The school board of New Haven, Connecticut, adopted Tuesday a new policy on artificial intelligence (AI) designed to help students and teachers without the risk of plagiarism.
“It’s here. We have to embrace it,” assistant superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans said when she presented the draft policy.
AI will “support but not substitute” teachers and learning, she added.
Redd-Hannans argued New Haven Public Schools students and teachers should only use AI when it has been district-vetted and is “in alignment with our privacy and security guidelines.”
New Haven Public Schools has already begun implementing the policy, rolling out AI tools Gemini Pro and NotebookLM for administrators. These programs will not be available for teachers until they have been trained in the new district policy, and students will not have access to them until a dedicated AI security and monitoring platform is in place.
The policy received unanimous approval on Tuesday.
“These advanced tools will enhance efficiency in curriculum planning, policy review, and day-to-day operations, while allowing staff to streamline processes and focus more on supporting teachers and students,” Redd-Hannans and New Haven Chief Technology Officer Michael Simeone said in a statement on Tuesday.
“These tools are designed to help staff work smarter, communicate more clearly, and make data-informed decisions that benefit the entire school community,” the statement continued.
The policy separates AI use into staff and student cases, with different privileges for each.
Staff may use AI to generate ideas or prompts for lesson design, to assist with rubric creation and grading, to facilitate research and communications, and to generate constructive feedback for students. They are also encouraged to give students assignments that challenge them to use AI, in order to develop their “higher-level thinking.” The policy stipulates that staff are responsible for ensuring all students have equal access to AI tools.
Students may similarly use AI to generate ideas and help facilitate research, as well as use it to help make study guides, to enhance design for class projects, to organize academic planning and time allocation, and to create art, music, and design elements. Students must cite AI-generated content appropriately, and they will learn how to identify potential bias and verify information from AI.
All New Haven Public Schools AI users are prohibited from using it to plagiarize, with a student submitting AI-generated content presented as being original work considered an example of academic dishonesty. It is also prohibited to use AI to generate misinformation, to use AI tools outside of those provided by New Haven Public Schools, and to use AI to create discriminatory content that goes against district policies related to equity, inclusion, and respectful communication.
While the board voted unanimously to adopt the policy, some commenters online disagree with their decision. One commenter on a New Haven Independent article on the topic, TeachersUnionStrong, said they were concerned with teachers inputting sensitive or private information into an AI system in violation of FERPA guidelines. This information could include student diagnoses, accommodations, and incident history all being added to Gemini’s database.
Several other commenters claimed the policy would lead to students thinking less independently and that the cost of implementing Gemini would be higher than the benefit.
A recent study from MIT’s Media Lab suggested AI use can erode critical thinking skills. Researchers compared participants’ brain activity when writing essays with and without ChatGPT assistance and found that higher use of ChatGPT erodes parts of the brain associated with critical thinking. Though the study had a small sample size and has not yet been peer-reviewed, its authors felt it was urgently important to release the findings to elevate concerns about AI use.
Main author Nataliya Kosmyna said AI use for younger users is especially harmful, noting that “developing brains are at the highest risk.”
