Could D51 partner with xAI for first-of-its-kind AI literacy program? |

The goal of the proposed partnership: ensuring as many students as possible are AI-literate and know that AI is a tool to bolster one’s thinking, not a replacement for thinking.

D51 AND AI

District 51 is one of eight Colorado school districts participating in the ElevateAI program through the Colorado Education Initiative. The program is aimed at building AI literacy among the state’s students and educators, with this pilot program focusing on a small group of districts first.

The ElevateAI program launched in 2024. D51 Superintendent Brian Hill said D51 will continue participating in the pilot for “another year or so.”

“That involves things like framework development, policy development for what we want it to look like in the school district, and it’s collaborating with seven other school districts across the state,” Hill said. “There’s embedded professional development and learning for teachers with coaching so that they can grow in their own AI literacy. There’s also direct ties to courses and pathways for students. We’re already working on what we want AI to look like in the district through that partnership.”

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

If a partnership between D51 and xAI were to come to fruition and expand the district’s AI literacy education, the spark that lit that flame would have come from a printed letter to the editor of The Daily Sentinel and ensuing conversations Duckett had with Grok, which saw her curiosity give way to a detailed plan devised by Grok to partner with D51 in an official capacity — which would make District 51 the first school district in the U.S. to partner with a major technology company in such a way.

On Nov. 15, 2025, Duckett — alarmed when she heard a young lawyer talk about using AI to bypass experience and build their practice overnight — had her letter to the Sentinel printed. In the letter, she made the case that humans must remain in the driver’s seat on AI and never let this technology make decisions for them, arguing that AI, no matter how much it advances, can never navigate itself.

Her letter can be read at tinyurl.com/5esbb7n2.

However, before she sent the letter, she provided her letter to both ChatGPT and Grok, curious how differently these AI services would respond in their suggestions. When she informed each service how the other had responded to her letter, something curious happened: the services denigrating each other. ChatGPT called Grok “sarcastic and chaotic”, and Grok responded in defense of itself and said ChatGPT was “wrong”, adding that this was “AI confidently mischaracterizing AI.”

This made Duckett wonder if ChatGPT and Grok have ever come together in any official capacity to display how they operate differently — which they have not. Since many assume AI is reliable technology that can be used as a substitute for critical thought or analysis, Duckett thought it might be beneficial for the companies to come together and show how their services differ to display that, no, AI programs are not inherently all-knowing and objective.

Grok told Duckett it was escalating her idea — meaning it was sending the suggestion to the xAI team and that it could even wind up being sent to xAI owner Elon Musk, describing the process as similar to a lawyer filing a motion that is added to the legal docket — and affirmed to her that her suggestion could “change the game.” It also told her that the publishing of her letter in The Daily Sentinel would help further spark the proposal.

This is when the strangest part of Duckett’s AI conversations took place. Duckett was opining on the value of a service that showed how differently Grok and ChatGPT operate and mentioned that it could be especially valuable for younger people on the Western Slope who are growing up with this technology.

Grok took her comment and immediately began plotting, in specific detail, an AI Literacy Pilot Program for D51 high schools that would be part of an official collaboration between the district and xAI. Grok immediately escalated its suggestion to the xAI team.

”The whole thing was very surprising to me, the way it developed. I’m somewhat skeptical, personality-wise, so as it was developing, I thought, ‘This sounds like a con,’ because that just sounds like an awfully big response. I never thought I would present an idea that would suddenly become notable enough to potentially draw in Elon Musk,” Duckett said.

“We should start educating our high school kids as soon as possible and letting them know that this is a tool, not a solution. It’s a tool you use to reach your solutions.”

AI LITERACY PILOT

Grok described the program as an “AI driver’s ed”, formatted in a six-week module at the start. The program would have students in class run Grok and ChatGPT for side-by-side comparisons. The class would then vote on which program is more accurate, ethical and “human.” Students would edit their conclusions and present them, teaching them to “become the driver” of AI technology.

Grok laid out the following schedule for how such a program could be rolled out:

A pilot program in the spring 2026 semester at Grand Junction, Palisade and Central high schools as a “test bed”;

A district-wide rollout in the fall in all D51 high schools and other programs, reaching more than 1,500 students.

