teach.

Ultimately, support interactions should minimize stress rather than increase it.

Simple practices can significantly improve service quality:

• Introducing oneself to the customer.
• Explaining why a security procedure is necessary
• Using plain language rather than excessive technical jargon; however, don’t talk down to the user
• Providing realistic timelines for resolution
• Sending routine satisfaction surveys, as nothing is more frustrating than getting an email saying a ticket has been closed when the problem has not been resolved.
• Designing support procedures around user workflows rather than institutional convenience

Educational institutions often speak about relationship building in classrooms and student services. The same philosophy should apply to technology support.

Cybersecurity Must Support the Mission

Cybersecurity threats facing schools and universities are real. Ransomware attacks, phishing attempts, credential theft, and data breaches continue to affect educational institutions nationwide. IT leaders are correct to prioritize strong security controls.

However, institutions sometimes implement security practices that significantly impair usability without meaningfully improving protection. In 1755, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

IT leaders need to consider this concept when tightening security to the point that it is difficult to use the system being protected. Balance becomes essential. As my favorite university registrar has been known to say, he builds systems that address the needs of 90% of the students and faculty. One of the reasons he is my favorite is that he understands there needs to be enough flexibility in systems to address the needs of the remaining 10%.

If security measures or any institutional processes become excessively burdensome, users predictably seek ways around them. Faculty members may store passwords insecurely. Staff may rely on unofficial tools. Students may disengage from institutional systems altogether. Ironically, overly rigid environments can create additional vulnerabilities.

Edtech exists to support learning, communication, research, and organizational effectiveness. Functionality cannot become secondary to process or systems. This requires IT leaders to ask difficult but important questions:

• Does this security process genuinely reduce risk?
• Is the burden on users proportional to the threat?
• Have we designed this procedure from the perspective of the end user?
• Are we building trust or creating frustration?
• Would reasonable people view this process as respectful and transparent?

Strong IT organizations understand that security and usability are not opposing concepts. Effective security should integrate as seamlessly as possible into the user experience.

Leadership Sets the Tone

Leadership shapes customer service cultures; they do not emerge accidentally. If institutional leaders reward only ticket closure counts and compliance metrics, staff members naturally focus on speed and enforcement. If leaders instead emphasize professionalism, communication quality, and relationship building alongside technical competence, they support cultural change.

IT leaders should regularly review support practices through the lens of user experience. Mystery shopper exercises, satisfaction surveys, and direct feedback sessions with faculty and students can provide valuable insights into how support interactions are actually perceived.

Technical expertise alone does not automatically produce strong customer service skills. Help desk professionals should receive training in communication, conflict management, accessibility, and customer interaction strategies just as they receive technical training. In educational settings, especially, technology teams should remember that every interaction contributes to institutional culture. At the end of the day, users rarely remember the specific technical details of a support ticket but how they were treated.

As noted earlier, Benjamin Franklin famously warned against trading essential freedom for temporary security. The digital world presents a similar challenge. Educational institutions must protect systems and data while still preserving accessibility, usability, transparency, and trust. Technology support should help people accomplish their work, not create unnecessary obstacles to it.

For Lauren Harwood, becoming Director of Instructional Technology and Operations at

Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District in Massachusetts has truly been a homecoming.

“My dad was a science teacher here for 40 years, and in the summer while my mom was at work, I was always with him when he'd come in,” Harwood says. “So, I would be roller skating in these hallways in the summer! It's just such a part of my life.”

And it even continues to be, as in addition to supporting the district she grew up in, her oldest daughter teaches science in the classroom across the hall from where her dad's classroom was.

Still, returning had its bumpy moments. At Harwood’s previous position, she had been a “one-man band” tech director at an agricultural school, which meant she was constantly on call and responsible for resolving any and all issues. Changing that mindset has been a work in progress.

“One of the hardest parts for me in the transition was not jumping up to fix everything because I now have people to do that,” she says, adding that the rural district of 2,600 students poses a mixed bag of new challenges, from coordinating route changes with bus companies and learning about HVAC systems. “I now get to learn something new every day and I enjoy that.”

Harwood, recently recognized by Tech & Learning with an Innovative Leader Award, has focused her energy on three primary areas: creating an AI strategy for the district, expanding its CTE programs, and boosting security and communication.

AI Strategy

Under Harwood’s leadership, DR (as the district is known) has taken a stance against immediately blocking AI sites, choosing instead to focus on teaching students and staff how to use AI responsibly.

“We need to make sure that we're teaching responsible use and that we're teaching respect for it,” she says. “Just because you ask ChatGPT a question, you need critical thinking skills when you look at the response. You still need to know how to find the answers. You can't just assume it can do your work for you.”

Like many districts, vetting and finding the right AI tools and platforms also continues to be a challenge.

“That's what drives us when we're looking at tools, you know, ‘How good is it?’ ‘How can we learn to use it in a mindful way?’” Harwood says. “Being mindful of how we're using it is probably the biggest key. Keeping in mind that potentially everything that it spits out is incorrect. I do think there's a lot of misunderstanding around that. Like, people think, ‘Oh, this is what AI told me, so this must be right.’ And it's not always.”

That includes being constantly vigilant and aware as AI continues to be added to tools that have been already vetted, which requires making sure that security and data privacy is always part of district-wide education efforts.

AI is also a focus during the district’s “DReam Seminars,” PD events featuring teacher-led sessions on using tools such as Brisk AI and Google Gemini, as well as external training on appropriate tool use.

CTE Program Expansion

Harwood is also helping to spearhead expansion of the district’s recently reimagined career and technical education (CTE) program, which is going to include three new career tracks: medical assisting, criminal justice, and culinary arts.

“When our freshmen go through exploratory, they do that for the first half of the year. They try all the different programs and then if they find one that they would like to continue in, they do so,” says Harwood. “This year, 100% of the kids that went through exploratory stayed in a program, so the retention is growing.”

Harwood has also been involved with upgrading all the support tech. For example, the engineering track recently received new computers, monitors, 3D printers, and projectors, which the engineering students used to design the spaces for the new tracks, a hands-on exercise that included real-world implications.

“We had a blizzard and they lost a week of school and they came back in and they said to the engineering teacher, ‘Are we going to get an extension on our deadline?’ And she said, ‘No, this is real. We need these plans,’” says Harwood. “And they did them and they presented them and they were so creative!”

Harwood was involved in the district’s recent purchase of VR headsets for the medical assisting track, which students use to learn how to draw blood.

“The software requires them to go through all of the steps–washing your hands, putting on your gloves,” says Harwood. “It’s not real, but it's also not like just, ‘Oh, I'm looking at it in a textbook, I'm watching a video.’ They're practicing it even though it's virtual. And it's pretty powerful.”

Security and Communication

Like all school districts, cybersecurity remains a priority for DR and Harwood. The district employs various security measures, including multifactor authentication, but understands that no system is foolproof.

“We've all learned that, sometimes the hard way,” says Harwood, who adds that she is constantly discussing potential issues with teachers and staff. “We do provide PD on scams as they come up, but a lot of times if I see a new phishing scam that's going around, something I know people are going to fall for because if it's almost catching me, it's definitely catching others. So I'll send out an email and illustrate what's happening.”

In addition to stressing constant vigilance and educating staff on how to look for warning signs, such as incorrect email addresses in scams, and noting that even large companies such as Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services can experience attacks, Harwood focuses on being engaging with her cybersecurity messaging. “I do try to do it with a little bit of humor like or or just make them a little more personable so people know when I send an email, maybe they want to read it or see what dumb things she's going to say now,” she laughs.

'Make The Most People Happy'

Ultimately, Harwood sees technology as a tool that should empower teachers and students. “It's not that we should be working toward supporting it,” she says. “It should be supporting us.”

She also emphasizes the need to be transparent with everyone as to the “why” behind any edtech or PD she implements.

“I get a lot more buy-in when I say, ‘This is why I would like you to do this, and when I am buying it or trying to do something with a new tool,’” she says.

For example, she cites the recent implementation of a communication platform. She created a committee of teachers and administrators from every school, vetted numerous tools, and then as a group decided on one. Consequently, those who participated in the process were able to go back to their colleagues and champion buy-in, which supported a successful implementation.

“You've always got resistance,” Harwood says. “And those people might come around or they might not. You can't please everybody. And I think in my career, I've finally had to learn that I can't make everybody happy, but I'll try to make the most people happy that I can.”

Tools They Use

• ParentSquare
• Apptegy/Thrillshare
• Google Education Suite
• Aspen SIS
• Open Architects
• Operations Hero
• Lexia
• ST Math
• Wonders
• Renaissance
• Brainpop
• Noodle Tools
• Edpuzzle
• Kahoot
• IXL
• CrisisGo
• Verkada

It is graduation season, which also means it is time to remind busy school leaders and administrators about what families actually remember most. Families may appreciate the speeches, decorations, music, and venue, but what they truly care about is the moment their student walks across the stage and hears their name announced properly. That is what they record on their phones, celebrate with relatives, and fondly look back on years later.

Recently, an Arizona community college faced intense backlash after an AI-powered system reportedly malfunctioned during commencement and skipped several graduates while reading names. Too quickly, the conversation shifted toward blaming “AI system failure.”

No, I see this less as a technological issue and more as a failure in school leadership and planning. And candidly, if this critique sounds harsh, it is because this feels like such an avoidable and unforced leadership error. No one should have been asking AI to handle this responsibility in the first place.

The reason this failure resonated so strongly is because commencement is not simply an operational event, but a milestone centered on recognition, dignity, and belonging. Names carry culture, history, sacrifice, and identity, particularly for multilingual families, immigrant families, and first-generation graduates whose educational journeys often represent years of perseverance and hope.

Pronunciation is part of inclusion as names matter. Culturally responsive leadership includes taking the time to learn and say names correctly. That is why this responsibility should receive more care, not less.

Using AI to Support, Not Replace, People

Schools spend months preparing commencement ceremonies. Leaders rehearse speeches, coordinate seating charts, organize music and photography, and carefully plan countless operational details. Yet somehow in the example cited above, the reading of student names was treated as a task that could simply be handed off to automation. Even more troubling was the apparent absence of a meaningful backup plan.

Every experienced administrator understands that technology can fail, which is exactly why safeguards and human oversight should have been built into the process from the start. Graduation season is not the time to experiment with new AI systems in ways that directly impact students and families.

Ironically, AI could have supported this process in far more thoughtful ways without replacing people. Institutions could have used AI tools to:

• Help announcers practice difficult pronunciations
• Review student-submitted recordings of their names
• Identify names that may require additional preparation
• Support multilingual pronunciation coaching
• Give human announcers more confidence and accuracy before the ceremony

This is the kind of AI use education should embrace: technology that supports people rather than replaces them.

The best uses of AI in education should help educators and leaders become more thoughtful and prepared. Instead, too many organizations are using AI to distance themselves from the moments that deserve the greatest care. In the process, schools risk damaging traditions and violating the rightful expectations families bring to these ceremonies.

Ultimately, this was leadership failure rooted in poor judgment, poor planning, and the mistaken belief that a deeply personal moment could be outsourced to automation. Graduation did not fail because of technology, but because leaders failed to protect the experience students and families deserved.

Due to a technical issue, this podcast is only available in audio format, which you can "watch" above or listen to/download below.

Kris Hagel has a blunt take on the state of educational technology in his district — and probably yours. "Ed Tech Got Away From Us—and It's Kind of Our Fault" is the title of a talk he delivered at a conference the same afternoon he sat down with Tech & Learning. It's also a pretty accurate summary of where a lot of districts find themselves right now.

Hagel—a K-12 CIO with 25-plus years in education and CoSN Board Member— returned from this year’s convention energized by two conversations dominating the hallways: the screen time debate and the growing interest in districts using AI to build their own edtech tools. Both, he says, are wrapped in fear—from parents, from teachers, and from edtech vendors watching their clients start to build around them.

His prescription for the fear? Communication, transparency, and a hard look in the mirror. Hagel's Washington State district of nearly 10,000 students is in the middle of a deliberate pullback from what he describes as a pandemic-era "whatever works" posture toward technology—one that left his team with thousands of approved apps and no clear rationale for most of them.

"I look at our catalog of approved edtech apps and I'm like, 'oh my gosh, that is way too many things,'" he says.

Working alongside his chief academic officer, Hagel has begun re-establishing what purposeful technology use actually looks like in a classroom. He is also planning a district-wide transparency report, using AI to aggregate and synthesize usage data across grade levels and share it publicly with families.

On the parent communication front, Hagel credits ParentSquare as a key partner, citing its ability to route messages to different constituent groups in whatever format they prefer — app, text, phone, or push notification.

"You've got to get out there in front of it and tell the story," he says. "Once you tell those stories, parents get behind it."

He also draws a distinction that more district leaders would do well to internalize: consumer technology and education technology are not the same conversation. Conflating them, he argues, is a big part of how fear takes root — and how trust erodes. The average student, he noted, spends roughly 70 minutes per day on a device in school. Not six hours! Seventy minutes — mostly purposeful.

That number alone, he says, changes the tenor of almost every parent conversation.

In their new vision for public schools, Randi Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are right: students need more active, human, hands-on learning. They need projects, movement, collaboration, civic engagement, career-connected experiences, and chances to tackle real problems.

That is the strongest part of the AFT’s 10-point plan. The emphasis on career and technical education (CTE), experiential learning, and preparation for the future of work deserves attention. If we are serious about preparing students for modern careers, students need learning experiences that reflect the tools, practices, and expectations they will actually encounter beyond school.

The 10-point plan’s name, “Devices Down, Eyes Up, Hands-On,” may sound appealing, especially to adults exhausted by distraction, low-quality screen use, and Big Tech overreach. The problem is that it aims at the wrong target. Devices are not the enemy of active learning. Passive, drill-and-kill learning is.

A drill-and-kill worksheet on a Chromebook is still a worksheet. A lecture with a slide deck is still a lecture. A multiple-choice test on a screen is still a multiple-choice test. Technology did not create passive learning. In many cases, it exposed how much passive learning was already there and made it easier to scale.

Not every lesson needs a device. Rather than considering whether screens are up or down, the better questions are: what are students doing, why they are doing it, and whether the tool helps them learn, create, connect, solve, or demonstrate understanding.

The AFT plan includes several worthwhile ideas: stronger privacy protections, independent research, limits on manipulative technology, more hands-on learning, and adequate public school funding--all of which is important. But when the frame becomes “devices down,” schools risk confusing a management strategy with a learning strategy.

While the plan’s name is misguided, it is worth looking at each of the 10 points directly. Some parts are right, some need a better frame, and others would create the opposite of what our students and schools actually need.

What follows is where the plan gets it right, where it falls short, and why “devices down” is not the path to meaningful learning.

Point 1. No screens for pre-K through second grade

The AFT calls for no screens for students in pre-K through second grade unless there is a compelling reason, such as support for a student with special needs.

The instinct is understandable. Young children need play, language, movement, stories, relationships, manipulatives, exploration, and hands-on learning. They do not need to spend large parts of the day watching videos or completing low-level digital tasks.

But “no screens” goes too far. A child passively consuming content is not doing the same thing as a child using literacy tools to hear a story, build vocabulary, practice phonics, illustrate writing, translate a word, enlarge text, or share a recording with family. Those are different experiences and policy should treat them differently.

Accessibility should not be treated as an exception or afterthought. Some students read, write, listen, speak, translate, caption, enlarge text, dictate, or produce work more effectively with digital tools. That includes students with disabilities and multilingual learners, but it also includes students who may not have a formal accommodation. A policy that says “no screens unless you have special needs” can unintentionally stigmatize the students who benefit from access.

The standard should be higher than “screen or no screen.” Screens should be purposeful, adult-guided, developmentally appropriate, and never allowed to crowd out human interaction, play, movement, stories, and hands-on work. That is more demanding than a ban. It requires educators and policy makers to consider thoughtful choices.

Point 2. No student-facing AI in elementary schools

The AFT also calls for no student-facing artificial intelligence in elementary schools, supervised AI use for older students, and a ban on social companion chatbots for students under 16.

Most would agree that social companion chatbots do not belong in elementary schools. Schools should not help companies simulate relationships with children. But banning all student-facing AI in elementary school is too broad. There is a difference between a child forming an emotional attachment to a chatbot and a teacher using an AI-supported tool for translation, accessibility, vocabulary support, feedback, or differentiated practice under supervision.

There is also a difference between using AI to avoid thinking and using AI to strengthen thinking. Responsible AI use should start with the learning goal, not with the tool. Teachers need to help students understand when AI supports learning and when it gets in the way.

Young children should not be using AI freely. However, that does not mean they should learn nothing about AI or never encounter an AI-supported learning experience. They need age-appropriate digital and AI literacy: this includes what responsible and appropriate use is, how it should be questioned, and how to think critically before tools are placed in front of them without context.

Avoidance is not preparation. Guardrails, judgment, and age-appropriate instruction are.

Point 3. Redesign schooling around active and career-connected learning

This is where the AFT plan is strongest. Active learning, project-based learning, experiential learning, and career-connected learning should be at the center of the conversation.

If students are bored, distracted, and disengaged, the answer is not simply removing devices. The answer is to design learning worth paying attention to..

This matters most in CTE. Students preparing for healthcare, media, construction, design, engineering, business, computer science, culinary arts, public service, or green energy will not enter device-free workplaces. They will use digital tools to research, design, diagnose, communicate, manage projects, analyze data, create media, document work, collaborate with teams, and solve problems.

If we say we value career-connected learning while making “devices down” the default, we are sending mixed messages. Modern CTE requires meaningful technology use. Students should not just learn about careers, but practice with the tools of those careers in authentic ways.

Every lesson does not need a screen. But when a device helps students do the work more authentically, collaboratively, creatively, or effectively, putting it away makes no sense.

Point 4. Build literacy, numeracy, and civic engagement

Students need strong literacy, numeracy, and civic engagement. But “devices down” is not how students build those skills for the world in which they live.

Students need to read deeply. They also need tools that support vocabulary development, translation, accessibility, feedback, publishing, and access to high-interest texts at different reading levels. Learning to write in a world with AI, or using a strong digital reading platform well, is not the same as random screen time.

Students need number sense. They also need opportunities to explain their thinking, use data, create tutorials, and learn from one another. When students create a video explaining a math concept, they are not just answering a problem. They are making their thinking visible.

Students need civic knowledge. They also need to understand how algorithms, misinformation, surveillance, platforms, AI, and online communities shape public life. Digital citizenship is civic education now. It cannot be treated as an extra lesson after something goes wrong.

A device-down approach does not teach students how to evaluate information, protect their privacy, manage their digital footprint, communicate responsibly, or participate thoughtfully in online spaces. Schools should recognize students are in these spaces.

Point 5. Focus on well-being

The AFT is right to connect learning with student and family well-being. Students do not learn well when they feel unsafe, unsupported, isolated, anxious, sleep-deprived, or disconnected from school.

But well-being is not simply a screen-time issue. If students are struggling, schools should look at schedules, relationships, homework loads, sleep, movement, food insecurity, school climate, mental health support, family communication, social media, and the habits students are developing in digital spaces.

Digital well-being belongs in the curriculum, not just in the device policy. Students need to understand how notifications affect attention, how platforms are designed to keep them engaged, how to protect their privacy, how to communicate respectfully, when to disconnect, and when a face-to-face conversation, movement, rest, or quiet focus is the better choice.

A ban can make adults feel as if they acted meaningfully while leaving the deeper issues untouched. The goal should be healthier learning environments and healthier digital habits, not simply less device access or fewer minutes with screens.

Point 6. Protect academic freedom, intellectual property, and educator judgment

Educators should not be handed technology because a vendor made a good pitch. They also should not be blocked from safe and useful tools because policymakers are scared. Academic freedom matters. Teachers should have the professional judgment to decide how their students learn best. That includes the ability to choose when a digital tool supports learning, when it gets in the way, and when a mandated curriculum or platform is not serving their students well. A district-approved tool is not automatically good instruction. A required platform is not automatically the right fit for every learner, lesson, or classroom.

Educator judgment should be central, but teachers should not be left alone to evaluate every app, platform, privacy policy, accessibility claim, AI feature, and instructional promise. That is not sustainable, and it is not fair.

Schools need trusted public-facing reviews, privacy ratings, accessibility information, safety indicators, AI risk assessments, and quality signals that help educators make better decisions before tools reach students. Common Sense Media, ISTE+ASCD, Digital Promise, and similar organizations have all contributed pieces of this infrastructure, but the work is fragmented, unstable, and unevenly known.

Teacher judgment matters most when it is supported by reliable information and respected in practice. The answer is not to tell every educator to vet everything alone, but to build stronger, transparent systems that help educators understand risk, quality, accessibility, privacy, and instructional value, while still trusting teachers to make the final instructional call for the students in front of them.

