Guidance for the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Adams 12 Five Star Schools

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) is computer programming that learns and adapts, with systems taught to mimic intelligent human behaviors.

• Machine learning (ML) is a subset of AI.  It is the technique that allows machines to learn autonomously from data. Think of it as teaching a computer to be creative based on examples it has seen.

• Large language models (LLMs) are machine learning models that can understand, predict, and generate human language.

• Generative AI (gen AI) refers to the use of AI to create new content, like text, images, music, audio, code, and videos. This includes tools such as Gemini, Copilot, ChatGPT, Mid-Journey, and Dall-E.

The following principles guide the appropriate, responsible, and safe use of AI and address current and future educational goals, teacher and student agency, academic integrity, and security. We commit to adopting internal procedures to operationalize each principle.

1. Vision for Teaching & Learning: We use AI to enhance student access to relevant grade level learning experiences, positioning students to pursue the future of their choosing.

2. Digital Safety & Responsible Use: We commit to using AI responsibly in ways that protect student privacy, promote academic honesty, and support student safety and well-being. We will follow existing policies and will not share personally identifiable information with consumer-based AI systems.

3. AI Literacy for Staff & Students: We educate our staff and students on how to use AI safely and effectively, when to use it, and how it works. We will support staff in adapting their work as AI tools and access to them evolves.

4. Educational Equity & Opportunity: We explore the opportunities of AI while addressing its risks. We will work to minimize harms such as misinformation, bias, ethics, and inequitable access, so that every student receives what they need to develop their full academic and social potential.

5. Accountability of Application: People are responsible for decisions when they use AI. Students and staff will critically evaluate AI-generated information, maintain ownership of all decisions, and be transparent about when and how AI tools are used. 

6. Innovation & Oversight: We encourage responsible AI experimentation to improve district operations, teaching, and learning. We commit to regular reviews and updates of our tools, policies, procedures, and practices.

Adams 12 Five Star Schools recognizes that responsible uses of AI will vary depending on the context. It’s important for staff to be clear on if, when, and how AI tools will be used. 

• Staff may experiment with AI to find ways to improve operations, encourage creative problem-solving, and support forward-thinking practices.
• Staff and students should disclose and explain their use of AI when it meaningfully contributes to academic or professional work for which authorship or originality matters. Disclosure should describe how AI contributed to the creation, development, or completion of the work. When appropriate, students may also formally cite their use of an AI system using one of the following resources:
  • MLA Style - Generative AI 
  • APA Style - Generative AI

Visit Adams 12 Citing AI Resources for more information. 

• Tools selected must be approved for use to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations regarding data security and privacy. Staff must check the Approved Technology List for the most current list of approved tools and apps. Appropriate AI use should be guided by the specific parameters and objectives defined for an activity. 
• Always review and evaluate the impact of using AI tools. Staff and students should never rely solely on AI-generated content without review.
   

Student Learning

• Aiding Creativity: Students can harness generative AI to spark creativity across diverse subjects, including writing, visual arts, and music composition.
• Collaboration: Generative AI can act as a learning partner that prompts critical thinking, provides instant feedback, and helps generate ideas rather than simply giving away answers.
• World Language Support: AI can offer students real-time translation, personalized language exercises, and interactive dialogue simulations. 
• Learning Resources and Review: AI can serve as an interactive learning tool, generating personalized study materials, practice quizzes, and visual aids, while helping students structure their thoughts and review key concepts.
• Academic Support: AI technologies have the potential to assist teachers with providing timely and personalized support. AI-powered tools may answer questions, help with homework, and supplement classroom instruction. 

Teacher Support

• Standards Analysis and Clarity of Grade-Level Instruction: AI can support educators by unpacking standards and providing examples of learning trajectories and learning intentions. These materials can be used as a third point of reference for collaborative planning and data-informed instructional decision making. AI can also generate lesson plan shells that teachers can use as the starting point for rich lessons aligned to grade-level learning goals. 
• Assessment Design and Analysis: In addition to enhancing assessment design by creating questions and providing standardized feedback on common mistakes, AI can create diagnostic assessments to identify gaps in knowledge or skills and enable rich performance assessments in curricular areas that lack these supports. AI-created assessments can assist teachers with data-informed decision making and instruction with analysis of data and trends. Teachers are ultimately responsible for evaluation, feedback, and grading, and therefore must critically evaluate all AI-generated feedback and grades for both formative and summative assessments to ensure accuracy, fairness, and alignment with learning objectives. 
• Content Development and Enhancement for Differentiation: AI can assist educators by differentiating curricula, suggesting lesson plans, generating diagrams and charts, and customizing independent practice based on student needs and proficiency levels. Teachers should critically evaluate the materials produced by AI to ensure equitable access to grade-level standards for every student.
• Continuous Professional Development: AI can guide educators by recommending teaching and learning strategies based on student needs, personalizing professional development to teachers’ needs and interests, suggesting collaborative projects between subjects or teachers, and offering simulation-based training scenarios. 
• Research and Resource Compilation: AI can help educators by recommending books or articles relevant to a lesson and updating teachers on teaching techniques, research, and methods. Teachers are responsible for ensuring resources suggested by AI are high-quality instructional materials, aligned to grade-level standards. 
   