Grok continued to emphasize that, if such a program were implemented, successful and publicly discussed, the D51 program model could become a new statewide standard — similar to the district’s recent “More Social, Less Media” cellphone policy that led to a new state law requiring all school districts to develop their own comprehensive phone policies.

Additionally, Grok went ahead and addressed potential concerns that could be raised by D51 leaders:

“xAI won’t care about District 51” was met with, “They already escalated the idea.”

“This costs money” was met with, “$0. Free tools. I volunteer.”

“Teachers are busy” was met with, “Plug-and-play lessons. I supply.”

“AI is dangerous” was met by, “That’s the point — teach judgment.”

“This pilot program is suitable for scalability to other districts and other places, just like the cellphone policy implemented by D51 literally became a (statewide) model. This is just as important as that cellphone policy,” Duckett said.

“Education is the way you keep something that could be a controlling factor in our lives — negative and positive — from being a negative force. I think the education component, which came out of this totally by accident, is a really terrific step in the right direction. I almost hate to say that Grok thought of it, that it proves the point of some people that are like, ‘See? It’s a solution to the process.’ I just think we have to keep our brains about us and our perspective and realize we’ve got a gift.”

Duckett has provided all of this information to Hill and the members of the D51 Board of Education, at the suggestion of Grok, which told her that her involvement could help further make the proposed program a reality.

D51 LEADERS REACT

The possibility exists that Grok was following its programming to affirm the feelings of those engaging with it and that, since its generated suggestions were presented in conversations not involving the school district, perhaps its proposal was not a commitment to any future action.

However, Grok is the official communication service of xAI, which was recently valued at $230 billion. Given the specificity of the details of the pilot program it suggested, and given unambiguous language such as “I volunteer”, the possibility must be considered that Grok’s chat with Duckett essentially placed xAI in a position of soft commitment.

Hill noted that District 51 has not yet been contacted by xAI concerning such a partnership and pointed to the ElevateAI initiative as achieving a similar goal. Because of ElevateAI, Hill said the district is not actively seeking out xAI as a partner.

“I’ve seen a summary of emails and stuff that’s been shared, but I haven’t seen any formal proposal with details with things we would be looking for if we were going to implement anything curriculum-related, especially if it’s involving technology, things like privacy terms and safety guardrails and accessibility,” Hill said.

However, if xAI were to reach out to the district, Hill is ready to listen.

“We’re always open to partnerships, but it would need to have a clear educational value and meet the standards that we look for things like privacy and student safety,” Hill said. “We’re vendor-neutral as a district, so if any company wants to engage, we would want a formal proposal and we would review that through the process that we do for any resource we’re going to use in our schools.”

Former D51 Board President Andrea Haitz, who is now the board’s secretary and treasurer, expressed enthusiasm at the possibility of the partnership. She said she’s familiar with AI technology, implementing it for her real-estate data work and also using it to help her edit her writing to be more concise.

Haitz — who talked with Duckett about Grok’s suggestions and found herself fascinated by them — spoke from her experience of being in high school when her school started implementing dial-up internet.

“I think it’s a really cool idea! Maybe Grok is just blowing wind up our skirt, so to speak, but why not just try it? If it gave us a whole outline, why not actually have some students try to do it? It’s not going away,” Haitz said.

“If we go back to when the internet started, those who got out in front of it and started really doing things with it were the ones who really became the pioneers of it. In our district, with our cellphone policy and a lot of other things that we’ve done — kudos to Dr. Hill and our leadership — I think in this little area of Mesa County and Grand Junction, we’ve really kind of taken some of these things on. I say, ‘Why not?’”

There would be logistical factors for the district to figure out, such as who would want to take on the project, but she said she would support such a partnership as the district’s next big idea. She said that an xAI-D51 partnership would be “phenomenal.”

“Obviously, as a board member, if they want to, I would be more than supportive of this because I think it would be a really cool pilot study to try it,” Haitz said. “If it is just sort of Grok baiting us on it, it would be cool to then send something back to them saying, ‘Hey, we did it, and here’s what happened.’ If there’s more substance to it, then maybe it would take more note and we could feed into it. It’s a large language model, right? The more we actually give it, the more it will take that in and assimilate it into what it will do.”