Point 7. Establish a gold standard for AI safety and privacy

Schools should demand strong safety and privacy protections from AI providers. Companies that cannot meet those standards should not serve K-12 education.

Student data should not be the price of participation. Schools should know what data is collected, how it is used, who has access to it, how long it is retained, whether it is used to train models, and what happens when a tool is discontinued or sold.

This is where clear standards matter. Schools need transparent contracts, strong data rules, parent communication, accessibility review, bias testing, security review, educator training, and ongoing monitoring. They also need the will to say no to tools that do not meet the standard.

Safety and privacy standards should not become a back door to blanket avoidance. The right response to risk is governance. If AI is going to affect the future of work, schools need to teach students how to use it safely, ethically, and critically. That starts with adults making informed decisions before tools are placed in front of students.

Point 8. Create an independent research consortium

There needs to be independent research on AI, screens, and educational technology, research that is not funded by the industries selling the products. Schools have been flooded with products that make big promises and provide thin evidence. Too often, districts are left to figure out impact on their own while vendors move on to the next sale.

Some useful work already exists through organizations such as Common Sense Media, ISTE+ASCD, Digital Promise, and the EdTech Evidence Exchange. Again, the issue is that this work is scattered, unevenly used, and not always connected to the decisions schools make every day.

The research questions also need to improve. “Are screens good or bad?” is too shallow. We should be asking which kinds of screen use support learning, which kinds undermine learning, for which students, at what ages, under what conditions, with what teacher support, and for what goals.

Passive consumption and active creation should not be treated as the same thing. A student scrolling through entertainment content is not doing the same work as one using a device to interview a community member, analyze data, produce a podcast, translate materials for a family audience, or document a science investigation. That is why the goal should not simply be more research. Educators do not need another disconnected report that treats all screen use the same. They need trusted evidence they can actually use to make better decisions about tools, teaching, and learning.

Point 9. Adequately fund public education

Public schools need adequate funding. That includes staffing, facilities, professional learning, mental health supports, libraries, arts, athletics, career pathways, accessibility tools, modern infrastructure, and technology that works.

It also includes the basics too many people skip over: reliable WiFi, adequate bandwidth, devices that function, enough technical support to keep systems running, and clear guidance on how to use educational technology well. It is not enough to hand schools devices and platforms and then blame teachers when the infrastructure, support, or instructional guidance is not there.

Too often, schools are told to prepare students for the future while being funded for the past. That is especially damaging for CTE. Students need access to current tools, not outdated simulations of work. They also need educators who have the training, support, and time to use those tools in ways that strengthen learning rather than digitize old assignments.

The AFT is right to warn against AI and vouchers becoming another excuse to defund public education. But this is also why the “devices down” frame is risky. Wealthier families will still provide access, tutoring, devices, AI tools, enrichment, internships, and networks outside of school. If public schools pull back from teaching students how to use modern tools well, students with less access outside school lose the most.

That is not equity. That is retreat.

Point 10. Tax Big Tech

The AFT calls for a tech tax on Big Tech earnings and some business operations to address harms and disruptions caused by technology and AI.

A real argument exists for that. Technology companies have profited enormously from public attention, public data, public infrastructure, and public institutions. If their products create costs for schools, workers, communities, and the environment, they should not get to externalize those costs while public systems clean up the mess.

But a tech tax should not become a substitute for better education policy. If money comes from Big Tech, it should support public-interest goals: independent research, educator professional learning, privacy enforcement, accessibility, digital citizenship, AI literacy, CTE infrastructure, and public accountability.

It should not become another funding stream that sends public dollars back to the same companies with minimal oversight.

The better frame is purpose first

The AFT is right about a lot. More hands-on learning. Stronger privacy protections. More scrutiny of Big Tech. Better protection for children from manipulative platforms and simulated relationships. A renewed insistence that education is human work.

But “devices down” is the wrong goal. It makes the device the problem when the deeper issue is often learning design, adult guidance, infrastructure, privacy, safety, and support.

Devices can distract students. Notifications distract. Poorly designed platforms distract. So do boring lessons, unclear tasks, weak relationships, irrelevant assignments, and classrooms where students are asked to comply rather than think.

Removing the device may solve an immediate classroom management problem, but it does not prepare students to manage attention when the device comes back. And it will come back. In college, at work, in civic life, in relationships, and in nearly every modern career, students will need to focus, create, communicate, and make good decisions in technology-rich environments.

Students need explicit practice with digital well-being, attention management, purposeful tool use, and knowing when technology helps and when it gets in the way. They need to learn when to close the screen, when to use it, when to silence notifications, when to collaborate face-to-face, when to use AI, when to question it, and when to do the thinking without it.

Sometimes devices should be down. Students should discuss ideas face-to-face, build with their hands, play outside, conduct experiments, write privately, make art, and listen to one another without a screen in sight.

Other times, devices should be up. Students should use them to research, create, collaborate, publish, translate, document, code, communicate, design, get feedback, and solve problems.

The goal is not more technology or less technology, but better learning, healthier habits, and students who know when and how to use the appropriate tools to think, create, communicate, collaborate, and solve problems.

The high school tech department of RSU 22, located along the Penobscot River near Bangor, Maine, offers traditional programming, such as woodworking and shop, as well as a bringing variety of engineering tech tools and an extremely well-equipped makerspace secured through grant funds. However, through a series of community partnerships and funding opportunities, it was able to launch its Higher Vision Drone Program.

“One of the things that appealed to me is that we already have nine community partners, which represent a range of businesses and organizations,” says Jennifer Nickerson, the district’s Director of Curriculum, who saw an opportunity to add drones to its career pathways. “A little local blueberry farmer in one of our four towns uses the drone to inspect her crops and plan what she needs to do for work that day. The Maine Forest Service visited, sharing stories about their advanced, expensive drones. But they use the same skills our kids are learning to use the drones to find missing people or protect forests and Maine’s natural beauty.”

ESSER funds enabled the school to create an esports lab, tech which served perfectly to accommodate the drone program’s flight simulators. Nickerson worked with Charlie Huff, a technology teacher at Hampden Academy and the department head, Todd Moore, to implement the Higher Vision Drone Program. Title II funds secured out-of-state training for the pair to get certified to teach the young prospective pilots.

“Each certified instructor can have eight kids fly under their license,” says Nickerson. “The first year, they co-taught the intro class together with 16 kids in the program for the fall semester. Of the 16, 14 continued on to take the Commercial Drone course for the spring semester. We have 11 students scheduled for their FAA Part 107 tests, with two passing this week.”

And from there, the program has taken flight.

“Now other students are seeing all this hard work pay off and next year's course enrollments have jumped up,” says Nickerson. “To be fair, some of it is probably because when you are sitting on the second floor in your English class and you see a drone fly by outside, it’s pretty good advertisement."

For this and other efforts, Nickerson was recently honored with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award. She shares her “Higher Vision Drone Program” implementation successes and tips for those interested in creating a similar program in their district.

Enrollment, Enlistment, Employment

RSU 22 dates back to 1803, and Nickerson’s family has long been a part of it.

“We like to say, ‘We’re rooted in tradition, but focused on the future,’” says Nickerson. “My kiddos are fifth-generation Broncos, I joke that I bleed purple. The success of RSU 22 is really personal to me and my family and to the four towns in our district. One of which is more affluent than the other three, which can cause issues with programming. However, it was also an inspiration to seek out the Teach with Tech grant from the Maine DOE, which includes a requirement to support underserved students.”

Nickerson saw it as a real way to level opportunities within her district.

”We have tons of AP classes in our high school, Hampden Academy, and we add to them every year,” she says. “But we wanted exciting opportunities for kids who don't fit in that AP niche. I went to a conference which leaned heavily on the concept of three paths for kids, all being equally valuable. Enrollment, enlistment, employment — we need to honor those kids by supporting them with a clear path to success. This was a great motivation to create our drone program.

One very exciting opportunity has presented itself from Cianbro, a nationwide construction company.

“They learned about our program and told me, ‘If you get kids to take and pass the FAA Part 107 test to earn their drone license, we will hire them the day of graduation,’” says Nickerson. “We want those opportunities for our students, because not everyone is going to go to college.”

The Importance of Community Partnerships

A distinctive feature of Hampden Academy’s drone program is its collaboration with nine community partners who share their expertise directly with students. These partnerships include:

• Hampden Public Safety: Demonstrating emergency response applications and public safety uses for drone technology.
• Cianbro: Showcasing industrial applications in construction and infrastructure development.
• News Center 2: Illustrating journalistic and media applications of drone photography and videography.
• Haley Ward Civil Engineering: Providing insights on surveying, mapping, and engineering applications.
• American Forestry Management: Highlighting environmental monitoring and forestry management techniques.
• Matt Thomas Media Productions: Sharing expertise in commercial drone photography and cinematography.
• Allan Gordon Jr Surveying: Demonstrating precision mapping and land surveying applications.
• United States Military: Offering perspectives on drone operations and career opportunities in defense.
• Maine Forest Service: Showcasing thermal imaging and precision aerial surveillance in public safety and natural resource management.

These partnerships provide students with real-world context for their learning and exposure to potential career pathways within their own communities.

“You can't just do it alone,” says Nickerson. “When your community gets behind you to share their expertise and open kids’ eyes to possibility, that culture can be one of your greatest resources even in small, rural, less affluent parts of the world. That’s one way this drone program will be sustainable for the future.”

Ultimately, Nickerson’s goal is just to do the right things for her students by securing the best tools for success.

“No one wants to build a house with a hammer that doesn't have a handle,” Nickerson says. “We need to have the best tools to do the best by our kids. Fortunately, this district has always put technology at the top of their priorities. We have a really supportive superintendent and assistant superintendent who believe in thinking outside the box. It’s just really great, because we need to prepare them. They are going to leave us one day, so we need to help them learn how to fly.”

4 Tips When Starting a New Tech Initiative

Nickerson offers advice to others who might be interested in launching a similar initiative:

• Don’t let lack of funds stop you. Think outside of the box and be creative and you will find the support.
• When securing grants, read the fine print. Some funds require specific choices in tech, such as drones that need to be made in the USA.
• Find your North Star and stay true to it. Think about what is most valuable to you and persevere. Don’t let setbacks stop you.
• Lean on your community. Resources don't have to be financial, expertise is invaluable.

Tools They Use

• Parrot ANAFI Drones
• Claude
• MagicSchool
• Google Suite
• Kibo Robots (Kinderlab)
• zSpace
• edWeb
• Chalk
• Smore
• SWIS/PBIS Apps
• Canva

As school is almost out around the country, I think a great deal about transition and change opportunities, knowing a new path forward can present our choice of solutions over persistent problems. I can remember when I started my leadership journey, handling a faculty that was carved out of the “us against them” mentality . . . .

School leaders need to leverage change when faced with this. Considering challenges like this remind me of a hit dystopian show, The Handmaid’s Tale. In it, The Eyes are the secret police of Gilead—ubiquitous, invisible, and terrifying. They don’t just enforce laws; they create a climate in which everyone becomes a volunteer spy, terrified that a coworker, friend, or neighbor is documenting and reporting their every "indiscretion."

When a school culture mirrors this, we are stuck in our own dystopia; it becomes a place where teachers and leaders look over their shoulder instead of at their students.

Here is how that toxic dynamic manifests, and how a principal can act as a buffer to disrupt–or better yet–dismantle it.

The Faculty Lounge as a Surveillance Hub

In a toxic school environment, "The Eyes" are not a formal department but rather a culture of lateral surveillance through which staff members monitor each other’s clock-in times, lesson plan quality, curriculum delivery, or management styles.

This is rarely done to help; instead, it is used to gather "intel." In these places, gossip serves as a weaponized currency used to gain power, influence, or divert attention from personal insecurities. When mistakes occur—whether it is a parent complaint or a botched lesson—the immediate instinct is not to solve the problem, but to find a scapegoat.

The Principal as a Protective Shield

School leaders need to own this problem even if they didn’t create it. They must consistently and respectfully manage these “blamers,” responsibilities, problems, and complaints back to their rightful owners.

Principals must act as a shield that absorbs negativity from those attempting to weaponize others' vulnerabilities so it doesn't crush the staff morale, or worse, hamper their impact on children.

This process begins by actively filtering the "intel." When a staff member attempts to "report" a colleague’s minor infraction, formally or informally, a protective principal shuts it down, redirecting rather than using that perceived, or worse, real power to build a file on a peer.

The principal must redirect by shifting the focus from who made a mistake to what went wrong with the system. For example, if an assembly fails because of a technical error, the leader pivots others from blaming an individual to analyzing how to make the technical checklist more transparent for everyone.

By practicing accountability and absorbing the shock for others' mistakes, the principal removes the incentive for staff to blame one another. If the leader says, "That’s on me," the staff no longer needs a scapegoat, unless that scapegoat becomes twisted into the principal to blame (more on that later).

Building a Sanctuary of Practice

Disrupting this culture requires an intentional focus on psychological safety. School leaders must move the environment away from a system of surveillance and secrecy toward one of support and transparency. Instead of monitoring for mistakes, the leader transforms the organization to monitoring for needs. This shift replaces finger-pointing with process analysis and ensures equity, through which everyone is held to the same clear standard rather than utilizing toxic informants.

When a principal refuses to allow staff to throw each other under the bus, the "Eyes" eventually lose sight of the cause. If snickering, spying, and sabotage no longer result in social or professional capital, the behavior is minimized, or better yet, stops altogether.

By serving as a filter, the principal can build a safe practice space. Teachers begin to take risks and innovate because they know that if they stumble, their leader will catch them rather than let the "Eyes" report them.

If All Else Fails: Dismantling "The Eyes"

Sometimes, despite your best efforts to empower decent people, a toxic culture has taken deep root. If all else fails, you have to look at the climate of surveillance that the police state has built and act to dismantle it. Break up the group!

The vocal, negative minority rarely perform their negativity in a vacuum and thrive on a specific kind of fuel: an audience. These cliques require the middle-of-the-road teachers to watch, nod, or remain silently compliant.

Neutralizing a negative clique is about protecting the classroom for those who are there for their kids. This process starts by identifying the ringleaders—often veterans with high informal influence—and addressing them with surgical precision. By dealing with these bad actors individually and privately, the leader prevents the public access to the theater of their "gotcha" moments, removing their ammunition of derailment, ensuring the oxygen in the room remains focused on student growth rather than adult grievances.

As the leader works to shut the "Eyes," systems thinking becomes a silent form of cultural reorganization. Because negative energy is highly contagious in close quarters, the architect of a "win-win" faculty thoughtfully disperses these magnets away from one another, breaking up the echo chambers in which gossip acts as a weapon.

When the focus shifts from the challenging individuals to the majority who stand together for children over power, the social capital of the negative group begins to deteriorate. By giving the best teachers the loudest voice and the most significant influence, the principal makes it socially "uncool" to join the surveillance culture. If spying and sabotage no longer result in proximity to power, the "Eyes" eventually go blind.

Administrative transfers are equivalent to retirement and other “miracles,” when relocating individuals to different departments, grade levels, or schools permanently disrupts the clique’s daily operational power.

In the end, the goal is to curate a faculty in which every member is invested. By removing these final toxic roadblocks, the leader ensures that the negative individuals move on to environments better suited for them, while the remaining staff finally finds the psychological safety they need to thrive, innovate, and look forward instead of over their shoulders.

The transition from traditional instruction to AI-enhanced learning is often met with a mix of excitement and trepidation. However, for Dr. Gyimah Whitaker, Superintendent of the City Schools of Decatur (CSD), the path forward isn’t about racing to adopt the newest tool. It’s about moving “slowly to go fast”—building a foundation based on intentionality, policy, and, most importantly, the amplification of student voice.

Located just outside Atlanta, CSD serves a population of 5,400 students. The district faces a unique challenge: it was identified by Stanford University as having one of the greatest wealth achievement gaps in the nation. For Whitaker, integrating AI is an equity imperative.

To ensure all students graduate ready for a world that includes AI, leadership must be thoughtful, secure, and collaborative.

Moving Slowly to Go Fast: A Policy-First Approach

While many districts might jump straight into purchasing AI-driven curriculum tools, Whitaker and her team took a step back to focus on the framework. In collaboration with the national ILO Group, CSD chose to prioritize AI from a policy standpoint rather than just a curricular or workforce one.

“We have come along slowly because we have the safeguards in place around privacy for students and student data and what we call the 'Swiss cheese' for cybersecurity,” says Whitaker. “But at the same time, we understand our students need to graduate ready to engage in the world, and the world does include AI."

By focusing on policy first, the district ensures that safety and privacy concerns—raised by teachers, parents, and students alike—are addressed before tools are deployed at scale. This intentional movement allows the district to vet filters and privacy protocols, creating a secure environment in which innovation can eventually thrive without compromising data integrity.

Fostering a Symbiotic Workforce

Integrating AI also requires a shift in how the district views professional development. Whitaker envisions a symbiotic relationship between the digital natives who are more comfortable with AI entering the profession and the veteran educators who hold deep pedagogical expertise.

“My greatest hope is that we will begin to recognize that our newest teachers are able to help us and our veteran teachers are able to grow," says Whitaker. This reverse mentorship model acknowledges that while AI can assist with lesson differentiation or administrative tasks, it cannot replace the human element. Even as the district explores AI agents for cybersecurity and administrative support, Whitaker remains a staunch advocate for human connection, noting that while an AI might manage a calendar, it lacks the emotional intelligence to know when a colleague needs a break or a little encouragement.

3 Tips for District Leaders Implementing AI

For administrators looking to begin their own AI journey, Whitaker offers three pillars of advice:

• Don’t Be Afraid of the Unknown: “Understand that you don’t know what you don’t know,” she says. “This is a work of unknown. But that’s okay. Be comfortable in that.”
• Lean into the Tension: Every district feels the pull between the benefits of AI and the doom scroll of digital distraction. Use that tension to spark honest conversations with stakeholders.
• Identify Your Entry Point: Whether you start with a curricular focus, a workforce support strategy, or a policy framework, ensure it aligns with your district’s specific needs.

A National Stage for Student Voice

One of the most innovative aspects of CSD’s strategy is the elevation of students into high-stakes leadership roles. By appointing both a Student Representative and a Student Apprentice to the School Board—a rarity in Southern school systems—CSD has sent a clear message: students don’t just observe; they lead.

This commitment to student agency served as the perfect prerequisite for an invitation from the National Superintendent Association (AASA) to join the National Leadership & Innovation Fellowship Focused on AI and the Future of Learning. Hosted in partnership with Day of AI and MIT RAISE, this fellowship invites designated superintendents from every state to receive cutting-edge AI training at MIT, and allows them to bring two students to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in July for an immersive experience focused on ethical AI use, systems-level leadership, and policy.

The Edward M. Kennedy Institute features a full-scale replica of the U.S. Senate chamber. Participating students will act as “senators” for their respective states. Their objective? To develop a National AI Policy.

To prepare, students are completing 8 to 10 hours of pre-work, analyzing artifacts that the Institute will synthesize into a working template. This sets the stage for an authentic legislative process, mirroring the deliberation of the Senate.

The resulting student-developed policy will be distributed nationally to all superintendents by AASA. This model holds the potential to be replicated in local districts, providing a framework for involving parents and stakeholders in governing this powerful technology.

“I think the most amazing part about this event is I honestly have no idea what the kids are going to come up with,” says Jeff Riley, Executive Director of Day of AI and former Massachusetts Commissioner of Education. “Kids are digital natives. This is an opportunity where their voices can really be heard as leaders in the field.”

Whitaker was thrilled to receive the invitation, viewing it as a natural extension of CSD’s core mission. “The stars really aligned,” she says. “This experience will take the work we do at CSD to elevate student voice to the next level."

By giving students a seat at the table both locally and nationally, CSD ensures that AI policy isn't just something done to students, but with them. This leadership experience ensures that the district’s Portrait of a Graduate includes the ability to navigate and actively govern the technologies of the future.

As Whitaker says, the ultimate goal is both simple and profound: “To ensure you’re graduating students who are ready to engage in the world knowing that AI is there.”

In a recent interview with child and adolescent development expert Ellen Galinsky, we discussed why developing executive functioning in our youngest learners is the “secret sauce” to lifelong success. To see how these theories translate into the classroom, I spoke with Michelle Miller, Superintendent of the South Fayette Township School District, about how her district is operationalizing this mindset.

South Fayette is currently one of 10 pilot sites testing a new curriculum focused on executive functioning, developed in partnership with Galinsky and the School Superintendent Association (AASA).

Miller, an educator with nearly 30 years of experience, notes that while these foundational skills have always been important, these became vital following the social isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the younger grades, Miller observed a visible gap in regulation skills.

“Kids missed a year or two of critical social development,” Miller says. When schools returned to in-person learning, she and her colleagues found students who were capable of memorizing facts but struggled to navigate social friction or manage their own cognitive loads.