School Management and Operations

• Communications: AI tools can help draft and refine routine communications within the school community, deploy chatbots using approved AI tools for low-stakes inquiries, and provide instant, live language translation. Please reach out to your executive director/department leadership and the communications team for help with crisis communications. 
• Operational Efficiency: Staff can use AI tools to support school operations and streamline administrative processes, including scheduling courses, automating inventory management, increasing energy savings, and generating performance reports.

As we work to realize the benefits of AI in education, we also recognize that risks must be addressed. Below are the prohibited uses of AI tools and the measures we will take to mitigate the associated risks. 

Student Learning

• Bullying/harassment: Using AI tools to manipulate media to impersonate others for bullying, harassment, or any form of intimidation is strictly prohibited. All users are expected to employ these tools solely for educational purposes, upholding values of respect, inclusivity, and academic integrity at all times.

• Overreliance: Dependence on AI tools can decrease human discretion and have a negative impact on learning. Teachers will clarify if, when, and how AI tools should be used in their classrooms, and teachers and students are expected to review outputs generated by AI before use.

• Academic Dishonesty: Students should not copy from any source, including generative AI, without prior teacher approval and adequate citation. Students should not submit AI-generated work as their original work. Students will be taught how to properly cite or acknowledge the use of AI where applicable. Teachers will be clear about when and how AI tools may be used to complete assignments and restructure assignments to reduce opportunities for academic dishonesty. Existing procedures related to potential violations of our Academic Integrity Policy will continue to be applied. 

• Unequal access: If an assignment permits the use of AI tools, the tools will be made available to all students, considering that some may already have access to such resources outside of school.

Teacher Support

• Discrimination and Societal Bias: AI systems will not be used in any way that discriminate against students based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, disability, or any other protected characteristic. Educators must be accountable and responsible for the thoughtful application of AI technology, and humans will review all AI-generated outputs before use, including but not limited to grades, lesson plans, disciplinary actions, IEPs, etc. AI tools trained on human data will inherently reflect societal biases in the data. Risks include reinforcing stereotypes, recommending inappropriate educational interventions, or making discriminatory evaluations, such as falsely reporting academic dishonesty by multilingual learners. It’s important for staff and students to understand the origin and implications of societal bias in AI.  

• Diminishing student and teacher agency and accountability: While generative AI presents useful assistance to amplify teachers' capabilities and reduce teacher workload, these technologies will not be used to supplant the role of human educators in instructing and nurturing students. We want to avoid scenarios wherein “teachers use AI to design assignments, students prompt AI to complete the assignment, and teachers prompt AI to grade it…This could be the worst case scenario for AI use in schools.” The core practices of teaching, mentoring, assessing, and inspiring learners will remain the teacher's responsibility in the classroom. AI is a tool to augment human judgment, not replace it. Teachers and staff must review and critically reflect on all AI-generated content before use, thereby keeping “humans in the loop.” 

• Privacy concerns: AI tools will not be used to monitor classrooms for accountability purposes, such as analyzing teacher-student interactions or tracking teacher movements, which can infringe on students’ and teachers' privacy rights and create a surveillance culture.

• Copyright infringement: Use caution when uploading published work (which can include  students’ work) into AI as this can be considered a form of copyright infringement. 

School Management and Operations

• Compromising Privacy: We will not use AI in ways that compromise staff or student privacy or lead to unauthorized data collection, as this violates privacy laws and our system’s ethical principles. See the Security, Privacy, and Safety section below for more information. 
• Noncompliance with Existing Policies: We will evaluate AI tools for compliance with all relevant policies and regulations, such as privacy laws and ethical principles. AI tools will be required to detail if/how personal information is used to ensure that personal data remains confidential and isn't misused. 
• Noncompliance with Law: We will not use AI for Automated Decision Making unless advance written permission is provided by the Superintendent or designee and the use complies with state and federal law. For example, see Colorado Senate Bill 26-189 and the related regulations.  

While it is necessary to address academic dishonesty and other risks to academic integrity, we will use AI to advance the fundamental values of academic integrity - honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. 

An AI Acceptable Use Scale is an important part of building common understanding, clear expectations, and common language around the use of AI by students. A scale such as this can help build the common understanding and language to ensure fair and equitable treatment of issues of suspected academic dishonesty or cheating with AI in the K12 setting. Below is an example of an AI acceptable use scale (original source). 

