Thursday, October 1, 2026
Amid the rise of artificial intelligence and concerns surrounding its use, North Shore School District is preparing to begin instruction on understanding AI, its appropriate use and safety.
The district formed a task force to manage AI use in its schools. Led by Superintendent Chris Zublionis, Director of Technology Elliot Kaye and Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Carol Ann Smyth, the task force is developing guidelines that focus on student wellbeing and learning.
North Shore also has a technology committee that includes parents, administrators and faculty. The AI task force sprouted from there. Kaye noted the speed with which AI is advancing and being integrated into programs as a reason for the task force’s development.
With roughly 20 faculty members and one student on the task force, it is still in its early stages. Zublionis said the team is moving toward implementing the instructional framework. Teachers account for most of the task force’s members.
“They are the practitioners,” Zublionis said. “They have the day-to-day experience, and they’re seeing the impact of AI directly, so their voice is critical.”
The framework will include guidelines for students and staff regarding AI use. Included in the instruction will be “dos and don’ts” and facts vs. myths about AI as well as checklists to steer appropriate use.
Kaye said a goal is to have teachers become more comfortable with AI and understand how it works in their lives and their students’ in order to better guide students.
Among the focuses of the framework and policy named by Zublionis and Kaye are academic integrity, student data privacy, safety, appropriate AI use and college and career readiness.
“Our overarching belief on this is that, yes, we need to do the work with AI,” Zublionis said. “We need to teach, students need to become comfortable with prompting, with the technology, but going into the world, students need to be learners.”
Kaye pointed out that AI is becoming increasingly prevalent and cannot be ignored. According to research conducted by College Board, 84% of high school students in the United States reported using generative AI for schoolwork as of May 2025.
“It’s impossible to imagine an AI-proof industry at this point that won’t have some kind of caveat that you have to think about,” he said. “which is why we don’t want to necessarily discourage and be doomerous about this.”
He added that encouraging AI usage only goes as far as guiding students in understanding how to use it appropriately, so they are not at a disadvantage.
A year-long study by the Center for Universal Education at Brookings found some benefits to AI in school such as aiding teachers in lesson planning and making education more accessible for some students. However, the center concluded that the developmental risks of AI still outweigh the benefits. Zublionis said that there is a certain “promise” of AI and that it can be used in beneficial ways.
“AI offers a possibility of accessibility for differentiating instruction for students with disabilities, for English language learners,” he explained. “But for all students, it could be a powerful teaching tool, and it’s also powerful learning tool.”
Companies like Google and Meta have integrated AI tools into their services. While Google allows users to opt out of using its Gemini AI program in Gmail, Meta does not offer an opt-out for users living in the United States. Meta will be able to train its generative AI on user data starting in June.
Kaye noted that several companies are integrating AI, framing it as a helpful tool, without an opt-out. He described this phenomenon as “the ultimate ‘trust me, bro’.”
“None of these companies, none of these products, are thinking in student terms,” Kaye said. “They’re thinking in market terms. They’re thinking in shareholder terms. They’re thinking (of) being the first to ship a product and (being) the leader in a particular technology or sector.”
He added that part of the challenge with this easy access to AI is that students may be looking to use AI to save time, so the district must teach them which tasks are appropriate for AI use versus which are not.
Academic integrity and chatbots were other concerns raised by Zublionis and Kaye. Regarding academic integrity, Zublionis said determining ownership of work after prompting an AI, such as ChatGPT, for assistance may be an issue.
“It’s hard for an adult, much less a high school student, to decipher, ‘okay, is that mine? Or is that AI?’” he said. “And so, it can be very unclear in terms of the originality of the authorship of things when you prompt it.”
Safety and data privacy come into play with the use of AI chatbots. Kaye said that parasocial relationships with chatbots are a concern because people seek relationships and chatbots see users as customers. He added that bots may continue engaging users so that they keep conversing with the program.
“Adults can be just as susceptible to this as kids,” Kaye said. “And so, we want to work on what it means to protect your privacy, what it means to speak to a trusted adult versus a chatbot, what it means to share something online, who you’re sharing it with, why are you sharing this?”
The task force is constructing the framework for students and staff. It will not ban AI use. According to Kaye, district policy surrounding AI will be broad but not vague in order to anticipate and accommodate changes in the technology and programs.
Although there is only one high school student on the task force, Zublionis and Kaye agreed that they want to involve more in the future.
“I need a wide swath of opinions from different students,” Kaye said. “from different backgrounds, different mindsets of how they approach their education.