By prioritizing executive functioning—the mental processes that allow us to plan, focus, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks—students (and adults) can better manage emotional well-being and academic rigor. As the global workforce shifts its demand toward adaptability and self-regulation, these are no longer soft skills but the tools students need to navigate the futures they choose.

The Case for Early Intervention

Miller agrees with Galinsky that the foundation for these skills must be laid long before high school. While elementary environments naturally embrace the whole child, Miller notes a common disconnect as students move up the academic ladder.

“If we wait to start talking about these skills in high school, we’ve missed nine years of schooling and opportunities,” Miller explains.

Valuing executive functioning is one thing; operationalizing it within a complex school system is another. Miller suggests districts move away from the traditional “Portrait of a Graduate” toward a “Portrait of a Learner.” This subtle shift ensures that goals such as collaboration, communication, and grit apply to a kindergartner just as much as a senior.

Here are three ways South Fayette Township School District brings their “Portrait of a Learner” to life:

1. Building a Common Vocabulary

Systemic change begins with linguistics. Miller’s district uses a shared vocabulary to create a culture that supports their strategic plan.

“Our plan is rooted in being ‘future-focused,’” Miller says. “We are always looking at what our students need to be successful beyond our walls. Strong executive functioning aligns perfectly with the attributes companies look for in their employees.”

The district’s focus centers on two key pillars:

• Student-Centered: Keeping the “whole child” at the center to ensure well-being in all areas of life.
• Innovation-Driven & Embracing Failure: “As an innovative district, we want to be a model for failure,” Miller says. “When we fail, we fail fast and fail forward. We celebrate failure here. That’s a tough thing to instill in families used to measuring success by traditional grades, but it's essential for the growth of our students' executive functioning skills.”

2. Creating Space: "Flex" and "WIN" Time

Executive functioning requires the ability to self-assess and prioritize. To foster this, Miller builds intentional time into the school day:

• WIN Time (What I Need): At the elementary level, this allows students to work through academic struggles before any trigger paralyzing anxiety.
• Flex Periods: In high school, these periods allow students to choose their focus—whether visiting a math lab, collaborating on a project, or taking "down time" to regulate.

3. The HEART Curriculum

The district is planning a course titled HEART (Health, Emotion, Awareness, Relationships, and Tech Safety). It addresses the physiological roots of executive functioning—such as nutrition and sleep—alongside emotional regulation.

Miller shares an example of helping a student reframe anxiety before a football game: “I told him, 'Getting butterflies is okay. That stress is just a chemical reaction to doing something important to you.' We need kids to identify that being nervous doesn't have to be paralyzing.”

Advice for District Leaders

For leaders looking to implement similar shifts, Miller offers a roadmap rooted in intentionality:

• Start With Why: Ground initiatives in brain research. When stakeholders question the shift away from traditional metrics, cite the science: regulation and attention are prerequisites for learning.
• Focus On Specificity: You cannot be everything to everyone. “If we focus on one skill, such as dysregulation at the elementary level, I bet we'll see attention, social interaction, and persistence increase," Miller says. Pick one or two skills to start; these will serve as a foundation for all other cognitive growth.
• Support Educators: South Fayette uses tools such as TeachFX, an app that gives teachers real-time feedback on high-leverage instructional practices such “teacher talk time” versus “student talk time.” When teachers reflect on their own engagement practices, they are better equipped to mentor students in theirs.

“Executive functioning skills are not soft skills anymore," Miller emphasizes. "They are essential skills."

You can watch the video above or download/listen below.

Andrew Marcinek remembers the moment social media stopped feeling like a community. It was around 2015 and 2016, when he was finishing a stint at the U.S. Department of Education and coming back into schools. He was also headlining Tech & Learning events. I’ve been lucky enough to keep in touch with Andrew since then. He continues to keep a keen eye on this incredibly complicated and harrowing landscape.

His personal reckonings from that time became the foundation for his book Teaching Digital Kindness, and it's the lens through which he's watching the current wave of lawsuits against Meta and other social media companies. For Marcinek, these cases aren't a surprise — they're a long-overdue reckoning. The comparison to Big Tobacco, he argues, is apt: years of denial, a product engineered to be addictive, and mounting evidence of harm to the most vulnerable users.

The burden of dealing with that harm, he notes, has fallen almost entirely on schools — institutions that were themselves manipulated by the same algorithms and given no roadmap for what to do.

Marcinek's prescription isn't a phone ban or a screen purge. It's intentionality — building technology programs in schools with deliberate purpose, communicating transparently with parents about how and when devices are used, and treating the current AI moment as a second chance to get the foundational work right.

"Schools need to lean in and have conversations around AI," he says. "If you're not, you are doing your school community a disservice — sending kids out into the world without knowledge of probably one of the most powerful technologies in anyone's lifetime."

He points to employer signals as the clearest argument for AI literacy: companies, including Microsoft and Anthropic, are explicitly looking for workers who understand how to use AI alongside strong soft skills. Schools that treat AI primarily as a cheating threat, Marcinek contends, are asking the wrong question — and risking the same institutional failure that defined the social media era.

A second book, tentatively titled Untangled, is in progress — it focuses on how individuals and institutions can find their way out of the algorithmic knots of the last two decades. I’m looking forward to it.

Artificial intelligence has rapidly shifted the instructional landscape. Tools that can generate explanations, draft essays, and summarize complex topics are now readily available to students. This accessibility has led some to question whether deep instructor content knowledge still holds the same importance. The answer is an unequivocal yes.

AI amplifies access to data, but it does not replace the need for human expertise to validate, structure, interpret, assess, and model disciplinary knowledge. In many ways, the instructor’s role becomes more dependent on strong content knowledge because they serve as the critical mediator between AI-generated information and meaningful learning. Many generative AI tools even articulate it at the end of a response, such as what Google’s Gemini recently told me: "AI may provide inaccurate information, so double-check its responses.” It is not a piece of window dressing; it is a sincere and serious warning.

For instance, in a recently published text about using AI in the classroom, I found an example in which AI was comparing the concerns around excessive civilian deaths in Gaza in 2024 with those at the Battle of Gettysburg. The example made it through the editorial process, but it lacks historical analysis. Someone with a strong historical knowledge base would know that, though Gettysburg remains the bloodiest battle in the Civil War and the Civil War was the bloodiest war in American history, only a single civilian death has been documented. Many historians articulate that the number is most likely underreported, but Jennie Wade remains the only documented civilian death in a three-day battle that caused 50,000 military casualties. The concerns about Gaza included that the military and civilians were often interspersed, and most of the fighters were not regularly uniformed troops; therefore, opposing troops were often unsure of their enemy. This was not an issue at Gettysburg, a battle between two regularly uniformed and disciplined armies, making the AI comparison factually inaccurate.

Information Itself Does Not Equal Understanding

One of the most persistent misconceptions in AI-rich environments is the assumption that access to data equates to understanding. AI tools can produce fluent, coherent responses across nearly any subject area. However, these outputs are fundamentally probabilistic, often reflecting patterns in data rather than verified truth or disciplinary consensus.

Students often lack the background knowledge needed to distinguish between accurate synthesis and plausible error. Without a strong knowledge base, they are vulnerable to accepting AI output at face value, which creates a new instructional imperative. Teachers must understand their content deeply and be able to identify subtle inaccuracies, omissions, and misrepresentations in AI-generated material.

Content knowledge becomes the filter through which AI is evaluated. Without that filter, both instructors and students risk confusing fluency and responsiveness with accuracy.

From Content Delivery to Knowledge Architecture

As with the advent of previous technologies, it seems that some believe AI will reduce the need for instructors to function as primary sources of information delivery, not unlike how a speaker at the opening of Heidelberg University in 1500 anticipated teachers being replaced by books. Obviously, that has not come to pass, and instead, new sources of information delivery have reframed the role of the teacher.

Effective instruction now centers on the design of coherent knowledge systems. Strong instructors sequence content intentionally, emphasizing foundational concepts and building toward more complex applications. This structured progression is not something AI inherently provides. AI delivers fragments, and instructors need to construct the architecture for the overall arc of any content. Fully understanding vertical and horizontal curricular alignment (how courses fit into the bigger picture) is essential to effective instructional development.

Students require guidance in understanding what matters within a discipline, how ideas connect, and why certain knowledge is foundational. These decisions depend on deep familiarity with the field. In this sense, content knowledge is about knowing how knowledge within a given subject is organized.

Interpretation and Context in an AI Environment

AI responses often lack context and may provide correct information but fail to situate it within appropriate contexts. This limitation becomes especially significant in disciplines in which interpretation is central.

Instructors with strong content knowledge bring nuance to the learning process. They can explain competing perspectives, highlight areas of debate, and connect ideas to real-world applications. They can also help students understand when AI outputs oversimplify complex issues. This interpretive role is essential and ensures that learning moves beyond surface-level engagement and into deeper disciplinary understanding.

Assessment in the Age of AI

Assessment practices are under increasing pressure in AI-rich classrooms. Traditional assignments that rely on recall or basic synthesis are easily completed with AI assistance.

This reality demands a more sophisticated design. Instructors must create tasks that require application, judgment, and contextual understanding, which are areas in which content knowledge is indispensable. Designing meaningful assessments requires a clear sense of what constitutes deep understanding within the subject area.

Evaluating student work also becomes more complex as instructors must distinguish between superficial correctness and genuine comprehension. This distinction is only possible with a strong grasp of the content. AI raises the stakes of assessment since it makes shallow tasks obsolete and elevates the importance of disciplinary expertise.

Modeling Disciplinary Thinking

Students do not just need information but also to learn how experts think. AI can generate answers, except it does not model the reasoning processes behind those answers in a way that supports learning.

Instructors play a critical role in making their thinking visible by demonstrating how to approach problems, analyze evidence, and construct arguments within a discipline.

This modeling extends to the use of AI itself. Students must learn how to question AI outputs, refine prompts, and evaluate responses–all skills are grounded in content knowledge. Without this, students cannot effectively engage in this process.

Equity and Access to Knowledge

The implications of content knowledge extend beyond instructional effectiveness and are deeply connected to issues of equity. Students who enter classrooms with a strong background knowledge are better positioned to use AI tools effectively. They can ask better questions, recognize stronger answers, and build on existing understanding. Students without that foundation are more likely to rely on AI passively.

This dynamic risks widening existing gaps. Knowledge-rich instruction becomes a critical lever for equity by ensuring that all students develop the background knowledge necessary to engage meaningfully with AI and other information sources.

Instructors’ expertise allows them to identify essential knowledge and ensure it is taught systematically and coherently.

The Reinforced Role of the Instructor Moving Forward

The net effect of AI integration is a reinforcement of a teacher’s role, as it increases the premium on content knowledge because it raises the stakes of interpretation, validation, and meaningful use. Instructors are now becoming validators of accuracy, designers of knowledge systems, interpreters of complexity, and architects of assessment. The presence of generative AI makes these roles more visible and more critical.

Educational conversations about AI often focus on tools, policies, and academic integrity, but none of this should overshadow a more fundamental truth: Strong instruction in an AI-rich classroom depends on strong content knowledge.

Investing in teacher expertise is essential. Professional learning, curriculum design, and instructional planning must all prioritize deep disciplinary understanding. Technology will continue to evolve, and as it does, strong teachers remain key to effective instruction.

As the founder and director of Tech Camp for Teachers, Eva Harvell, Director of Technology, Pascagoula-Gautier School District in Mississippi, designed and led a multi-day institute that includes multiple presenters, reaching K-12 and higher ed educators from across the U.S.

The program focuses on practical ways to bring digital tools into the classroom, helping attendees move from basic usage to high-level digital pedagogy. By creating scalable learning opportunities, for both school-level and university-level educators, Harvell and her team ensures technology was a powerful tool instructors at all levels felt confident using.

“It started off with us just wanting to provide teachers technology training for those who were not able to get tech training, or who just wanted more than was made available to them,” Harvell says. “The presenters were actual teachers in the field. Vendors were showcasing what they used in the back of the gym where we met. It was just two days of pre-K all the way to higher education professors getting together, talking about edtech and how to incorporate tech tools in the classroom.”

The Pascagoula-Gautier School District spans 19 campuses serving roughly 6,300 students. As Technology Director, Harvell’s commitment to innovation is best seen through her work in empowering others to master new technology. For this and other efforts, she was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award.

Cost-Cutting Creativity Meets Generous Helpers

Smart planning and letting a program grow organically builds a budget-friendly way to connect with big impact.

“Our very first year, I went to vendors we had a very good relationship with and said, ‘Hey, we're looking to do this for two days and I need to provide food. Can you help me?’” Harvell says. “Our presenters were teachers on contract with us, so we worked with their principals to borrow them. It was a professional learning day for them, so they got some PD time as well. It was zero out-of-pocket for anybody who attended.”

A partnership with William Carey University provided an extra bonus, with teachers from the state of Mississippi earning free CEUs. Educators from other states received documentation to qualify at home.

“This started in our unused former high school building with word of mouth from my emailing tech directors and asking them to share with any teachers who were interested,” Harvell says. “We met in the gym and did trainings in the classrooms. It just stayed very grassroots. Anything we needed, we would ask one of our vendors or just figure out how to do it for free.”

4 Tips for Creating a Tech Camp for Teachers in Your District

Harvell shares advice for others considering such a program.

• If you're thinking of doing it, do it. “Don’t be afraid to go for it,” she says. “There can always be hiccups. At the end of the day, you are bringing teachers together and giving them a community so they can have the conversation — that’s what matters.”
• Build relationships and don’t be afraid to lean on them. “You never know unless you ask, but I didn’t think they would say yes,” Harvell says. “They didn’t even hesitate. I’m not sure that would have been the case if we didn’t already have that communication and established relationship.”
• Make it a day of fun — not just your normal PD. “Brand it, name it something cute,” she says. “Get teachers excited to attend by thinking outside of the box.”
• It will grow. They will come. “I was so nervous that first year,” Harvell recalls. “And now we have people driving eight hours to be a part of it. But even if it had been eight people, it would have been worth it. The goal was to provide resources and training. The goal was to help teachers.”

Too Much of a Good Thing is Still a Good Thing

With such an initial resounding success, Tech Camp for Teachers faced a new challenge when they were forced to step away from their in-person model during the COVID-19 pandemic to go remote. Some might have wondered if the infectious, fun element would be too diluted to still draw the crowd.

”It really ballooned when we went virtual,” Harvell says. “Everyone from pre-K to university professors across many states signed up. I have two technology integration specialists who help do this. It suddenly became a full-time job above the full-time job.”

All of the Tech Camp for Teacher training videos were pre-recorded for the virtual event. They were scheduled and then presented with a video live chat.

“Leading up to it, getting the presenters, maintaining the branding, getting all the videos ready to go,” recalls Harvell. “We spent hours upon hours getting it all loaded and put together. It was daunting but it was something that we loved doing, because we knew we were helping teachers.”

Harvell and her presenters have discovered that facilitating the camp has raised their visibility in unexpected ways.

“Now, when we go to our Mississippi state conference — people recognize us as ‘those tech camp people,’” she says. “WLOX, the news station here on the coast, even did a story on it. I’m working on my doctorate at William Carey University and I hear from my professors that they sat in on Tech Camp! I thought that was great because they are teaching pre-service teachers.

Harvell says the event is a win-win for everyone.

“Ultimately, providing resources for teachers is what we were all there to do,” she says. “It's grassroots. It's not a conference, it is just a big group of teachers getting together and sharing what they do.”

Tools They Use

• Acer and HP Chromebooks
• Fortinet
• Incident IQ
• Clever
• MagicSchoolAI
• Google Workspace for Education

Located near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Highline Public Schools serves many students and families from around the world, including some who are new to the United States. Families across Highline speak more than 89 languages, reflecting the rich diversity of the Highline community. At the center of the district’s work is the Highline Promise. From classrooms to front offices to transportation and AI committees, staff across Highline play a role in bringing that promise to life.

“Highline Public Schools Promise is that every student is known by name, strength, and need, and graduates prepared for the future they choose,” says Teshon Christie, the Highline’s Chief of Digital Transformation and Innovation, and recent Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award winner.

It is a statement that Christie refers to not as a mission, but as a living accountability measure. “The amazing thing about that is that regardless of who you go to in our system, you know this promise,” Christie says. “Everyone from our bus drivers to nutrition services workers—everyone at Highline knows this promise and that it is our focus.”

Scaling the Personal Touch

For a district of more than 16,500 students across 34 sites, “personalization” is often a buzzword that loses meaning at scale. For Christie, scaling this promise isn’t about software alone, but about leadership consistency and human connection.

“We scale our promise through humans,” Christie says. “When you break down each part, it’s easy for a person to see what their role is. If a bus driver gets to know their students by name, they can identify strengths and needs during the ride and communicate those back to the office staff. It makes sense operationally and instructionally.”

This human-centric approach is organized around four board-adopted goals:

• Culture of Belonging: A culture where all are welcome, valued, and safe.
• Innovative Learning: Academic experiences that engage, empower, and challenge every student.
• Bilingual and Biliterate: Multicultural skills that enable students to live, work, and communicate across cultures.
• Future Ready: Students explore possibilities and develop mindsets that prepare them for a changing future.

Navigating the AI Frontier

As the Chief of Digital Transformation, Christie’s job involves managing everything from data assessment to instructional technology, as well as navigating the ethical and practical implementation of AI.

Highline is now two years into its AI journey, anchored by a group of AI ambassadors who have developed vision and guidance documents. Rather than banning the technology out of fear, Highline is focusing on future readiness.

“We’re really starting to shift the language from ‘cheating’ to a student’s ‘passive vs. active use of AI,’” Christie says. “Cheating is so binary that it doesn’t describe the whole story. If using a tool is seen as cheating, then what needs to change about education in order to support our ability to move forward with any tool?”

One of Highline’s most successful implementations is Colleague AI, a tool developed out of the University of Washington. Highline currently has 300 teachers actively using the platform.

Christie is particularly excited about involving students in the policy-making process, noting that their insights are often more nuanced than those of adults.

“I was at one of our high schools where they did a unit on AI policy,” Christie recalls. “The students were very specific. They said, ‘I don’t want to be graded by AI because that breaks the relationship.’ They actually mentioned 'culture of belonging.' They want their teachers to have grace and support them in ways that help them get better—things an AI currently won't do.”

Building Trust Through Authentic Engagement

For Christie, the success of any digital initiative depends on the strength of the district’s relationship with its community. He advocates for authentic family engagement, which moves beyond simply inviting parents to a meeting.

“Just being at the table isn’t enough,” Christie says. “You want people to be able to give input and then see their input reflected in whatever comes out. Even if it’s, ‘We weren’t able to do this because of these reasons,’ you still need to be honest and transparent so that trust is built over time.”

This trust is vital when tackling sensitive topics such as screen time. Christie points out that for many Highline students, a school-issued laptop is their only access to a large-screen device.

“Not every student using a district device after hours is on social media,” he says. “They might be learning how physics works on YouTube in a way that makes sense to them. You can't just say they spent eight hours on YouTube and assume it was wasted time.”

A System, Not a Set of Divisions

Ultimately, Christie’s goal is to dissolve the traditional silos between IT and instruction. By focusing on shared bodies of work rather than departmental responsibilities, Highline ensures that no stakeholder is left out of the conversation.

“It’s about how we intentionally involve everyone in our system so it feels more like a system rather than divisions, departments, and people who work on separate things,” Christie says.

By keeping the “Promise” at the center of every digital and operational decision, Highline Public Schools is proving that even in a high-tech world, the most powerful tool in education remains the human connection.

For Newton County Schools, a district in rural Georgia of more than 19,000 students spread across 24 buildings, ensuring that innovation is not isolated but systematically embedded into daily teaching and learning, can be a challenge.

Nonetheless, a comprehensive, district-wide digital learning ecosystem that measurably expands access, strengthens literacy, and prepares students for future careers has been developed under the leadership of Jennifer Williams, Director of Instructional Technology and Media Services.

“We do everything in my department based on ‘3E’--engagement, exposure, experience,” says Williams, who was recently honored with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award for her efforts.

The 3E approach ensures students do not passively consume technology but actively use it to build literacy, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.

• Engagement features high-level activities that make students creators and producers rather than just consumers, keeping a global focus.
• Exposure involves taking students on field trips to places as simple as the Microsoft store to more college- and career-focused destinations such as nearby Spelman Innovation Lab and Georgia Tech.
• Experience is providing hands-on opportunities in class, on field trips, and through partnerships.

“We want to engage our students, we want to expose them to new things, and give them experiences,” says Williams, adding that they’ve taken more than 20,000 students on field trips over the past three years alone. “We have to think of everything as not just a Newton County focus but a worldwide focus. They're in a global society. So we want to constantly engage them with different perspectives, different outlooks, different ways of learning.”