Please note, as of 8.31.26, the approved stand-alone generative AI platforms for students are MagicSchool (K-12) and Gemini Notebook (9-12 only). However, numerous approved tools have built in AI capability. Staff can check the Approved Technology List for the most current list of approved tools and apps. 

A Generative AI Use Scale: Can I Use AI on This Assignment?

Additional Recommendations for Advancing Academic Integrity

• Teachers might allow the limited use of generative AI on specific assignments or parts of assignments and explain why they do not allow its use in other assignments. 

• Staff is responsible for clearly communicating the expectations related to student use of AI with students and families.

• Staff should explore approved AI platforms to understand what these platforms can and can't do. For example, teachers should test planned questions/assignments in an AI platform and evaluate the results.

• Teachers should create milestones and checkpoints in major assignments at key points in the process. For example, annotated bibliography, thesis statement, problem statement, multiple drafts with teacher provided feedback, outlines, project plans, research notes, multiple essay drafts, etc. Scaffolding the creation of assignments helps learners plan and chunk work while making the use of AI enhancements unnecessary.  

• Encourage accountability through peer editing, group assignments and multiple drafts.

• Incorporate formative assessments with actionable feedback at multiple points. Set expectations that peer-, teacher-, and self-feedback is incorporated into future drafts and final products. Evaluate student work in relation to how well they have incorporated feedback provided.

• Augment essays, reports, and project assignments with presentations or performance elements. This will require learners to explain their work and answer questions in real-time. 

• Teachers will not solely use technologies that purport to identify the use of generative AI to detect cheating and academic dishonesty, as their accuracy is questionable. AI detection tools have a high false-positive rate, flagging things as AI written that are not. For example, they are also more likely to incorrectly flag writing by multilingual users as AI-generated. Educators should use a body of evidence and diverse assessment methods to determine cases of academic dishonesty.

• Consider alternative assessments, including AI-resistant prompts. Suggestions include case study analysis, connections to personal experiences, discussing an essay in a conference format, in-class written assessments, podcasts, game creation, and more. 

• Become familiar with your course and/or school’s academic honesty policy and consider how it may apply to how students use AI to support their learning in your class. 

• As an educator, model best practices using AI which include citing when AI has been utilized. 

For more resources on adjusting teaching and learning to uphold academic integrity:

• AI Detection Tools Falsely Accuse International Students of Cheating from The Markup
• Detecting AI May Be Impossible. That’s a Big Problem For Teachers from TRAILS
• No, AI Detection Won’t Solve Cheating from EducationWeek
• Combating Academic Dishonesty from the University of Chicago
• Promoting Academic Integrity in your Course from Cornell University
• Strategies for Teaching Well When Students Have Access to Artificial Intelligence (AI) Generation Tools from George Mason University

We will implement reasonable security measures to secure AI technologies against unauthorized access and misuse. All AI systems deployed within the district will be evaluated for compliance with relevant laws and regulations, including those related to data protection, privacy, and students’ online safety.  

Staff and students may only enter personally identifiable information (PII), student photos, or videos into district-approved AI tools that have active Data Privacy Agreements (DPAs), such as Gemini. If there is any uncertainty regarding whether a district-approved AI tool has an active DPA, no PII should be entered. Even when using district-approved AI tools, it is best practice to remove or generalize identifying details. For example, instead of including a student’s name or specific situation, describe the work or scenario in a way that cannot be traced back to an individual. Additionally, confidential or sensitive information must never be entered into any AI tool, regardless of district approval.

District Policy 5300 defines "Student personally identifiable information" or "student PII" as information that, alone or in combination, personally identifies an individual student or the student's parent or family, and that is collected, maintained, generated, or inferred by the district, either directly or through a school service, or by a school service contract provider or school service on-demand provider.” 

Examples of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and personal data include (but are not limited to):

• Name (first and/or last)
• Birthdate
• Grade level (when combined with other identifying details)
• Email address
• Home address
• Student or staff ID numbers
• Student photos or videos

Examples of sensitive or confidential information include (but are not limited to):

• Discipline or behavioral records
• Performance evaluations
• Grades or academic performance tied to an identifiable individual
• Special education status (IEPs/504 plans)
• Health or medical information
• Counseling or mental health information
• Login credentials or passwords

This guidance will be reviewed periodically (best practice is annually, or as needed), to ensure it continues to meet the district’s needs and complies with changes in laws, regulations, and technology. We welcome feedback on this guidance and its effectiveness as AI usage evolves.

Because AI is an emerging technology and is changing rapidly, as are laws and rules governing its use, this is a living document and it will be updated as needed to reflect changes that take place in this very fluid environment. There are many exciting use cases on the horizon, and as new use cases are evaluated and found safe and effective for use in education, we will add them to this document.