LARGO, Fla. — Artificial intelligence is part of the classroom, even for some of Pinellas County’s youngest students. The district uses an AI-powered reading program designed to listen to students read and help them improve, but some teachers say the technology doesn’t always get it right, and they’re questioning whether it belongs in the classroom at all.
“Hi, I’m Amira, your learning agent for reading growth,” is what viewers see in a promotional video put out by Amira Learning, where Amira, a virtual mascot, introduces herself. The program is an AI-powered reading tutor designed to help students in kindergarten through third grade become stronger readers. In Pinellas County Schools, students use the program for 30 to 40 minutes each week.
“Students are going to read into that program, and it listens to what they’re saying, and it analyzes what they’re saying and it gives them things to work on,” said Tracey McConnell.
McConnell is the new president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, but prior to this, she was a teacher at Pinellas Central Elementary School for more than 20 years. McConnell says she was excited about Amira at first, until she noticed some things that concerned her.
“There were a lot of times that you would have kids reading words that were right but the computer was marking them wrong or vice versa, the kid would be reading words that were wrong that the computer was marking right so I didn’t feel it was very accurate,” she said.
Amira is one of Florida’s approved alternative assessments for good cause promotions, which means third graders who fail the FAST test can be promoted to fourth grade if they pass the Amira assessments.
Pinellas County School officials sent a statement to Spectrum Bay News 9 saying, “Amira has been extremely responsive to any concerns and ideas provided to enhance programming.”
McConnell says she and some other teachers still have concerns.
“We need to back off this technology. There’s no reason for kids as young as kindergarten, first, second grade to be doing stuff that has things with AI in it. That’s too much,” she said.
For now, Amira remains one of the tools Pinellas County Schools uses to support and assess student reading, as educators continue to weigh the role AI should play in the classroom.
Both Hillsborough and Pasco County Schools made the decision to cut back on screen time in the classroom this school year. Both used Amira learning, but Pasco County school officials say it was only used at one school and was cut prior to the screen time initiative.
Spectrum Bay News 9 reached out to Amira Learning for comment, but has not heard back.