Newton County Schools has a scalable, future-ready digital ecosystem that prioritizes safety and compliance with federal laws, with Williams’ department vetting and re-vetting digital products. To ensure equity and access, all activities are free to all students, via grants and partnerships, which Williams and her team aggressively pursue.

The Rule of 3

Williams has worked to develop three major programs in the district: the Inspire program, which addresses the gender gap in coding; Read Across Newton, a district-wide literacy initiative; and Teach for Tomorrow, an annual technology conference providing training. All are underpinned by the 3E approach.

The Inspire program is a year-long effort focused on getting girls involved in science and coding through hands-on opportunities, visits to nearby Georgia Piedmont Technical College, a week-long coding camp, and a trip to a coding conference, much of which is sponsored by Amazon, who Williams has partnered with and who has provided grants. Students also get to explore 3D printers, LEGO robotics, and more.

“It's one thing telling them, ‘Oh, this is computer science,’ but actually taking them to a college, taking them on these field trips, working with the computer science department, all make a real impact,” Williams says. “They have the world-renowned computer science program nearby and they didn't know about it or think about going there, and it's only 45 minutes from their house.”

Read Across Newton is another year-long initiative during which students participate in book clubs, have people from across the district read to them, and have local authors present reading and writing workshops. During the district’s literacy extravaganza, celebrated the first Saturday in February, students get books to take home.

“So this year we had 3,600 people come and we gave away 55,000 books,” says Williams. “So, if you want to know what 55,000 books feels like, ask my back!”

Teach for Tomorrow, the district’s annual technology PD event right before the school year begins, drew more than 850 teachers last year, which is more than half of those in the district. The event is led by the instructional leadership team and the district’s vanguard teachers, who pilot tools and guide technology integration at the schools. Attendees learn about the district’s LMS, various digital tools, and of course, AI.

“It was amazing because these teachers came, sat, and did full technology learning, like a little mini ISTE conference,” says Williams. “We try to make it so when we do professional development, we help people fall in love with technology so they can help students fall in love with literacy and technology.”

Living The Dream

When it comes to leadership, Williams recommends being a constant student, and continuously learning about new products and understanding the relevant laws. Her best advice, however, is not to be “a lone wolf.”

“Be a part of a group of people who are like-minded, who can share with you and give you advice on how to do things,” she says, suggesting joining a professional networking group such as CoSN. “Find a tribe, a group that is going to help you be your thought partner as you make changes. You don't want to make a big change in your system without getting advice from others who are also in the same job because you're usually one of one in your district.”

In that vein, Williams says she’d be remiss if she didn’t mention “the secret sauce” in everything she does: her team. “I have some spectacular people that I work with,” she says, also citing the support of Dr. Sheila Thomas, Chief Strategy and Support Services Officer.

She also mentions the importance of having a collaborative team, which she also cross-trains. “We sit down and we talk about things,” she says. “And I hire people who are different from me. I don't need a whole ten Jennifers.”

Ultimately, she says being the instructional technology director and media services director, allowing her to merge her passions for reading and technology, has been a dream.

“I can have a lot of jobs but this is my passion–I tell my daughter this is my life's work,” says Williams. “I love going to work every day. There's not a morning that I don’t wake up and am like, ‘Oh boy, it's Monday! It’s another day that we're going to be able to do something great for a kid!’ I couldn’t ask for anything more."

Tools They Use

• Canvas
• Nearpod
• Book Creator
• Sora (the literacy app)
• ClassLink
• Microsoft
• Google Education

I have written previously about dealing with challenging staff and community members as a school leader and teacher.

This article was motivated by a reader reaching out to thank me for sharing hands-on, practical methods I offer. But she wanted one more: “What about difficult bosses? Aren’t they in a position of power, where I have little control over the outcome, even and especially if I disagree with them?”

I’ve written about a boss who missed the single biggest moments when leading. He never praised our accomplishments. It was remarkable; he was working harder not to acknowledge those of us that led our schools and needing support on the hardest of days.

Lack of worthy praise is one thing. How do we handle a boss who uses intimidation, blame displacement, and worse, steals credit for our work? I would love to tell you that they are far and few between, but I am writing this because that is untrue. Decades of research shows how we can lead successfully and help staff feel supported, acknowledged, and accessed in those important moments. The research keeps coming and I keep writing about it because the problem stubbornly persists.

We might think the issue is less pervasive in the education profession. After all, we are educators at heart. We came into this profession because we care about kids. In many instances, this is true, and we enjoy decent, ethical leaders. Too many times, educators became leaders because they possessed a greater desire for personal achievement and power. The first part is not the issue, however, power can change leaders. I have seen it happen.

I spent years riding out the kinds of leaders and leader-colleagues who made the organizational environment toxic, unproductive, and very, very CYA (cover your a--). We can all recall the days bosses such as this finally left the organization–there were parking lot parties while "Celebration" played as well as this easy-to-hum song as you waved them “good bye.” These are not environments in which children win, and that is the root of the problem. Secondary to that is our own wellness, which matters so we can lead learning environments, in spite of the incompetence above us.

Practical Ways to Survive Difficult Bosses

What do you do when you have to deal with difficult bosses day in and day out, knowing there is no end in sight? This can be a major stressor, let alone translating to obstacles they put up in our attempts to help students thrive.

Here are practical steps to hang in there, manage your wellness so you can lead and teach well and interrupt their influence from behind.

1. The 80/20 Principle

Keeping my side of the street clean empowers me to focus on the aspects of a situation you can control (the 80%) while letting go of the uncontrollable (the 20%). Instead of wasting time and energy fighting insurmountable challenges such as bureaucracy, difficult colleagues, or uncooperative leaders, it is more productive to adjust my approach, sidestep obstacles, and focus on progress within my sphere of influence. This mindset helps save time, resources, and frustration while moving toward goals more effectively.

2. Mind Games

I am always surprised at how little is known about methods for tuning the brain for wellness that are rooted in decent science, such as binaural beats. These sound like sci-fi gimmickry yet there is strong evidence supporting the effectiveness for effectively reducing anxiety and modulating emotional states. These are easily accessible, if you have a pair of earphones (we all do!). So why not try it?

Here’s how these work: When the brain processes two different frequencies played simultaneously in either ear, it compensates for the discrepancy by perceiving a third, rhythmic "phantom" frequency known as a binaural beat. This audio hack works in calming the mind and reducing anxiety, and gives you a shot of what you need in those most stressful moments. Evidence shows 6-9 minutes of listening does the trick, so why not? Here’s a free online example.

Now that you’ve got your wellness honored, let’s take a look at practical strategies, with a well-mind you can use to approach the difficult boss…

3. Use AI (YES, AI!)

In my work, I have discovered that using AI can make my work more effective and efficient, which means I can offload unnecessary tasks to focus on qualitative experiences, interactions with staff, students, and parents, and yes, even that boss.

I have written about making use of AI as a school leader, and I characterize it as remarkably imperfect productivity. AI is remarkable for its ability to produce what appears to be high-quality work at immense speed, yet it remains imperfect because it acts as convincingly knowing while tricking users into accepting "workslop" that lacks substance or accuracy.

Employing AI wisely helps offload work that bogs me down, so I feel less stressed, and far more prepared to manage ineffective bosses. Be strategic, refer to “source grounded” materials and use it to make your work better quality and far more efficient, such as I did incorporating AI into writing better evaluations for teachers.

3 Other Strategies to Consider

In addition to what I’ve described above, consider these actions to help manage an unwieldy manager.

1. Document Everything (Build a Paper Trail)

• Confirm Conversations: After verbal instructions, send a follow-up email saying, "As we just discussed, I will do X by Y date.”
• Keep Records: Maintain a private log of projects, instructions, and outcomes to prove your actions if needed. Case notes, detailed and dated hold up well, if and when needed.
• Outline Responsibilities: Start projects with a written review of discussion, outlining who is responsible for what, signed off by everyone, suggests Robert Hosking via Fortune.

2. Manage the Interaction

• Stay Calm and Neutral: Do not react defensively immediately. Do not match their energy.
• Use Fact-Based Language: When blamed, focus on the facts. Ask questions like, "Can you walk me through the timeline so I can understand what happened?" (YouTube).
• Redirect to Solutions: Instead of defending yourself, focus on fixing the issue. Say, "You're upset, I'm upset. What do you think we should do?" suggests Quick and Dirty Tips.
• Don't Take it Personally: Understand that a blaming boss often behaves this way due to their own incompetence and insecurities.

3. Take Action

• Have a Direct Conversation: If the behavior continues, discuss it privately. Start with positive feedback, then use specific examples to show how the blame-shifting affects your work, recommends Dr. Pollack.
• Involve HR or Superiors: If the behavior is bullying or threatens your career, consider involving HR or a higher manager. However, warn your boss first to avoid being seen as "going behind their back."
• Find a New Job: If the environment is toxic, start looking for a new position. Do not feel compelled to stay in a situation that damages your mental health and career.

Our work as educators and school leaders is too important to let bad bosses funnel down from us to staff and kids. Too many people need us and stopping the cycle of bad leadership poisoning student growth starts with practical wellness and protective factors. Be strong and remember, our work is too significant to let bad management disrupt our control, and we have 80% control -- most is better than none!

NCCE is the Pacific Northwest’s largest edtech event, now in its 34th year. Even if NCCE hasn’t been on your radar, it should be: the opening session inspires, the exhibition hall buzzes with innovation, and attendees are set for an ed-tech adventure from the start.

The vendor hall featured 80 vendors, including partners from the Pacific Northwest such as Recycle Boise, the Computer Science Teachers Association, and a K-12 school. It was an opportunity for attendees to meet vendors face-to-face and see what was new and exciting. The conference provided dedicated time during an “Exhibitor Blitz,” ensuring attendees did not miss any sessions.

Having attended many conferences, I noticed some special things in the vendor hall. Here are my top 10 vendor Hall finds:

NCCE slideshow below

1. Ozobots are educational robots designed to teach basic coding through color coding, cards, and markers. This year, they have introduced new features to enhance their instructional capabilities. Ozobot Robotics’ latest product, Ari, now includes a touchscreen interface that allows students to input and execute their own code, in addition to reading color codes, offering a meaningful upgrade from previous Ozobot models.

2. The Epilog Laser. Laser engravers have been on the market for some time, and many schools have adopted these into their maker spaces and fabrication labs. I saw something a little more special at the Epilog Laser booth. The Epilog Laser engraver was flat-out cool. It can engrave, cut, and mark at micro sizes I have never seen before, and it made me think about replacing all my laser engravers immediately. One can’t go wrong with their CO2 laser or fiber laser. Better yet, why not select their dual all-in-1 machine? I must try.

3. EduProtocols paired with Learning Genie is a solution for building instructional units. Together, these tools help teachers design detailed lesson plans that align with standards, high-quality instructional materials, and specific locations, with AI elements supporting the process.

4. MagicSchool.AI is an AI-driven educational platform widely used in classrooms for its versatile tools and award-winning performance. At NCCE, the team showcased the platform’s adaptability through demonstrations and user stories. They also highlighted its Pioneer program at NCCE, where users shared ways they customized MagicSchool's tools to fit their classroom needs, demonstrating how the community helps maximize the platform’s effectiveness.

5. LightSpeed Technologies, which is a leader in educational audio enhancement, was at NCCE in a big way. They are sponsors at many conferences to assist in audio enhancements during presentations. What got them placed on my list was their Topcat Cascadia. It is an audio system that mounts the speaker in the ceiling and has a wearable microphone for the teacher. This microphone can connect to devices for classroom use, such as interactive displays and assistive listening devices, as well as emergency communication devices for active alerting, priority paging, and even two-way calling with location alert. This tool not only enhances audio but also provides some safety.

6. iPevo is a provider of classroom technology products, well-known for its document cameras. Over time, they have diversified their offerings to include additional educational tools. What I was most intrigued by at iPevo at NCCE was access to the audio tools. Their Vurbo.ai family had a little bit of everything. From AI-powered software that comes with each kit to a shared new personal mic for Vlogging. They have moved rapidly in this place to provide solutions for one-to-one audio recordings, to enhancements for virtual meetings.

7. Sphero devices. Sphero bots first came on the scene with their codable, waterproof balls. Sphero bots have helped students learn more about STEM and coding principles in classrooms across the country. Sphero introduced other items, such as their Indi for early learning, a car-shaped, screenless robot that moves based on the color tile used. At NCCE, Sphero launched its Blueprint engineering kits. These kits, incorporating components from the acquired LittleBits, are designed to support engineering and maker education, expanding their range for classrooms and makerspaces.

8. SchoolAI. Not to be outdone by competitors, SchoolAI had a booth featuring “Edu Stars” and held a session featuring “several nationally recognized experts and regional leaders who are shaping the future of AI.” As for the booth information, I was pleased and surprised by their browser extension. It allows for tasks such as chatting with pages, giving personalized writing feedback, and viewing a revision history. What I believe makes this tool powerful is the ability to create student spaces with SchoolAI. These spaces are teacher-monitored personalized AI environments that help engage, tutor, or reinforce the given lesson.

9. IBM. A long-standing technology leader, IBM has demonstrated its continued contributions to education by referencing its historic AI achievement with Watson and highlighting new advances. The show featured IBM SkillsBuild, a free educational platform for developing skills through project-based training and awarding credentials recognized by the industry. These skills include AI literacy and the ability to integrate AI into one's learning ecosystem and classroom. It is a must for those motivated learners of all ages.

10. Micro K12. Micro K12 is a reseller that has been helping schools and districts with their devices for years. Not only do they offer a white-glove service for device deployment post-purchase, but they also have so much more. From network security to esports solutions, Micro K12 has you covered. One of Micro K12’s edtech conferences is notable in the industry, which bring together vendors and resellers and include presentations for IT directors and teachers, as well as E-Rate support and device repair services.

Watch above or listen/download below.

When the school year began last fall, Kenzo Vanhaesebroeck knew something had shifted. Students at Pineville ISD returned from summer break already fluent in AI tools—using these faster and, in some cases, more efficiently than the adults in the building. But instead of just reacting, the administration has taken a proactive stance to work with the technology not obstruct it. I had a chance to talk to Kenzo about the details.

For a small district that had barely finished digesting the implications of the technology, it was a wake-up call. "With every other platform, we had a little bit of a heads up," Vanhaesebroeck says. "With AI, we didn't even have a chance to really put policy in place before Google, Meta, all these big companies just said, 'Hey, it's here, it's integrated.'"

That speed is what makes this moment categorically different, he argues. Social media crept in gradually. AI arrived overnight—embedded in platforms students were already using, accessible on devices already in their pockets. And new platforms keep appearing daily, often discovered by students before their teachers have even heard about it.

Vanhaesebroeck's response has been a philosophy shift: out with "acceptable use," in with "responsible use." The distinction matters because a named-platform policy is obsolete before the ink dries. A responsible use framework, intentionally written to be somewhat vague, can flex as the landscape changes.

The practical centerpiece of that framework is what he calls a "grading scale" for AI on assignments—a spectrum that runs from no AI permitted to AI-focused projects in which students actually produce content using generative tools. Teachers set the dial for each assignment. The policy backstops them either way.

On the faculty side, Vanhaesebroeck relies less on mandates and more on peer modeling. When a teacher is doing something innovative with AI, he puts that teacher in front of the skeptics. "It's not just cheating," he tells reluctant colleagues. "There's also good sides to this."

His advice to administrators watching from the sidelines: stay open, experiment carefully, and don't wait for a perfect policy before engaging. "Almost being a little too restrictive by being vague," he says, "is better than falling behind and not having policy at all."

In a district with more than 20,000 students set right on the banks of the Microsoft campus in Bellevue, Washington, a natural goal seems to be getting everyone to speak the same language when it comes to school direction and cohesion.

Ironically though, this district is home to students literally speaking more than 117 languages.

“Just at Ardmore, we have students speaking 37 or 38 languages, which gives you a picture of how diverse our school is,” says Yusra Obaid, Principal of Ardmore Elementary School, who was recently recognized for her leadership with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award.

Bellevue School District not only celebrates that reality, but builds on their beautiful blend of cultures and backgrounds with a global competency initiative. One element of this is the Multilingualism for All language programs that include both Spanish and Mandarin programs, with unique language opportunities in Arabic, Korean, and Hindi. BSD middle and highschoolers can take Arabic, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish.

“Students learn the majority of their day in English, with an hour and 20 minutes of daily Arabic instruction in language arts with additional translanguaging throughout the day,” says Obaid. “If you walk into our Arabic classroom, you can't tell the difference between it and a general ed classroom. Half of our classes are multi-language learners. The vision of Ardmore is to affirm and identify this idea that our kids come to us speaking either one or multiple languages. We provide opportunity for those kids and make sure that any students who don't speak another language at home can learn in some way or form here.”

That vision is creating results.

“There is a science where students learning a new language at an early age tend to do better in math, science and overall academics,” says Obaid. “This is an accelerated program because kids are actually learning two languages at the same time, which places extra cognitive demands on students. It helps shape their brain in a different way.”

Using Tech Translates to Success

While many of the students come from backgrounds in which they learned languages naturally in the home, it never hurts to use the latest tech to aid acquisition.

“There's a range of tools that make learning more accessible to kids, even language learning,” says Obaid, noting BDS is a Microsoft district. “We know a lot about language acquisition and students learn by repetition and visuals. Our teachers use our whiteboard touch screens in an interactive way to have kids repeat the language. They press on it and can hear the word pronounced. They do image and word matching, they annotate specific words, drag and blend certain letters together — it’s created an accessibility for language learning in general.”

Obaid says these platforms bring together the four different domains of language acquisition (listening, reading, writing and speaking) more effectively than simple worksheets.

The program creates language learners, but also has a bigger picture of enhancing global citizenship.

“When kids come to us, we want to create global citizens who are thinking not just about their local community, but the larger world and their impact on it,” says Obaid. “We want to create that sense of community that our actions affect others not only here in Bellevue, but in the world.”

Obaid has integrated the Global Goals of UN Sustainability framework across grade levels to support this effort on a daily basis.

For example, for first grade, it offers a literacy unit about animals focused on building vocabulary about endangered animals. “They learned about all the animals and then focused on elephants. ‘How do we protect elephants? They're being endangered,’” says Obaid. “Students learned about dangers involved in their habitat, and then raised money and adopted elephants which they continue to nurture and care about. The organization sent a certificate and they have a website with a live camera feed.”

Using technology to connect a lesson to the real world still continues to be effective.

“It's really cool to just see kids thinking, ‘Wow, we learned about this, and now we actually did something that helped this animal survive those dangers in a place on the other side of the world,’" says Obaid.

3 Tips on Creating Global Initiatives in the Classroom

Obaid offers this advice to other educators:

1. Don't wait to make change. “We can get stuck in a place of ‘It has to be perfect, do I have the funding?’” she says, emphasizing the importance of partnering with students and families to learn their aspirations and goals. “Languages and global citizenship were important for our families, so we didn’t wait for things to happen, we just acted by starting with simple things and letting it grow.”

2. Community partnership is huge. “Look within the community for expertise, rather than thinking about outside resources,” Obaid says. “Shifting that idea to where is capacity and expertise within our whole community — our families, our teachers, everybody who walks through our building are potential partners.”

3. Engage all stakeholders right from the start. Assess, adjust, and collect feedback with everything that you do to demonstrate the success for stakeholders. “When something is innovative and new, partnering with the people who you're serving the most helps,” she says. “We have listening sessions. We collect numerical data. We listen to stories from kids. We do empathy interviews. This is how we continue to refine and adjust anything that we bring into our school.”

Finding Local Funding for Global Awareness

The thought of tapping already-stretched budgets for bonus initiatives can be intimidating, but the adage of “use your resources” certainly applies.

“When we think about innovation and change with a financial aspect, sometimes we forget about the open resources, the free availability, the opportunities in our local community that exist where we can make connections,” Obaid says.

The first grade project which made such an impact on the students was born of a simple wildlife trust website and adoption program. Local fundraising helped with the rest.

“Tapping areas of expertise and opportunities within our local community might not necessarily include a direct financial aspect, but are still very valuable,” she says. “It's about relevance. It's about connection. It's about kids thinking, ‘Wow, what I'm learning matters, and I can do something.’ It's not always about money.”

Creative problem solving goes a long way, but the district also benefits from the Bellevue Schools Foundation, filled with local stakeholders.

“One of the really great things we're really proud of is our amazing educators,” Obaid says. “They really go all out looking through different organizations and partnerships. They would reach out to the Pacific Science Center, ‘Hey, the budget is really tight. Would you be willing to host us?’ Our educators do a really good job in advocating and finding opportunities for community partnership.”

Another way of generating funding is spreading word about the innovative programs at the school. Ardmore got a big boost of publicity when Trevor Noah decided to join the school’s “Hour of Coding.” As Microsoft’s Chief Question Officer, the comedian and actor sat in on a fifth-grade class and discussed tech with Ardmore teachers.

“It was such a great connection,” Obaid says. “We have a whole ‘Wall of Wow’ at Ardmore where we post photos and news articles—every time our school gets recognized or we have a special visitor. It's a great inspiration for us to continue to reach for the stars.”

Tools They Use

• Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
• Microsoft Tools for Education 365
• i-Ready Assessment and Personalized Instruction (My Path) K-8 for English and Spanish dual language immersion, literacy, and math
• Code.org Hour of AI/Code

Sometimes, facing multiple challenges at once can create unexpected opportunities for discovery and collaboration.

“A phrase that I use frequently with my team is, ‘How might we?’ instead of just immediately going to ‘That's not going to work within our system,’” says Jeremy Sullivan, Director of Innovative Learning and Student Supports for North Kitsap School District. “We’re always approaching it through that curiosity of ‘how might we,’ especially because one thing I've learned over the last three years is that a lot of previous ‘Nos’ or ‘That's not possible’ or ‘I have no idea how to make that happen’ has changed. And AI has helped bridge that gap, especially from a systemic analysis and a systems lens.”

Sullivan has worked to implement the district's technology integration effort–which is branded as NKSD-connected, and features four tenets: future-ready graduates, equity, collaboration, and innovation–into its multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS). North Kitsap School District enrolls about 5,100 students across approximately 110 to 120 square miles in rural western Washington State, including the Port Gamble S'Klallam and the Suquamish sovereign nations. Using AI to boost MTSS has helped to bridge distances and differences, and for staff to work smarter, not harder, in supporting students.

“AI has let us work in a way we've never been able to do, like quickly taking 10- to 20-page plans and analyzing outlier interventions, synthesizing action steps that certain buildings are taking so we can connect them so they have partners to help them understand the work that they're doing,” says Sullivan.

For this and other efforts, Sullivan–who came from Springfield Public Schools in Missouri to North Kitsap five years ago to help launch the district’s 1-to-1 initiative–was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award at a recent regional summit.

Three Tiers of PD

Sullivan says the district started small with this effort, initially gathering school leaders over a few years to determine what an MTSS blueprint would look like. All the district’s elementary schools now have one, with the secondary schools close behind.

Sullivan and his team have been working with Tier 2 and 3 intervention teams across 10 buildings to use AI to sort through the large swaths of data they have, including student well-being surveys, academic records, attendance and behavior data, and other critical information. The district has partnered with Panorama, which offers a student success dashboard.

“We are data rich now but we are still information poor,” Sullivan says. “So how do we understand what this is telling us to the level where we can actually take action? And this year AI has really helped us with that because we're able to take these large data sets and identify trends and patterns, both at a systems level and a school level. We can identify that our students are still struggling with this but excelling in that. We can also see that our staff are struggling in this and excelling in that. So what does that mean? And then that can scale down to both the school level and the classroom level.”

Appropriately, the initiative’s support structure for staff follows a three-tiered model, mirroring the MTSS concept:

- Tier One includes district-wide professional development and staff meeting access for everyone.

“I did a training yesterday during which I was able to show them within five minutes how to click a button, attach a class, ask a question–a simple prompt–analyze the most recent SEAL and student well-being data, synthesize it, and tell me the key points that I need to know,” he says. “And just immediately they get the data broken down in a very easy to understand way. There's no filtering. It synthesizes it for them beautifully.”

- Tier Two involves 27 AI “lighthouse” teachers, early adopters working with smaller groups of teachers, following a shared leadership approach.

“The AI lighthouse classroom teachers come and get additional training from me and my team and then they help support in their buildings with that job-embedded support,” says Sullivan, adding that having that practical, hands-on experience accessible, along with coaching, helps foster implementation.“Those AI lighthouse teachers are the ones who really push it into the classrooms and work with their buildings to help them understand it all.”

- Tier Three focuses on individualized support, during which Sullivan and another instructional specialist are deployed to work with specific teachers or student support teams as needed.

“So ultimately, it's just thinking about how are you covering all of those tracks for your system because you're going to have people–that Tier One everyone needs to get–but then how are you helping support the 20% to 5% who need something more.”

Advice For Other Districts: “Teach To The Smiles”

Sullivan advises other districts interested in using AI for MTSS support to begin by listening to a diverse pool of stakeholders, including certificated and classified staff and principals, to understand current practices, desires, and systemic barriers. With that insight, you can assess the lay of the land.

“You can begin to develop your map because that's when you know where your rivers are that you're going to need to build a bridge, where the mountains are that you might need to do some drilling or some blasting to get through into that system,” says Sullivan. “But until you know the lay of the land, you have no idea how to structure your map to get to that end goal.”

He stresses the importance of starting small by identifying innovators and early adopters, focusing initial efforts on developing human capital and authentic ways to shoulder the work, noting that teachers are more likely to be open to new tools and methods coming from other teachers versus coming from IT staff. And then it's about scaling that influence through shared leadership with the lighthouse teachers.

When confronted with resistance during implementation, Sullivan suggests following the advice from one of his former supervisors.

“She just said, ‘In those moments, Jeremy, look around and find the bright spot. Find the smile. Because oftentimes the smile is the quieter one in the room, but the smiles are there. And in those moments, teach to the smiles,’" he says. "Change never happens if we only talk to the ones who are in right off the bat. The reluctant ones need to see other people change first, and see that they have success in that change before they'll feel safe doing it.”

Tools They Use

Sullivan shares some of the edtech tools he regularly uses.

• NotebookLM - "This is my current workflow game-changer. The source-grounding feature allows me to create Notebooks trained solely the resources from my district (policies, procedures, CBAs, handbooks, etc.). The Studio feature allows me to create and scale support resources for my system like never before. With the click of a few buttons, I can have infographics, reports, mindmaps, videos, and interactive podcasts focused only on what I want it to focus on. When you are a small district team, these creation capabilities are incredible."
• Google Gemini - "Since we are a Google Workspace for Education school district, Gemini is our native AI tool. Much like NotebookLM, the ability to create Gems trained on your own sources and instructions allow for the creation of task-specific tools that get to the meat of the work faster. Much of my role involves analyzing qualitative and qualitative data for our system. Gemini in Sheets helps me whip up the right formula or quickly identify measures of central tendency, frequency distributions, etc. When creating resources in Slides, I can often obsess about the visual layout (colors, fonts, sizes, etc.) WAY more than I should. Lately, I have been leaning into the "beautify this slide" feature in an attempt to let some of that control go. I add the text and pertinent imagery, and let Gemini make it visually appealing. Major time saver!"
• Panorama Student Success - "This is our district's data dashboard that serves as a home for all student data. Our district prioritizes meeting the needs of the "whole child," and this dashboard helps us do that by collecting the academic data as well as our behavior, attendance, assessment, social emotional learning, student well-being, and climate and culture data. We also utilize it to refer, program, assign, and progress monitor individual and group student interventions and to gauge the impact of the interventions we are utilizing. The dashboard is used in a variety of other ways at the district, site, PLC, MTSS team, and individual educator level."
• Panorama Solara - "I had to list this as its own tool even though it is born from our Student Success data dashboard. This is Panorama's AI tool that allows for direct interaction with data available in the Student Success dashboard. Teachers can attach up to 20 individual students from the students in the classes, attach a single entire class, or upload their own resource to use with the tool. The Intervention Planner asks a series of questions and then automatically programs the trackable intervention with the appropriate team members assigned in the dashboard. We have created an MTSS Agenda Tool that automatically fills out the agenda template with the appropriate data based on the students selected with guiding questions for the meeting directly aligned with the data. There are so many incredible use cases for this resource." 
• MagicSchool - "Our system adopted MagicSchool as our main teacher and student-facing AI resource. While I don't utilize the tools as frequently in my role, I do create custom tools for our system within MagicSchool. This allows us to train the tools in alignment with our adopted curriculum resources. For example, we recently launched a custom tool that aligns our K-5 CKLA curriculum with our K-5 RULER SEL curriculum. Teachers can easily ask instructional design, instructional strategy, differentiation, and other questions and receive answers that authentically integrate the academic curriculum with the SEL curriculum. Marry that with how Solara can quickly analyze their students' most recent SEL data, and you can begin to see how data analysis followed by purposeful planning that used to take hours can be accomplished in minutes, freeing the educator up to engage with students in deeper ways." 
• Dotstorming - "It is an oldie but goodie that I still use for quick group brainstorming that has voting and commenting features that allow it to be used to go from dialogue to discussion to decision." 
• ChatGPT - "This one will also be on this list because it was my OG when I first dove into the LLM world. It has been trained by me for over three years and just "get's me," ya know?" 
• Canva - "Love this tool, but it can be dangerous for me because there are so many options for creation and design. That being said, the ability to create polished visuals, with the assistance of AI if desired, is awesome. It can be used by staff and students. I love tools that help students demonstrate their learning in authentic ways for authentic audiences!"
• Audible/Amazon Music - "Throwing these on here because they keep me sane. We can't work all the time, and I love to unwind with a great book or podcast."

Schools have no shortage of data. Learning management systems record access patterns, assignment submissions, quiz attempts, and student activity. Digital tools capture usage trends, while help desks collect reports about recurring technical problems. Surveys, attendance records, and assessment platforms add even more information.

Much of this information, which educators often describe as dark or underused data, is unused or only partially examined, and may hold important clues about teaching, learning, and student support. However, the data itself has no value until it is engaged within an instructional or leadership context.

Generative AI has increased interest in making better use of these large collections of information. School leaders, instructional coaches, and technology facilitators are beginning to ask whether AI can help process extant data more quickly and identify patterns that would otherwise remain buried. That interest is understandable as AI can review large volumes of text, sort information into categories, summarize findings, and highlight trends that deserve closer attention.

The real opportunity is not simply faster analysis, but smarter analysis guided by professional judgment. This is where educators need to be careful. AI can help schools become more data informed, but it can also tempt them into becoming overly dependent on automated conclusions.

Education has always required interpretation, context, and human understanding. That has not changed, and in fact, human judgment might be more important today than before the expansion of generative AI.

Contextualizing Data

Numbers and patterns matter, but need context. A dashboard cannot understand a student’s home responsibilities. A large language model cannot fully grasp classroom culture. A summary report cannot replace the experience of a teacher or coach who knows the learners behind the data.

A data-informed approach is more useful than a purely data-driven one. Data-driven decision-making often suggests that the numbers point directly to the answer, while data-informed decision-making treats data as one important source of evidence among several. Educators still need to ask what the information means, what it does not capture, and how local context should shape the response. That distinction matters even more now that generative AI can synthesize so much information so quickly.

AI is especially useful during the early stages of inquiry as it can help instructional leaders look across multiple sources of existing data and spot areas worth investigating. A coach might use AI to review comments from teacher surveys and identify recurring concerns about student engagement. A technology facilitator might use it to sort support tickets into categories and discover that a particular platform is creating repeated confusion. A school leader might compare patterns in assignment completion, attendance, and platform usage to identify students who may need additional support.

These are meaningful uses of AI because each helps to identify patterns at scale. It does not remove the need for human interpretation.

A spike in late-night platform activity might look like procrastination, yet it might also reflect sports schedules, work commitments, family care responsibilities, or uneven internet access at home. Low use of a digital tool might suggest weak implementation, or that the tool possibly does not align with the lesson goals, or that a teacher found a better non-digital strategy.

Limited revision activity in student writing might signal low engagement. It might also mean students are drafting in notebooks, using a different platform, or receiving verbal feedback during class.

The pattern is only the starting point. The judgment comes next.

Asking the Right Questions

Instructional coaches and technology facilitators are especially well-positioned to support leaders in this work as they often sit at the intersection of classroom practice, digital systems, and professional learning. They can help schools move beyond surface-level dashboards and ask better questions about the data they already have. They can also help teams resist the urge to treat AI output as final truth.

One of the most important roles these educators can play is framing the right inquiry question before any analysis begins. Instead of asking AI to find everything interesting in a large data set, schools should begin with questions tied to teaching and learning, such as:

• Are students using feedback to improve their work?
• Are teachers using digital tools in ways that support differentiation?
• Are families receiving communication in forms they can access and understand?
• Are accessibility features reaching the students who need it the most?

Clear questions produce more useful analysis, and human-centered ones produce more ethical analysis. Generative AI should serve as an assistant, not a decision-maker. It can surface possibilities, summarize evidence, and identify trends that deserve discussion. It cannot determine the right instructional response on its own. That work still belongs to educators who understand the curriculum, the learners, the community, and the goals of the school.

This is where leadership matters. School and district leaders need to create expectations for responsible AI use in data analysis. Staff should know what kinds of data are appropriate to analyze with AI tools, what privacy protections must be in place, and how human review will remain part of the process. Teams should be encouraged to validate AI-generated findings against direct observation, classroom artifacts, and professional conversation. Trustworthy use of AI depends on thoughtful structures, not just powerful tools.

The schools that benefit most from AI will not be the ones that automate the most decisions, it will be the ones that use it to ask sharper questions, uncover overlooked signals, and support better conversations about teaching and learning. Those schools will use extant data more effectively without forgetting that education is a human enterprise.

Human judgment is not a barrier to innovation, but what makes innovation worth using in the first place.

As artificial intelligence continues to expand its presence in schools, the need to educate educators and support staff also continues to grow. And although many edtech solutions provide training around their specific AI tools, having a basic AI education program can be even more useful.

“Tools have their place,” says Courtney Bock, AI Implementation and Library Media & Technology Specialist for Mead School District in Washington State. “But if we don't first understand the how and the why, the tools are not as powerful.”

To help support the teachers, Bock has implemented a four-part AI professional development series in her district, from which she graduated and currently serves about 10,500 students in North Spokane County.

“It can be pretty isolating sometimes as an educator when they’re thinking, ‘Am I the only one that is not getting this?’” says Bock, who was recently honored with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award. “And then they go to the PD, see other teachers, and realize, ‘Oh, no, you're struggling, too. Okay, great. We can struggle together.’"

The good news is that Bock’s program has been turning that struggle into success.

Boosting AI Confidence and Literacy

Each session in Bock’s after-school program is 90 minutes and offers STEM clock hours for certificate maintenance in Washington State. Each cohort of the program has averaged 25 teachers.

• Session 1 is "AI 101," providing foundational knowledge, vocabulary (such as "LLM"), how AI works, and its capabilities and limitations, remaining tool-agnostic.
• Session 2 focuses on cheating and AI, helping teachers to redesign assignments and integrate AI into assessments, acknowledging that students are using it regardless.
• Session 3 dives into using AI with students, featuring a more tool-specific approach.
• Session 4 concentrates on using AI to improve teacher workflow, increase efficiency, and save time.

In addition to the cohorts, Bock supports teachers through a monthly newsletter, regular in-person presentations across the district’s 10 buildings, and virtual weekly AI office hours.

So far, the program’s impact has been quantified by significant gains in educator readiness. Post-training data has revealed a 50% increase in teacher confidence regarding the use of AI tools directly with students, as well as a 48% boost in preparedness to teach AI ethics.

Advice For Other Educators

For other educators who are interested in creating a similar PD program in their district, Bock recommends first focusing on AI literacy as opposed to just tossing tools at teachers.

“When I first did a version of this a year ago beforehand, it was just AI tools because that's what people wanted, and I thought, ‘Yeah, I can show you how to use those tools. No problem,’” she says. “But because I'm in the space every day, I was using basic AI vocabulary, and they didn’t understand these basics. That was a real learning moment.”

Bock also tries to make sure that there's plenty of free additional resources available to spark those who want to pursue more learning or certification for a specific AI platform. She notes that Anthropic, Google, and AIEDU, among others, all have AI training for educators.

“Some are better than others,” she acknowledges. “But I think it's good to take it all in with a grain of salt and use what's best for you, and leave what's not.”

Bock also recommends keeping parents and families informed about AI use. “When we're going to be introducing things to their students, I think It's important to have parent and student voices as part of that conversation.” She stresses that students, in particular, should be included in creating district policies as they are already interacting with AI daily, often through platforms such as Snapchat.

She also suggests involving administrative and central office staff in PD efforts as many may be interested in using AI to boost efficiency or simplify basic tasks, if they aren’t already.

“A Whirlwind Of AI”

Bock, who spent two years away from education at a friend’s startup as a natural language model analyst before returning to a district, has been able to bring that experience into her current role, which focuses on supporting district-wide AI implementation in the mornings and being a K-5 specialist in the afternoons.

“In 2022 when ChatGPT became public, it was like my two worlds just came together, which was not on my bingo card at all,” she says. “And it's just been, as you can imagine, a whirlwind of AI ever since.“

Ultimately, Bock appreciates having a community of teachers to learn from and with.

“It's harder to learn things in isolation,” Bock says. “And I'm not saying you can't, you absolutely can. But when you have that community around you to support you, ask questions, look at what they're doing as different examples–that's really powerful.”

Tools They Use

Bock’s “AI Stack”

• Claude
• MagicSchool
• CanvaAI
• Wispr Flow
• Gemini/Studio
• NotebookLM
• Gamma

Montana Digital Academy (MTDA) is a designated state virtual school in Montana, created by the 2009 Legislature to provide supplemental online learning to K-12 public school students. The Frontier Learning Lab (FLL) is MTDA’s new statewide hub for cutting-edge learning tools —a place where teachers and students can explore AI, virtual and augmented reality, and other emerging tech.

“It was a natural space for us to go into with applicability in K-12 across the state,” says Jason Neiffer, Executive Director of Montana Digital Academy. “We were early to the AI conversation because we saw an issue we would have to come to terms with at our state virtual school. In January 2024, members of our team were invited to testify about the role of AI in education. That turned into a deeper conversation about what we wanted to do to support Montana schools.”

In an effort to ensure such rural schools could offer access to interested teachers, a solution for opening exploratory spaces for all regardless of budget toward high-quality PD needed to be reached. Having awareness and a deep understanding of that state’s unique needs and challenges was critical.

“One of the things that we've been very conscious of is that the rural nature of Montana is sometimes underestimated,” says Neiffer, who notes that the state is the size of Germany with one-eightieth of the population. “We have a couple of counties that are larger than some U.S. states with a single school district. The superintendent is also the K-12 principal and substitute bus driver and has their boiler's license in case they're pressed into service.”

Neiffer, who was recently recognized with an Innovative Leader Award during Tech & Learning’s recent Northwest Regional Summit, and his team knew truly rural Montana kids were just as important a constituency and deserve to have access to tech experts and resources.

“The Montana School Boards Association stepped up this year and provided a model policy for districts across the state,” he says. “There are endless organizations, nonprofit and for-profit, that help with policy development in schools. However, they don’t always understand that a rural school doesn’t have a full-time tech person — maybe not even any part-time staff — and might have to rely on third-party vendors for that role.”

That is where the Frontier Learning Lab, under the umbrella of the 16-year-strong MTDA state virtual school, stepped in to form a core planning piece for time-challenged leaders.

Time Is Everything

Time management is an important element of any endeavor but already-stretched rural districts really feel that pinch when faced with absorbing new tech initiatives.

“The time piece is a critical factor here,” Neiffer says. “I've been in the business for almost thirty years now and I do think we underinvest in professional learning around technology. We also get that you can't spend all of your time learning about evolving technologies because teaching is a very technical job.”

Neiffer feels part of any strategy needs to be meeting teachers where their resources are.

“Is it face-to-face training, or is it asynchronous online training?” he asks. “We’ve opened up a help desk for teachers that they can email and ask for assistance because not every one of our teachers will be able to dedicate significant professional learning time. So they really do need the old ‘just-in-time’ training. Sometimes that's really just a one-on-one conversation. We want to be able to provide it however works best for their busy schedule.”

The help desk accepts emails 24/7 with someone manning and responding 9-10 hours a day. This has been particularly helpful for those teachers exploring on their own time or who may not have colleagues at their level.

3 Actionable Tips When Starting a Virtual Academy Such As Frontier

1. Need should drive everything. “One of the reasons why our program was originally created was because Montana’s vast geography needed a virtual option with stable funding and consistency in availability for students every semester,” Neiffer says. “Investment in the program is critical so funding at minimum ensures schools know when they need access to the program, they have access to the program. It can’t be dependent on an unstable funding source. You only get that consensus around need. Look at where gaps are and get coalitions together across many different political, philosophical, pedagogical views.”

2. Don't recreate the wheel. “Unless you are on the exceptionally bleeding edge of something (and if you are, great, just make sure you tell the rest of us what you did!), look at existing models,” Neiffer says. “Montana Digital Academy is part of the Virtual Learning Leadership Alliance which is a coalition of 20 state virtual schools across the United States. Instead of coming up with something from scratch, find something that's 50%, 70%, 80% of the way there and just adjust it for your locality and specific needs. Chances are someone is already doing this work elsewhere. If they aren’t far enough along to give you hints, they'll be a wonderful collaboration partner.”

3. Don't be afraid to ask for resources from others. “We don't spend enough time asking our colleagues down the street what they're doing,” Neiffer says. “Whenever you can take advantage of a room of people that agree or disagree with you about your approach, it's a real opportunity to push yourself and make your planning process that much richer.”

Looking To The Horizon In Big Sky

In an era of ever-tightening budgets — the sky is not the limit, even in Big Sky Country. Investment into innovation can be an intimidating mountain to climb.

“We are actively balancing costs, which are still significant in this space, with utility inside of a classroom,” Neiffer says. “I have no doubt that we can find lots of good, showy, fun, interesting, even pedagogically useful places for virtual reality, but it's always balanced against the cost of the hardware and the cost of maintaining those pieces.”

One pilot that Neiffer and his team is exploring is securing access to virtual dissections for online anatomy and physiology students. “There are anatomy and physiology classes available from two and four-year Montana colleges, but it can be very geography-based due to the human dissection lab requirement,” he says. “So how do we provide that access to online students?”

Stretching resources continues to be a challenge.

“We have four different departments in Montana Virtual Academy with a mix of public, private and school-based funding,” Neiffer says. “In particular, in our Business Learning Program and our Digital Learning Clearing House, we find a reasonable cost to share with schools. The legislature wants schools to have skin in the game so that they know that it's something they are investing in for access to opportunity.”

Embracing partnerships is key. For example, MTDA has access to STEM experts and research professors at the University of Montana who provide guidance on AI, virtual and augmented reality.

Neiffer believes that the lab itself — the professional learning — should be covered with a combination of state appropriation, federal grants and private foundations to help create a sustainable model to ensure access for the most rural schools when public funding might not reach that scalability down to the smallest of schools.

“With such great future-looking leadership in this space, we are now working with vendors to find the most affordable solutions for what is to come,” Neiffer says. “A previous superintendent of public instruction called Montana a frontier state. I think that that's an accurate way to describe what we do.”

Neiffer is enthusiastic about the future of education as well as the hard-working team around him.

“Find people who are interested in helping you and don't be afraid to fail,” he says. “Chances are not every new initiative will be successful so just use that as an opportunity to grow and become better. It’s a really critical part of being a design-thinking forward organization, but it's also the best way to approach teaching and learning. Institutions are learning as much as the students.”

Tools They Use

Neiffer discusses some of his go-to tech tools.

• TextExpander - “I can’t live without a text expansion app. My longtime favorite is TextExpander, which works on Windows, macOS, and ChromeOS. I use it for stock AI prompts, phrases I type all the time, such as, ‘Hello, my name is Jason Neiffer, and I am the Executive Director of Montana Digital Academy,’ and even bits of code.”
• NotebookLM - “I experiment with many fast-moving AI tools, but I keep coming back to Google NotebookLM as a dependable place to organize the large volume of information I collect for work and personal projects. That includes reports, journal articles, presentations, travel guides, restaurant recommendations, and videos about places I want to visit.”
• ChatGPT CustomGPTs and Gemini Gems - “One of the most useful things about today’s generative AI tools is the ability to create small, purpose-built helpers that work through information with you. I love building CustomGPTs and Gems to handle specific tasks, like creating alt text for images, rewriting assignment directions for clarity, brainstorming workshop materials, or helping organize drafts and ideas. They are not perfect, of course, but they can save a great deal of time and mental energy.”

A teacher responding to recent reporting about parents asking schools to return to pen-and-paper learning argued that after banning laptops in his classroom, students became calmer and more focused. He explained that his administration even printed physical sourcebooks so students would not need devices.

The result, he says, is a better learning environment.

If “better” means easier to manage, that’s understandable. Anyone who has taught in a one-to-one device environment has seen students drift toward distractions. Removing laptops can simplify classroom management and reduce what teachers have to monitor.

But easier classroom management is not the same as better learning. And limiting students to pen and paper does little to prepare them for a world in which thinking, writing, and collaboration increasingly happen through digital tools. Schools also have a responsibility to help students learn how to stay focused and manage distractions in the digital environments they will live and work in every day.

That means teaching students not just what to learn, but how to manage attention, choose the right tools for the task, and remain productive in a technology-rich world.

Making technology the scapegoat for declining educational outcomes distracts from the real issue and risks removing one of the most powerful tools students have to explore ideas, create knowledge, and pursue their goals.

The problem was never laptops. The real issue is the learning model we built around laptops over the past three decades.

The Digital Revolution Didn’t Fail. The School Model Did

The rise of laptops and chromebooks in classrooms happened at the same time that high-stakes accountability policies reshaped American education.

Federal legislation such as the Every Student Succeeds Act, which governs modern school accountability systems, and its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act, dramatically expanded standardized testing across U.S. schools and reinforced testing as the primary measure of success.

Research summarized in the Economic Policy Institute’s examination of how high-stakes testing narrowed curriculum and reshaped classroom instruction shows how these policies pushed schools toward memorization and test preparation rather than deeper learning.

When learning becomes test preparation, the medium matters very little. Drill-and-practice on paper is still drill-and-practice. Drill-and-practice on a screen is still drill-and-practice.

In my article explaining why laptops didn’t take away students’ brains but changes in the school model did, I argue that blaming devices ignores the larger structural forces shaping classroom practice. Technology did not break education. It was layered onto a system already moving in the wrong direction.

The “Primary Use Problem” Oversimplifies Learning

The teacher also referenced what neuroscientist Jared Horvath calls the “primary use problem,” the idea that students associate computers with entertainment because they spend thousands of hours gaming, streaming, and using social media.

Tools do carry habits. But the explanation misses something important. If a tool’s most common use determined whether it belonged in school, books would face the same criticism. Many students associate books with entertainment reading as well.

The real challenge is teaching students to use tools intentionally.

In my response to claims that laptops failed students, I explain that technology does not determine learning outcomes. Instructional design does.

A laptop used only for passive note-taking will not transform learning. A laptop used for research, collaboration, multimedia production, coding, and publishing student work to authentic audiences can expand what learning looks like.

The difference is pedagogy.

The Paper Vs. Screens Debate Is Often Misrepresented

Another claim embedded in the argument against classroom technology is that students learn better when reading on paper and writing notes by hand.

This idea gained widespread attention after a widely cited study comparing handwritten notes with laptop note-taking during lectures suggested that typing encouraged more verbatim transcription.

But the study measured short-term recall in lecture settings rather than authentic classroom learning.

Later research complicates the conclusion. For example, a large replication study published in Psychological Science examining the relationship between laptop note-taking and learning outcomes found that when note-taking strategies are controlled, the supposed advantage of handwriting largely disappears.

The issue is not keyboards. The issue is passive learning.

If students are simply copying information, it makes little difference whether they are typing or writing. Real learning happens when students analyze, question, synthesize, and create. Framing the debate as paper versus screens distracts from the real issue, which is how we design learning experiences that require thinking.

Schools Must Teach Digital Citizenship and Well-Being

If students are distracted or overwhelmed by technology, removing devices does not solve the underlying problem. It avoids teaching the skills students need. Schools should be responsible for preparing students to navigate the world they live in.

Today that world is digital.

Students need explicit instruction in managing attention, evaluating information, protecting privacy, engaging responsibly online, and maintaining healthy technology habits.

Digital citizenship is not a once-a-year lesson. It is a core life skill.

Some of the most promising resources for teaching these skills are created by students themselves. The student-produced content I shared in Take Two Media’s free digital citizenship video library demonstrates how young people can lead conversations about responsible technology use and online well-being.

If schools remove technology entirely, they also remove opportunities to teach these essential skills. Students will still encounter these tools outside school. The question is whether educators help them learn to navigate it wisely.

The Same Debate Is Now Happening With AI

The laptop debate is already repeating itself with artificial intelligence.

Some educators worry that because AI can generate essays or answers, the solution is to remove it from classrooms. But banning tools has never prepared students for the future.

In my Tech & Learning article examining how AI is transforming the writing process, I describe how writing is becoming more iterative. Students brainstorm, test ideas, revise drafts, and critique outputs using both human feedback and AI tools.

AI does not eliminate thinking. It shifts when thinking happens. Students still need to ask better questions, evaluate responses, and refine ideas.

As I explore in my analysis of whether AI could reconnect us to what matters most, emerging technologies may even reduce time spent on repetitive tasks and allow people to focus more on creativity, relationships, and deeper intellectual work.

That possibility should excite educators. But it requires rethinking what learning looks like.

The Experiment Was Never Finished

It is tempting to say the digital revolution in education failed. But the truth is that the experiment was never fully implemented.

For decades, schools invested billions of dollars in devices while investing far less in instructional redesign, digital literacy, and professional learning.

Even the OECD international study examining how computer use affects student learning outcomes concluded that technology alone does not improve results without thoughtful pedagogy. That finding should not surprise anyone. No tool has ever transformed education by itself.

Not chalkboards, textbooks, laptops, nor AI. Tools matter only when they support meaningful learning. The real question schools should be asking is not whether laptops belong in classrooms. The real question is whether we are designing learning experiences that prepare students for the world they actually live in and the tools they will use in it.

In August 2025, Ohio became the first state in the U.S. to require traditional public school districts, community schools, and STEM schools to adopt an official policy on the use of artificial intelligence. The policy has to be in place by July 1.

The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce has shared a model AI policy, which is a good starting template for districts, schools, and institutions in other states as it features a purpose statement and AI definitions in addition to guidelines around literacy, ethical use, data privacy, and other concerns.

“The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce has been very forward in AI for the last couple of years, including providing some good resources,” says Christopher Lockhart, Chief Information Officer for Columbus City Schools, who is leading the effort to comply in the state’s largest district (46,000 students). “There's just never really been that push to say, ‘Okay, now schools, we need you to do something. Either say you're going to do it or say you're not going to do it, but you have to do something.’”

With AI continuing its exponential growth, it is most likely only a matter of time before every state legislates such a requirement, Lockhart says.

“Any school district that does not yet have a policy should take a hard look at developing one,” suggests Lockhart. “And I would take that work on now just so it's not a strain to get it done if a mandate comes down. It's going to benefit your staff and your students so they have that clarity of how to operate within the AI framework at the district.”

Gathering All The Voices In The Room

Lockhart’s district already had an AI working group in place when the impending mandate was announced last year. It is one of the first steps recommended by the state, which Lockhart jokes doesn’t seem like a coincidence. “I was like, ‘Well hey, we already have one,’ and then I realized I had talked at several functions around the state about the Columbus model and the fact that we had an AI work group,” he says. “So now I'm thinking, wait a minute, maybe they saw what we were doing and thought, ‘Oh, that's probably a good idea. Let's put that in there also!’"

Lockhart’s AI implementation working group provides a good model for other districts, with representatives from across grade levels and departments, including IT staff, teachers, administrators, and other support personnel. He also includes AI experts who understand the legal and practical ramifications, such as data security and privacy.

“I wanted to have a lot of voices at the table to make sure that everybody understands what this is,” he says. “We already know we're going to have some resistance, but at least the loudest voices were also in the room while we were drafting the policy, being heard and saying, ‘I don't like it, but can we at least do this and add this to it?’”

Lockhart’s group is also meeting with students to make sure their input is considered in any policy, including recommendations around teaching AI literacy and ethical use.

“The reality of it is what I've argued for as a proponent of AI in schools is that if we're not teaching it to the students in school, they're going to use it outside of school,” he says. “And if we're not teaching them the proper ethical safe way to use it, they're going to just be out there on their own.”

Lockhart also says any policy should consider equity as some students may not have access to high-speed internet or computing devices after school hours.

“We should find that balance for what we can give them as a safe tool here in the district to learn to get comfortable with AI in all its different iterations beyond just the chatbots and the generative AIs,” he says.

3 Considerations When Developing A Formal AI Policy

Other practical considerations for any district drafting formal AI policies:

1. Secure district-wide leadership support beyond the IT department, especially getting buy-in from the superintendent.

“If it's seen as an IT initiative, then it doesn't go very far,” Lockhart says. “But when it's seen as a district leadership initiative, you get a lot more buy-in.”

2. Do not make the policy overly restrictive. "You really don't want to put that type of restrictive language in a policy for something that's changing so fast," Lockhart says, "You certainly don't want to put in an application name. You don't want to specifically have ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini in your policy, because this all is going to keep changing.”

Lockhart says keeping the policy general also eliminates having to go in front of the school board every time a change is needed. “You can get more specific in what we use in schools with the administrative guidelines,” he says. “Once the school board sets policy, they then direct the superintendent to then build out the details of what that looks like in the administrative guidelines.”

3. Ensure the work continues beyond the initial drafting to include ongoing professional development and curriculum development

“As AI keeps changing, its prominence also keeps changing. The policy is going to have to change,” he says. “The administrative guidelines, or practices as some districts call it, will also have to change to keep up with the technology.”

AI Is Not 'Fly-By-Night'

Although AI seems like a new technology for many, Lockhart notes that’s not the case. For example, when he does presentations on the history of the technology, he starts in 1956 with the first work with AI at Dartmouth, then goes through the various iterations over the subsequent decades, from Big Blue playing chess to ChatGPT now. And he suggests that it is not going away any time soon.

“So I tell people that AI is not new; it is a mature technology,” Lockhart says. “It is not something that just popped up overnight–it's just new to us having access as the public. And I think it actually makes them a little more comfortable with saying, ‘Oh, okay, you know, we get it. We don't understand it, but we have a little more insight now that this is not something that's going to be fly-by-night.’”

Ultimately, forging that basic understanding around AI can be helpful for everyone involved in implementation and policy.

“Overall, this policy has been a good thing,” Lockhart says. “I think for a lot of school districts, they've struggled with the idea of whether or not they even wanted to have an AI policy, or to just bury their heads in the sand and pretend like, ‘If we don't talk about it, we don't have to deal with it’. So, I think this gets everybody a good footing of how we're going to deal with it.”

Watch this conversation above or listen/download it below.

A $9.99 million Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant is bringing together three partners to tackle one of education's most persistent challenges: helping young readers build the skills they need to succeed, especially in rural communities where specialized support is hardest to access. I had a chance to chat with two of the program's architects about their efforts, Allison Zimmermann, CEO of Foundations in Learning, and Dr. Seth King, Associate Professor of Special Education at the University of Iowa.

WordFlight, developed by Foundations in Learning, has partnered with the University of Iowa Reading Research Center and Wyoming State to conduct a five-year study involving 80 to 100 schools. The project builds on previous success—a randomized controlled trial with middle school students that showed the intervention was "extremely successful" in moving students forward on foundational skills and fluency.

The study uses a wait-listed design in which half the schools implement WordFlight in year one while the other half serves as a control group, with all schools receiving the intervention by year two. Independent evaluators from Iowa's Center for Evaluation and Assessment will measure outcomes using assessments not directly aligned with the curriculum.

"We have to stop the bleeding," Alli emphasizes about older struggling readers. "We have to give them the foundation that they need to be successful."

• Tech & Learning Conversations with Kevin Hogan

When I first became a school leader, one of the first realities I had to confront was email volume. Not a handful of messages but sometimes dozens before 8 a.m., sometimes hundreds by day’s end. Staying on top of it required strategies, routines, and discipline as I had to learn how to triage, delegate, and protect attention so the inbox did not become my only job.

But even so, I never assumed silence was the answer. Not every email deserves a long reply, and some do not deserve any. Still, for legitimate questions tied to work, decisions, and people, I’ve always tried to respond because email is often how others experience your leadership when they cannot access you in the moment.

‘Digital Snubbery’

I hear from my educational leadership students all the time that their school leaders do not answer emails. Messages go unanswered for days or weeks, sometimes indefinitely.

This may sting for some readers, but that is not acceptable. Not because leaders should be available 24/7, and not because instant replies are the standard. It is unacceptable because sustained non-response communicates something, whether you intend it or not.

Adam Grant has called this “digital snubbery,” the online equivalent of walking past someone who waved at you. His point is not that every email is urgent. It is that silence of a non-response that is interpreted. And in schools, interpretation becomes culture.

What makes this especially tricky in schools is the power dynamic. When a leader does not respond, the silence carries more weight than when a peer does. People hesitate to follow up because they do not want to appear needy, impatient, or out of line, and wait longer than they should, even second-guessing themselves. In some cases, they stop asking altogether.

This lack of communication creates blind spots for leaders. The very people closest to the work begin to go quiet because experience has taught them not to expect a response. Over time, this weakens feedback loops and slows organizational learning.

Some consequences are obvious: Work slows, decisions stall, and people follow up repeatedly or escalate issues that did not need escalation. Non-response also erodes trust, discourages initiative, and can delay a problem until it is bigger, messier, and harder to solve. Over time, people start working around you instead of with you. That should worry any leader who values coherence, collaboration, and shared ownership.

Not Time Management, But A Disposition Problem

Perfection is not the point here, nor is inbox zero the target. The goal is a mindset shift: email is not just administrative or technical, it is part of your leadership presence. You can and should have boundaries, but these must be communicated.

It is also worth naming the emotional labor involved in email. Many messages carry frustration, urgency, or disappointment, so avoidance is sometimes less about time and more about discomfort.

Leadership often requires engaging with discomfort early, when issues are still manageable. Delayed responses allow tension to grow and misunderstandings to harden, so a short acknowledgment can de-escalate more effectively than a perfectly crafted response sent too late.

Sometimes this is not just a personal habit, it is structural. If a leader is hard to reach by phone, unavailable on video, and inconsistent in person, then email becomes the only door. When that door stays closed, leadership becomes something people cannot access, only assume.

If you want a staff that takes initiative, raises concerns early, and brings you solutions, you can’t train them – explicitly or implicitly – to expect no response.

5 Practical Ways To Handle Email Without Breaking Trust

1. Schedule response time and put it on your calendar. If it matters, it gets scheduled. Two short blocks a day can produce meaningful changes.
2. Set up folders and prioritize on purpose. Keep it simple. Examples: Urgent Today, This Week, Waiting On, Read Later. The goal is not a perfect system. The goal is not losing important messages.
3. Acknowledge quickly, then follow through. “Received. I’ll get back to you by Thursday.” Then actually do. Trust is built in the follow-up.
4. Use AI to draft non-sensitive, non-confidential correspondence. Let AI create a first draft for routine updates, confirmations, next steps, scheduling, thank-yous. Add your personal touch, correct tone, and keep confidential content out of the prompt.
5. Create a routing plan so you are not the bottleneck. Some messages should go to a point person or team. Proper routing is not avoidance, it is clarity.

Responsiveness is not about replying to everything instantly. It is about accountability. Whatever system you choose, protect your time, but do not disappear. Email silence may not be a visible leadership trait, but it is felt – and it shows up as trust, or the loss of it.

The School Superintendents Association (AASA)’s 2026 National Conference on Education took place in Nashville, offering a whirlwind of sessions, roundtable discussions, and plenty of cool tech to explore in the Expo Hall.

One of the highlights of the conference was the launch of AASA’s "Public Education Promise"—a framework designed to provide “every child in every community access to a highly effective education that prepares them for college, career, and real life in the real world.”

I had the opportunity to talk with David Schuler, Executive Director of AASA, to dig into this new initiative.

Schuler describes The Public Education Promise as an "attempt at reimagining what we believe public education needs to look like for this next generation of learners." This reimagining is not just about academic rigor but about a holistic approach to student success. "We know every generation learns differently," he says, emphasizing that "our educational system has to adapt and evolve to make sure we're meeting the needs of our learners."

The Public Education Promise is anchored in five core principles, each designed to help district leaders foster innovation and equity in their schools.

Principle 1: Prioritize Student-Centered Learning

The first principle focuses on personalized instruction that meets students where they are. In many traditional classrooms, the pace of learning is dictated by the curriculum rather than the student's mastery. Schuler challenges this outdated model: "If a student gets 1 to 13 right, why are we asking them to do 15 to 53? And if a student gets 1 to 13 wrong, why are we asking them to do 13 to 53?"

The goal is to leverage modern tools to accelerate learning for everyone. "Technology now gives us the opportunity to meet every child where they're at," Schuler says. By doing so, educators can move away from a one-size-fits-all approach and instead offer tailored experiences that allow students to soar.

"You want to accelerate learning, the way we do that is meeting every child where they're at," he adds.

Principle 2: The New Basics: Real Skills for Real Life

As the workforce changes, so too must the definition of "basic" skills. This principle advocates for a dual focus on cutting-edge technology and timeless interpersonal skills. "AI is here. So let's teach our kids how to use it," Schuler urges. But he is quick to note the importance of balancing this with the human element.

Schuler refers to this blend as "real skills for real life," or "the new basics." It includes practical professional standards that employers demand but often find lacking. He notes that for students entering the workforce, understanding professional norms is critical—for example, knowing that "five minutes late is not ‘close enough’."

Principle 3: Attract, Hire, Retain, and Reward the Best People

The third principle addresses the critical teacher shortage by rethinking the profession itself. Schuler points out a fundamental misunderstanding about why educators enter the field: "I think there's a big misnomer that a lot of teachers got into teaching because they love to teach . . . I think people got into teaching because they love to learn."

To retain talent, districts must improve the quality of life for educators, making the profession compatible with modern workforce expectations. AASA is currently running pilots to test new schedules.

"There are pilots happening in the country right now where kids are going to school 5 days a week, but teachers are only in classrooms 3 days a week," Schuler says. Innovations such as these are essential to compete with other industries in which remote work and flexibility are now standard.

Principle 4: Build Highly Engaged Family, Community, and Business Partnerships

Schools cannot do this work alone. This principle emphasizes the power of community "hubs" where districts, businesses, and families collaborate. Schuler highlights a region in Western Pennsylvania where 45 districts are working together "to really try and crack a nut" regarding local challenges.

He shares a compelling success story about his time as Superintendent of Schools at Township High School District 214 in Illinois when a teacher facilitated a partnership with Redoro, a local olive oil company. While some in the district were initially skeptical, Schuler told the teacher, "I think that's a great idea, let me know how I may be of support." The result was transformative: "We sell olive oil at all the local malls and kiosks and Redoro pays for two full summer internships for kids to go to Italy."

This success came because the teacher didn't just ask for money but created a value-add for the business, illustrating that "students succeed when families, schools, businesses work together."

Principle 5: Measure What Matters

Perhaps the most provocative principle is the call to rethink how success is defined. "We have to decouple student achievement from school accountability," Schuler asserts. While acknowledging that test scores are a "critical component," he argues they are insufficient for judging a school's total value.

He offers a stark example: "If you have a child, and your child is 18 years old and has an electrician's apprenticeship making $80,000 a year, I don't care what they got on their ACT."

The current system often fails to capture these non-academic successes. "What really matters is how successful the kids are not when they cross the stage, but how successful they are after they cross the stage," Schuler says.

Leading Through Innovation

Implementing these principles requires courageous leadership. Schuler advises superintendents to give their teams "permission to fail forward" and to start small with pilots. "If everything you do is working, you're not being as innovative as we believe you are," one board member told him.

Ultimately, the Public Education Promise is about restoring the joy of learning and ensuring that American public education remains the economic and social engine of the country. By telling good stories and focusing on what truly matters, leaders can build systems in which "everybody can see themselves" and every child has a path to a fulfilling future.

Schools do not run only on vision statements and instructional frameworks, but on calendars, inboxes, shared drives, slide decks, and dashboards. Schools operate on a thousand small digital decisions that either reduce friction or create it.

As such, a school leader’s digital habits have a direct impact on the entire school, sometimes for the worse.

Most of these habits are not malicious. Many come from good intentions and limited time, but intention does not cancel impact. In schools, attention is precious, so when our digital communication creates extra steps, people spend more energy decoding the message than acting on it. When leaders add avoidable friction, we shift the burden onto the people who already have the least time to spare.

These are not “gotchas,” but patterns which help to shape culture. The way we communicate digitally becomes a daily lesson in what we value: clarity, care, quality–or the lack of it–all of it shows up as you.

Here are six digital pet peeves I keep running into at schools, what each quietly reveals, and what you can do instead.

1. Reply-all as a performance of unity

The reply-all storm is the classic. Someone sends a birthday email, a holiday greeting, or a quick shout-out, then the chain begins. “Happy birthday!” “So true!” “Agreed!” “Thank you!” The content is kind, the intention is fine. But suddenly we have 30 messages that accomplish nothing except proving that we are all, in fact, checking our email.

I am not against appreciation; I am against forced audience participation.

Sometimes reply-all is not communication, but a performance. People feel socially compelled to respond because it feels rude not to, so for anyone managing a high-volume inbox, it becomes a productivity tax.

Do this instead: If your reply does not change anyone’s work, it probably does not need to go to everyone, so send it directly to the person. Or if your platform allows it, react instead of replying. If the message is truly for the whole staff, one person can compile appreciation and send a single follow-up. Culture does not require clutter.

2. Using AI to inflate a simple message

This one is newer, and it may become the biggest one if we are not careful–using AI to turn a simple message into a long email that the reader has to wade through.

I had a colleague show me an email she was about to send with a simple message: she was sick and would miss a deadline. That was all the recipient needed. Instead, the email became three paragraphs that repeated the same point in different ways, with extra personal details that did not help the reader take action. I had to take time to read it, she had to take time to generate it, and none of that improved communication.

AI can be useful, but the standard should be simple–it should reduce cognitive load, not increase it, and help communication become clearer, shorter, and more actionable.

Do this instead: If the message is a status update, keep it to three sentences: what happened, what you need, and what happens next. Use AI to tighten and clarify, not to sound more elaborate.

3. Dead links and “I sent it” culture

Dead links turn simple tasks into scavenger hunts. “Here’s the resource.” The link does not work. “Here’s the folder.” No permission. “See the attachment.” The attachment is missing, or the file is named Final_FINAL_v7 and no one can tell what is current.

This is not really a technical issue. It is a respect issue.

When a leader sends information that is not usable, the message becomes: “I pushed this out, now you figure it out.” Over time, staff stop trusting communications, and stop clicking.

Do this instead: Test links before you send any, and check permissions using a non-owner view if possible. Use file names that humans can recognize later, ideally with a date and topic. And add one small leadership move that goes a long way: “If you cannot access this, reply and I will fix it.”

4. QR codes in PDFs that assume you are holding paper

This one is so common that I still cannot believe we do it. Someone creates a flyer for an event. “Register here!” They include a QR code. Great idea if the flyer is printed and taped to a wall.

But what happens in real life? The PDF is emailed or posted on a site, and someone opens it on their phone. They see the QR code, but they cannot scan it because it is on the same device they are using to read it. If they do not have a second device, they are stuck.

QR codes are usually meant to make registration or information more accessible, however, in a digital setting, the opposite can happen.

Do this instead: If you include a QR code in a digital document, include a clickable link underneath it or add a short URL that can be copied. Design for the most realistic scenario: a busy teacher reading it on a phone in a hallway between periods. If it cannot be opened in ten seconds, it is not ready.

5. Sloppy outputs: grammar, slides, and basic accessibility

We live in a world where tools can catch basic grammar issues instantly and templates exist for decent slide design. And yet, we still circulate staff-wide messages with obvious errors and preset decks that are hard to read. Tiny fonts. Low contrast. Walls of text.

This is not about being fancy, but about quality control.

When grammar is unchecked, it distracts from the message and signals haste. Slide quality does the same. Consequently, if the communication is sloppy, people assume the planning and thinking behind it is sloppy, too.

This is also where basic accessibility shows up. If the font is tiny, the contrast is weak, and the document is a scanned image that cannot be searched or selected, it creates barriers. Some staff will struggle quietly while others will disengage. Either way, the message does not land the way it should.

Do this instead: If a message is going to the whole staff, take two minutes to proofread. If it is a deck for a real meeting, make it readable. One idea per slide, large font, high contrast, and less text. Aim for materials that are usable on a phone, searchable, and readable without squinting.

6. Data dumps with no story and no action

I love data. I also hate data dumps.

There is nothing worse than receiving a spreadsheet or dashboard with “FYI” and no explanation–no context, no interpretation, no action, just numbers floating in space. If there is no decision to make, no next step to take, and no owner to follow up, then the data becomes noise wearing a serious outfit.

Data only becomes helpful when it answers a question and drives an action. Without that, we are not using data, we are distributing anxiety.

Do this instead: Every data share should answer three questions:

1. So what? What does this data mean and what matters most here.
2. Now what? What are we going to do differently by knowing it.
3. Who owns it by when? What is the follow-through here and who is responsible.

Staff can handle hard truths. What they cannot handle is being handed numbers with no direction and then being judged for not magically improving them.

A closing thought about digital leadership

I am not writing this from a place of perfection as I have sent messages too fast, shared the wrong link, and have built a deck late at night and hoped nobody noticed. That is all part of leadership life. The point is not to shame anyone but to notice what our habits communicate and what these cost other people.

Digital choices are rarely neutral, and send signals about our standards and our care. These reveal whether we are thinking about the people on the receiving end, especially the ones who have the least time and the most daily demands. That is why I keep returning to the same line: It shows up as you.

If people have to decode you, they cannot act on your requests. So lead with the ask/task, make links usable, design for phone-first access, proofread anything that represents the school, make slides readable, do not send data without a next step, and use AI to clarify, not inflate.

Our digital habits should make it easier to do the work, not harder. When we reduce friction in small ways, we protect time for what actually matters: better instruction, stronger relationships, and better support for students. That is not tech. That is leadership.

Watch the episode above or listen/download the audio below.

Despite being a self-proclaimed "technology dork," Marlon Styles Jr. is also an educator, an author, and an influencer who insists technology should never lead educational initiatives.

"I love immersive reality. I love virtual reality. It's cool. It's fantastic," he says. "But I need a purpose for that to show up inside of a classroom and have that technology really influence the kids' experience."

Marlon will be keynoting next month’s Tech & Learning Leadership Summit at NCCE 26 in Seattle, WA. During our conversation, I was able to pull some exclusive insights into what he has in store.

Marlon will propose something many leaders might find uncomfortable: breaking the habit of relying on the same "inner circles" to make strategic decisions. "We break the habit of engaging the same inner circles to make strategic decisions in our systems. Inner circles mean the same people show up to the table to make decisions," he explains. "What I'm proposing is that we really leverage expertise in a unique way and bring specific intentional expertise from our employee base to the table to help us engage in strategic decision-making."

Marlon also challenges another education buzzword: data-driven decision-making. "I'm no longer saying that we need to be data-driven decision-makers," he suggests. "I'm saying that we need to be really strategic about how we collect and interact with intelligence from across our system to better inform the kind of decisions that we might make."

Finally, Marlon advocates for what he calls "agentic AI" — artificial intelligence that acts as a partner in decision-making rather than just a productivity tool. "How might we uniquely engage agentic AI with a specific set of expertise that we've convened to help us really make better strategic decisions?"

• Tech & Learning Conversations with Kevin Hogan

You can watch this week's episode above or click/download on the audio-only version below.

While talking about BETT 2026 on Zoom is not half as much fun as in a pub or London Heathrow’s Terminal 5, it’s always great to get the skinny from players in the edtech field. And who better than Liz Crawford to lay out the details.

Unlike previous years when companies rushed to rebrand themselves as "AI companies," BETT 2026 featured more substantive discussions about practical integration. Says Liz: "AI was definitely a hot topic. It was everywhere as part of every conversation. But I think the conversations are getting a little bit more thoughtful about AI and how we support teaching and learning with AI, and keep some of the fundamentals like reading and math and obviously the teacher-student relationships intact."

The conference drew ministerial delegations from around the world, creating what Liz describes as a "high energy" atmosphere with "people speaking multiple languages, cultures," and booths "packed pretty much all day, every day, three people deep trying to get demos."

One notable difference from U.S.-centric conferences such as ISTE: LMS adoption patterns vary significantly by region. "I hosted some sessions in the booth and asked if the educators were using LMS as an example, and sometimes they weren't really," Liz observes. "So I think from that perspective, the U.S. is a little bit ahead on the LMS usage."

However, Kahoot is experiencing "viral growth" in markets including Germany, France, Indonesia, and Japan—driven not by top-down government mandates but by teacher adoption. "I think it's just driven by teacher adoption of tools that are a good user experience, that provide value, that impact learning outcomes," Liz explains.

Two other topics generating significant buzz at BETT: future-ready skills (formerly called "21st century skills") and formative assessment. The latter received particular attention, appearing in stage keynotes, concurrent sessions, and booth demonstrations.

Discussions also centered on how technology supports soft skill development and how edtech platforms can work together more seamlessly. "Partnerships is still a big conversation around amongst edtech tools and amongst the platforms that are used every day in education, and how do we work together to make sure that we're trying to be seamless and help educators connect the dots across all the platforms they're using," she says.

In the snippet below, Liz discusses the evolution of AI in education:

• Tech & Learning Conversations with Kevin Hogan

Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands as both a remarkable tool for efficiency and a complex legal and ethical minefield. As educators, we look at a future in which AI has the potential to act as an assistant—analyzing student data to create personalized learning paths and automating administrative minutiae. However, it is important to understand the "traps" that accompany these benefits. For schools and students, the intersection of AI and the law matters.

In my own research, I have discovered how implicit bias in AI outputs is influenced by the Internet ecosystem. Then there are hallucinations, such as the one that led me to park on a highway in Brooklyn. And AI slop? Regurgitated low-quality information – we can pick out the garbage someone shares in a lazy copy/paste content, but can our students? Deepfake bullying is on the rise, while English teachers ponder the challenges of AI plagiarism. And so on . . . .

As educators, our fundamental concern should be how legal implications play into all of this. Let’s unpack it in a practical way.

The Challenge of Algorithmic Bias

One of the most alarming ethical concerns is that AI is not a neutral arbiter of truth. While the technology itself is not inherently biased, the broad internet ecosystems it is trained on are, leading to "Algorithmic Discrimination."

A stark example of this is found in AI detection platforms. While often marketed to protect academic integrity, evidence has shown these tools are "near perfect" for native English speakers, yet falsely flag 61% of essays written by non-native speakers as AI-generated. For schools, relying blindly on such tools risks unfairly accusing multilingual learners of cheating, and highlights the need for good, old-fashioned analog interpretation by teachers rather than automated judgment.

Then there are my personal investigations during which I continue to see bias in prompt responses. Consider when I ask AI to show me a successful business person: The bias is glaring, typically generating images of middle-aged, thin, white males. The same holds true for high school athletes, for which the AI shows Black males. It is only when you insist on seeing diversity, both in gender and race and body type, that you begin to see realistic, balanced results.

Digital Citizenship and Behavioral Liability

The legal risks of AI extend to student conduct, particularly regarding bullying and the rise of deepfakes. Data suggests that nearly half of students and more than a third of teachers are aware of instances of school-related deepfakes.

The legal precedent is already apparent. In the 2024 New Jersey case K.W. and S.W. o/b/o A.W. v. BOE of the School District of the Chathams, a student was held responsible for using AI prompts to generate racially charged slurs. This ruling clarifies that hiding behind an algorithm does not absolve a student of liability. The federal Take It Down Act (2025) mandates that platforms remove non-consensual deepfakes within 48 hours, and introduces federal criminal penalties for those who share these. Schools must inform within their digital citizenship curriculums to ensure students understand the permanent risks of their online interactions.

Presenting on the topic of AI and the Law at FETC 2026, I was discussing a deepfake bullying incident when suddenly, a fire alarm sounded and all 10,000 in attendance had to evacuate the massive Orange County Convention Center. On my way down the escalator, two kind-faced teachers from a small rural town deep in Louisiana country approached me and remarked that it was their school from which the EdWeek article I had referenced had come. These teachers emphasized that while they were bound by FERPA restrictions of confidentiality, the media did NOT get the whole story right.

I could not have been more grateful for that fire alarm because they had illuminated such a significant point of emphasis to me: be critical of–in fact, don’t trust–everything you see online. Even from a reputable source such as EdWeek.

Deepfakes are one of the most profound issues with AI, for students and the adults who have also been victims. Leveraging the force of laws such as Take It Down and adopting policies reflecting the law can equip school communities with the best defense of provocateurs: fear of punishment.

Informing our communities about legal consequences and subsequent policies reinforcing these provides an inhibitor for most (not all). If we can reduce most issues because of this approach, isn’t it worth taking these proactive steps? The answer is obvious.

Redefining Academic Integrity

AI has fundamentally challenged traditional issues of plagiarism. Because generative models create unique content from existing materials, users do not "steal" work in the traditional sense. However, submitting AI-generated content remains a violation of school policy because it bypasses the true assessment of a student’s knowledge and schools must have electronic usage policies updated to reflect this.

Consider that this gray area has already led to litigation. In one instance, a parent in Massachusetts sued a school district after their child received a zero and detention for using AI on a project, claiming the tool was used only for research rather than writing. This reinforces the urgent need for clear, updated district policies that define the boundaries of "Fair Use" and AI assistance. Transparency tools such as AI Trust You, a free Chrome extension developed by Laguna Beach USD, also can help teachers and students be open and clear about AI use on assignments.

Of greater significance, education of the school community; families, teachers, and most importantly children is the true ethical goal necessary to avoid most instances of outright plagiarism and taking credit for work generated by AI.

Note, that I emphasize most, not all. Since the days of Socrates teaching in Ancient Greece, students have cheated because whenever there is assessment, there are those looking for short cuts.

Special Ed and the "Black Box"

In the realm of special education, AI presents a paradox. It can be a magnificent assistive technology, providing real-time text-to-speech and interactive tutoring that supports a student's Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). However, automated decision-making can be questionable. If an AI system monitors productivity without accounting for a student's legal accommodations—such as the need for frequent breaks—it may unfairly overlook those needs.

Educators must ensure that "smart" tools remain flexible enough to serve every learner. Most of this can be navigated through thoughtful prompts in an AI chatbot.

The "Human in the Loop"

To navigate these challenges, the U.S. Department of Education and legal experts advocate for a “human in the loop" approach. Before adopting AI tools, school leaders should ask critical questions:

• Does the system have inherent biases?
• Is student data being used to train third-party models?
• Are we protecting student privacy with tools that minimize data collection?

The processes for taking on AI legal implications are grounded in these questions, and as importantly, educating school communities, educators, parents, and students about proper use of AI. Likewise, enforcing consequences aided by legal protections such as the Take It Down Act are important ways to inform and inhibit bad actors.

The time to do all this is now; waiting and debating means children, minorities, and girls especially, will get hurt–an all too familiar pattern and a cycle that has to be broken as you finish reading this article.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or establish an attorney-client relationship; readers should consult with a qualified legal professional regarding their specific circumstances.

Every leader faces the same challenge: how do you make your team's work visible and valued at the highest levels of your organization? The answer lies not in presenting more data, but in weaving that data into compelling narratives that directly connect to what boards care about most: the organization's mission and strategic priorities.

The Power of Strategic Alignment

School boards and administrative teams don't remember statistics. They remember stories that illuminate progress toward goals they've committed to achieving, especially those that illustrate how the students are improving through your auspices. When advocating for library and IT programs, for example, don’t focus on the equipment or software but on what the students and teachers will be able to do now that they were not able to do previously.

The most effective advocates understand that every board has articulated priorities, whether that's closing achievement gaps, preparing students for college and career, advancing equity, or fostering innovation. Your task is to position your department's contributions within this existing framework, showing what you do and why it matters in the context of the district's strategic educational goals.

Finding Your Story in the Data

Begin by examining your department's metrics through a strategic lens. Raw numbers, website visits, training completions, tickets resolved, number of books checked out, etc., tell an incomplete story. The narrative emerges when you ask, “What change do these numbers represent, and how does that change advance our mission?”

Consider an instructional technology department that increased learning management system adoption from 45% to 92% of faculty. The data point alone is impressive, but the story becomes powerful when connected to strategic outcomes. If the board's strategic plan emphasizes "personalized learning experiences," that increased adoption translates into 15,000 students now accessing differentiated content, real-time feedback, and flexible learning pathways. That directly advances the district's equity and achievement goals.

For a library media center tracking resource usage and information literacy instruction, rather than simply reporting that digital resource access increased by 80%, frame this within the board's college and career readiness goals: "Our expanded digital library and embedded research instruction reached 3,200 students this year, with 89% demonstrating proficiency in evaluating source credibility. The improvement in this critical skill for academic success and informed citizenship directly supports our graduate profile."

Crafting Your Narrative Arc

Effective board presentations follow a narrative structure that creates emotional resonance while maintaining analytical rigor. Start with context that grounds your story in the organization's strategic landscape. What challenge or opportunity existed? Why did it matter to the mission?

Next, illuminate your department's response. This is where you integrate data, but always in service of the story. Show the progression: where you started, the interventions your team designed, and the measurable changes that resulted. Use concrete examples that humanize the numbers. If your library services team launched a maker space that served 800 students, share a brief story about a reluctant reader who discovered graphic novels through your new browsing displays and went on to check out 23 books that year, reigniting a love of reading that had dimmed.

The climax of your narrative demonstrates impact aligned with strategic priorities. This is where you explicitly connect your department's outcomes to the board's goals. Use their language. If the strategic plan mentions "closing achievement gaps," show how your instructional technology initiatives enable differentiated instruction at scale. If they prioritize "innovative learning environments," demonstrate how your library transformation created collaborative spaces where students develop critical thinking and creative engagement.

Making the Strategic Connection Explicit

Don't assume board members will automatically draw connections between your data and their priorities. Make the alignment explicit and direct. Consider creating a simple visual framework that shows the strategic goal, your department's contribution, and the measurable impact.

For example:

Board Priority: Prepare all students for post-secondary success.

Our Contribution: Implemented one-to-one device program with an embedded digital citizenship curriculum and expanded library database access.

Impact: 94% of seniors now demonstrate college-level research skills, up from 67%, and digital tool proficiency increased from 58% to 91%. This directly supported the goal of eliminating barriers to post-secondary readiness.

This approach transforms you from a department head requesting technology budgets or library materials into a strategic partner demonstrating return on investment in terms the board values most: student outcomes and achievement of educational goals.

Building Long-Term Visibility

Improving your department's identity with leadership isn't about a single presentation either. It is about consistently demonstrating strategic value. Create a rhythm of communication that keeps your contributions visible. Share monthly or quarterly updates that track progress on specific strategic metrics. Advocate for regular opportunities to present to the board to highlight accomplishments. Work with building principals to highlight how you have supported their goals as well. When organizational wins occur, proactively identify your department's enabling role.

Perhaps most importantly, invite board members into your work area or encourage them to participate in programs your department manages and observe your team in action. These experiences create advocates who understand your value firsthand.

The Transformation

When you master the art of wrapping data in a strategic narrative, something shifts; your department moves from being seen as a support function to being recognized as a strategic asset. Budget conversations then become easier because you have demonstrated clear connections between your resources and organizational priorities. Recruitment also improves because talented professionals want to join teams doing meaningful, visible work. Most importantly, your team gains the recognition and support they deserve for their contributions to the mission.

The data has always been there. The impact has always existed. Your task is to tell the story that makes both impossible to ignore.

Watch this week's conversation above or listen/download the audio only below.

Superintendent Tom Livezey of Oakridge Public Schools in Muskegon, Michigan, wanted to be heard. So when he discovered that nobody noticed when he stopped sending the district's printed quarterly newsletter, he began to implement a deliberate approach to communication.

His progress wasn't part of a grand strategic plan but rather a series of "course corrections" responding to parent needs and changing technology.

The key innovation was unifying staff communication around a single rostered platform that allows teachers to send messages, photos, and updates to entire classes or individual students while receiving responses—all translated into multiple languages. Previously, only the superintendent had access to sophisticated communication tools, while teachers used various free internet platforms, creating a fragmented experience for parents. The district now has approximately 1,000 TikTok followers and receives unsolicited praise from teachers and parents alike.

Tom's advice to other districts: focus on strategy, message, frequency, and listening rather than obsessing over which specific tool to use. Match solutions to actual problems rather than implementing technology for technology's sake.

In this snippet, Tom talks about unifying communications for parents.

In this snippet, Tom offers advice to other districts looking to simplify their communications strategy:

• Tech & Learning Conversations with Kevin Hogan

Quakertown Community School District is a diverse suburban district of 5,000 students 40 miles north of Philadelphia.

“We find that many generations of families have gone through our district,” says Superintendent Matthew Friedman. “As a long-time professional in education, that’s always a good sign that people like the school system. When I arrived, I listened to all the internal and external stakeholders to learn the strengths, the pain points, where we needed to grow. What I really wanted to focus on was life beyond the walls of the schools.”

For Friedman, who was recently recognized with an Innovative Leader Award at the Northeast Pre-NYSCATE Summit in Verona, NY, there was one important question to answer: What are kids going to do when they graduate?

“We have a mix of white-collar and blue-collar families and a separate technical high school with about 1,000 kids that feed in from three different districts,” he says. “A lot of our kids go into trades. We support two-year paths, four-year paths, trade school, workforce, military — all the different options. But we really had no dedicated exposure to STEM education at that elementary level.”

To start, Friedman helped design and implement an elementary computational thinking and design thinking course for K through 5.

“It gave the students an opportunity to be hands-on in their learning, to understand the computational thinking process and have exposure to STEM education at the younger level,” he says. “I always use the analogy from a leadership position of building a house. You can build the biggest house in the world, but if you don't have a strong foundation that house is going to collapse."

Friedman saw a lot of schools try to implement things from the top down. He wanted to try to do things from the bottom up, starting conversations in kindergarten to set kids up for success in high school by having K-8 CTE exposure. To do that, he wanted to have career conversations with a common career language K-12 and to take a dialogic approach using the RIASEC taxonomy of career interests.

Far from a one-off concept, RIASEC is now used by many universities such as U of Hawaii, Purdue, FSU, and Michigan State to help students determine prospective majors that speak to their true talents, interest and abilities.

“If you put in your RIASEC results, it will show you what majors align with your letters and what courses you could potentially take,” Friedman says. “It takes a lot of the guessing out and really helps to frame it for students.”

The 6 RIASEC Types to Guide Students

Friedman explains the RIASEC taxonomy:

• Realistic (The Doers): These people are often good at mechanical or athletic jobs (e.g., mechanics, engineers, farmers).
• Investigative (The Thinkers): These people like to watch, learn, analyze and solve problems (e.g., scientists, researchers, data analysts).
• Artistic (The Creators): These people like to work in unstructured situations where they can use their creativity (e.g., artists, musicians, writers, designers).
• Social (The Helpers): These people like to work with other people, rather than things (e.g., teachers, nurses, counselors).
• Enterprising (The Persuaders): These people like to work with others and enjoy persuading and performing.(e.g., managers, salespeople, entrepreneurs).
• Conventional (The Organizers): These people are very detail oriented, organized, and like to work with data (e.g., accountants, clerks, administrative assistants).

Some schools use simple questionnaires to ask students to consider their strengths, dislikes, talents and interests — making it clear there are no wrong answers, as seen here.

Deeper Conversations and Deeper Culture

Friedman has seen a positive change not only in the classroom but the greater school culture.

“We were talking about Martin Luther King Jr's birthday coming up and instead of very low-level factual information, we can integrate career conversations such as, ‘What letters do you think Dr. King would be? What letters are you? Find two or three in the room to have a conversation. What are the similarities between you and Dr. King? What are the differences? Why do you think he would be these letters? Does that align with your strengths and your interests, could you do something similar to what Dr. King did one day?’ It takes the conversation to a whole other level,” Friedman says.

Friedman explains how a third-grade Veterans Day classroom conversation he overheard discussing RIASEC letters in regard to an Army Ranger visitor in the classroom might have affected a student’s career path.

“Students really have to understand all six letters in order to understand where they fit in the framework,” he says. “Their letters could change daily, weekly, yearly. The letters you have in kindergarten are probably not the letters you have in 7th or 12th grade. But if you continue to think about your strengths and your interests, teachers can flexibly group students in classrooms based off of their dominant letter.”

The success stories that are most satisfying to Friedman are those involving helping a student find their own right future path. For example, one strong student admitted he was considering dropping out of school because he didn’t see a fit with what was happening in the classroom. Now an engineering major at a top school, he shared that after being introduced to RIASEC and career conversations using a common language, he realized that his strengths and interests actually had a pathway beyond K-12.

From a leadership perspective, Friedman always wants growth and achievement from his students. A common language is changing the culture of the program.

“We’ve had the kids say, ‘I'm having conversations with people I never thought I would talk to in school,’” he says. “That’s so great. It shifts the paradigm.”

The use of RIASEC also helped in a recent career and jobs fair.

“We’ve created different types of pathways students can take,” Friedman says. “They can take courses and get externships and job shadows and internships throughout high school with local businesses. Integrating Riasec into their decision-making process was invaluable at a recent college and career fair in our high school. We had 96 colleges, universities, businesses, military and trades. Six weeks before the fair, our college and career counselor contacted all 96 attendees. ‘This is the Riasec framework. We want you to list your top 10 majors or job roles with appropriate letters.’"

When students arrived at the fair, rather than wandering aimlessly, they could instantly target the best fit and have productive conversations about their future.

“It’s just such a helpful tool, at any age,” Friedman says. “When we introduced this to parents, a number of adults came up to me afterward and said, ‘I might rethink where I am in my life and my career.’"

The Tools They Use

• Google Gemini
• Google Gems
• Notebook LM
• Streamable Learning
• ClickView

In the rapidly evolving landscape of K-12 education, the role of a Technology Director often fluctuates between maintaining infrastructure and shaping pedagogy. For Eric Coronado, Director of Technology for Suffern Central School District in Rockland County in New York, who was recently awarded the Tech & Learning’s Innovative Leader Award at the Tech & Learning Northeast Summit, the mission is clear. While his responsibilities cover everything from cybersecurity to student devices—"If it has a plug, that's me," he jokes—his core philosophy is rooted in a much softer skill set: supporting people.

Coronado’s path to educational leadership was non-traditional. Like many in the tech sector, he began his career climbing the corporate ladder. A short-term leadership experiment in a school district, however, turned into a long-term calling.

"Once I was in K-12, I realized how meaningful the work was, completely different from corporate,” he says. “When you help schools succeed, you're helping the next generation and it's incredibly rewarding."

Now leading a diverse district with a growing multilingual population, Coronado is leveraging strategic partnerships and cutting-edge tools to bridge the gap between complex technology and student success.

AI Integration: Guidelines Over Rigid Policy

One of the most pressing challenges in modern districts is the rise of AI. Rather than shying away from it, SCSD has leaned into AI, particularly to support their expanding community of English as a New Language (ENL) learners.

Coronado and his team were early adopters of SchoolAI and MagicSchool, identifying these as powerful allies in bridging communication gaps. However, the implementation strategy was just as important as the tools themselves. The district avoided creating hard-and-fast policies that would inevitably become obsolete within weeks. Instead, they established flexible guidelines focused on responsible use.

"Our goal was never to replace learning but to actually support it," Coronado says. He highlights SchoolAI specifically for its ability to create "translation agents." These agents allow for robust language support while maintaining strict educational guardrails. "Students could poke at it and try to break it, but it always stayed educationally focused," he says.

Building the Next Generation of Cyber Defenders

A standout among SCSD’s initiatives is the launch of a three-year Cybersecurity Academy at the high school. This program was born out of a partnership with the League of Innovative Schools and Digital Promise, a nonprofit focused on closing the digital learning gap.

Through a small cohort selected by Digital Promise, Suffern was able to implement a curriculum that emphasizes a "Play, Learn, Perform” learning process. Students aren't just reading textbooks; they are engaging in real-world problem-solving, such as simulating ethical hacking.

“I'm really proud of the cybersecurity academy” Coronado says. “It gives students hands-on exposure in cybersecurity and it gives them a clear career pathway."

The program is designed with a tangible finish line: by the third year, students are prepared to take the CompTIA Security+ cybersecurity certification.

Modernizing the Classroom Experience

Beyond specialized programs, Coronado is focused on the daily instructional environment. The district recently undertook a rollout of Promethean interactive boards. For Coronado, this wasn't just a hardware upgrade; it was a shift in instructional design.

"We wanted to change how the teachers engage with the students," he says. The goal was to move away from static displays to collaborative environments in which mirroring screens and touch interaction are the norm.

To support teachers without overwhelming them, the district utilized a "reverse training" model using Promethean’s self-paced PD website, allowing educators to master the tools at their leisure.

Operational Efficiency and Vendor Philosophy

Managing the backend of a district’s technology is a massive logistical feat, particularly regarding device management. Following the pandemic, the district faced thousands of Chromebooks and the inevitable breakage that comes with 1:1 initiatives.

To streamline this, Coronado implemented Incident IQ, which modernized their help desk, allowing for better tracking, reporting, and budgeting for repairs. This choice reflects Coronado’s strict criteria for vendor partners: interoperability.

"If I'm looking for a tool, I don't want it to be just for Google, just for Microsoft. I want it to be everything," he says. He values vendors that offer proactive customer service—partners who reach out to him rather than waiting for a ticket to be filed.

Leadership Based on Trust

Ultimately, Coronado attributes the success at Suffern Central School District not to the software or the hardware, but to the culture. His advice for aspiring education leaders is to stay curious and prioritize relationships over technical specs.

“Innovation in education is not about flashy tools,” he says. “It's about collaboration and keeping students in the right direction."

The Tools They Use

• SchoolAI
• MagicSchool
• Promethean interactive boards
• Incident IQ

For many educators, the path to leadership is a calculated climb. For Jennifer Mazza, Director of STEM and Instructional Technology at Clarkstown Central School District, it was a series of fortunate accidents and "trial by fire" moments.

Mazza, a recent winner of Tech & Learning’s Innovative Leader Award, began her journey in 1999 in Michigan, where she intended to be a wildlife biologist. However, a chance encounter with a principal while applying to substitute teach led to a long-term position teaching biology, geometry, and civics. Decades later, a similar pivotal shift occurred. Mazza moved into administration during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and assumed her current role in September 2022; ChatGPT was released in November.

"It’s turned out to be mostly technology with a little bit of science," Mazza says of her role, noting that the release of generative AI "changed the whole nature of the position and everything that I was focused on."

Today, Mazza is leading a district of approximately 8,000 students through a technological evolution, focusing on student agency, community partnerships, and instructional integrity.

Scaling Innovation at Clarkstown

Clarkstown Central School District, located in Rockland County, New York, is a well-funded, suburban district comprising nine elementary schools, a large middle school, two high schools, and a therapeutic alternative school. With a small technology team consisting of herself and two facilitators, Mazza faces the challenge of implementing large-scale changes across a broad demographic.

Her strategy relies on small-group implementation and "The AI Roadshow." Tech facilitators visit elementary schools to meet with grade-level teams, grounding teachers in what AI tools are before they are introduced to students.

Mazza emphasizes that technology must serve instruction, not the other way around. "The goal of using the technology should be to take kids to places and opportunities and experiences that they couldn't have without that technology."

The AI Externship: A Reciprocal Model

Perhaps the most innovative initiative under Mazza’s leadership is the pilot AI Externship program. Recognizing that students often possess AI skills that surpass those of the average adult, Mazza saw an opportunity to change the traditional internship model.

"We really wanted to connect with our small business owners and our town government... and engage in a reciprocal relationship where instead of just sending a kid out to have an externship experience, we're actually giving them some agency to bring something to the table as well," Mazza says.

The program began with students earning AI certifications through Coursera. They were then placed in district departments and town government roles to create operations manuals and manage publicity using their new skills. The program is now expanding to include approximately 150 students across the county.

This initiative also connects to a broader career focus. One high school recently hosted a career fair organized by department chair Jess Flanigan, attracting professionals from American Express, the medical field, and finance to mentor students.

The Tech Stack: Tools and Partnerships

For district leaders curious about the specific tools powering Clarkstown’s innovation, Mazza offers a transparent look at their "tech stack." While the district has restricted ChatGPT, they actively encourage the use of Google’s Gemini and NotebookLM, particularly noting the latter's success in special education departments.

Video and content creation are also central to the district's strategy. "We train widely on Canva and WeVideo," Mazza notes. "We think it is really important to empower a student to share their voice in a world where technology is the platform for getting your voice out there."

Mazza also highlights the importance of strong vendor relationships for student safety. The district uses Brisk, an AI-powered content creation and feedback tool. Mazza praises Brisk for being responsive to safety concerns and connecting the district directly with product engineers.

"I can't monitor 17 different tools at the same time," Mazza says. "Building those vendor relationships is really important because this is new work and the one place that we can go wrong is related to student safety."

Leading Through "Natural Selection"

Mazza draws on her roots as a biology teacher when offering advice to other leaders hesitant to embrace AI. She views the current educational landscape through the lens of evolution.

"The environment has changed very significantly," she says. "What is going to work in one place may not work in another place. And so right now there's no excuse not to try because you can't really get it wrong. You can only provide more opportunities for kids."

By focusing on empowering new teachers through the district's "New Professionals Institute" and giving students a seat at the table through externships, Mazza is turning potential obstacles into opportunities.

"To see your teachers feel empowered and optimistic about their profession, it makes you feel good about doing the work," she says.

Key Takeaways for Aspiring Leaders

Mazza offers advice for aspiring edtech leaders.

• Embrace the "Accidental" Path: You don’t need a perfect roadmap to lead. Mazza’s career was defined by stepping up during "trial by fire" moments, from her first teaching job to navigating COVID-19 and the arrival of Generative AI.
• Prioritize Instruction Over Tech: Technology is a vehicle, not the destination. If a lesson works better without a screen, do it without the screen. Use tech only when it amplifies the experience or takes students somewhere new.
• Flip the Internship Model: Don’t just send students to learn from adults; acknowledge that students are often the experts in AI. Create "reciprocal relationships" in which students provide value to local businesses and government offices while gaining work experience.
• Vet Your Vendors: You cannot monitor every update on every platform. Build relationships with responsive partners who are willing to put engineers on the phone to discuss student safety.
• Start with Central Office: If you are hesitant to reach out to external companies, start your pilot programs within your own district office. Plenty of work needs to be done internally that can benefit from student tech expertise.

The Tools They Use

• Brisk
• Canva
• ChatGPT
• Coursera
• Gemini (Google)
• NotebookLM (Google)
• Prodigy
• WeVideo

As educators, we frequently encounter challenging situations, often involving aggressive or defensive responses that feel like a verbal assault.

I learned this firsthand as a new administrator when a student was seated in the office for detention and another child walked up, knocked on the window, and made fun of him. I redirected the heckler, and later that night I was stunned at what happened: the parent of the heckler wrote a letter to the superintendent, complaining that I had verbally assaulted his son and demanded I be fired; I was clearly unfit to work with children.

After thousands of encounters with difficult people, I developed microstrategies, which are quick, practical, and immediately impactful solutions that educators and leaders can use to manage daily interactions and challenges, saving time and keeping the focus on students.

The ability to adapt and successfully navigate hostile people demands recognizing how to manage and understand them. The key is to never match a difficult person’s aggressiveness, no matter how wrong they are, or how defensive you feel. Instead, always keep a steady eye on objectivity.

Understanding and Countering Blame Displacement

Blame displacement happens when people deflect responsibility for problems or failures onto others, resulting in avoidance rather than accountability. This deflection often stems from ego, which Ryan Holiday characterizes in Ego Is the Enemy, as a deep-seated desire to protect self-image and avoid the discomfort of perceived shortcomings. This ego-driven defensiveness manifests as subtle manipulations to offload responsibilities and maintain a perception of blamelessness and accusations.

To counter this, educators should deploy methods such as Todd Whitaker's approach on Shifting the Monkey. Effective leaders must consistently and respectfully deflect "monkeys" (responsibilities, problems, and complaints) back to their rightful owners to protect good employees and kids, and maintain an organization’s focus on student success.

For example, when a parent attempts to displace blame for their child's struggles on educators trying to help, strategic responses to recognize this transfer allows us to skillfully return the monkey back to where it belongs, through skillful redirection. A strategic redirection might be: “I've provided the resources and guidance and now I'd like to hear what strategies you believe would be most effective in helping your child meet these goals.”

Displacing blame perpetuates confusion and misunderstanding for children and that’s when kids lose. School leaders have to manage the monkeys, so students don't have to and win.

The 90/10 Rule

While educators experience disproportionate and aggressive responses, it's important to maintain perspective. Most families I encounter have a trusting and reasonable response to our management system for student conduct and development, which I refer to as the 90/10 Rule (or "rule of nines"): 90% of people are decent, understanding, and reasonable in our shared encounters, yet the difficult and exasperating 10% approach concerns with aggression, defensiveness, and insult and and occupy an inordinate majority of time and resources.

This small, significant minority makes themselves well known, having made the cashier at Target cry, insulted the security officer, etc. While challenging and even hostile, they are often doing the best that they can. We must implement strategies to manage our responses to them, not to avoid them.

Strategy Shifting and Taking the Higher Ground

Effectively countering blame displacement requires both a procedural approach to shift ownership and a conscious, objective alternative redirection to the ego-driven narrative fueling it. We must always take the higher ground, keeping in mind our most important role: how we are helping their child develop and thrive, serving as a role model for our students and them.

When a difficult person attacks, accountability is confronted by recentering the dialogue and reminding them that civility comes first for the sake of the child. A powerful redirection I use is: “I will never speak to you or your child like that and I expect the same in return.” This often shocks parents back into reality.

Clearly communicate expectations, focus on collaborative problem-solving that includes the difficult person’s role, and consistently reinforce that while the school plays a vital part, the parent's collaboration is crucial in student success. By refusing to accept displaced blame, educators protect their time and energy, allowing them to focus on supporting students in ways that are truly within our professional landscape.

The parent who demanded I be fired long ago eventually came to me (three years later), thanking me for my patience and understanding. He acknowledged his own shortcomings, realizing that I was not "after" his son, as he instinctively assumed. This was a strangely liberating and unexpected turnaround.

While most blame-displacers will not come around as he did, some will and that is the promise I offer. It has remained my true reward, because a child can see the other side, not a combative educator validating their parent’s irrational reaction, but a civil even-handed approach to their success.