How do you teach something your students often know more about than you do, yet something that they’ll need to know after graduation?

That’s the problem facing Minnesota K-12 schools when it comes to artificial intelligence.  

“Right now we have to really be vulnerable and learn together because it’s not going away, and kids are using it more regularly, and so how do we move in step? Because it’s going to be really hard to get in front of it at this point,” said Molly Kensy, principal at St. Cloud Tech High School. 

Some districts are waiting to see how their peers handle AI; some have already gathered their communities together and come up with a plan they hope will be flexible enough to handle AI’s continued growth, and some are letting the kids take the lead.

Students take the lead

“I can see how it affects my peers day to day,” said Bihmanji Acho, a student at St. Cloud Tech High School. “When I saw my peers using AI, I would see (them) using (it) for like math assignments or to write their essays and things such as that, and it would just kind of ruin the foundation that they already didn’t have.”

Over the summer, Acho and a classmate got to represent Minnesota at America’s Youth AI Festival in Boston.

“When this opportunity was brought up to me, I was super excited, and I wanted to be a part of  it.”

There, the kids came up with a model AI policy designed to give schools a starting point for dealing with, and effectively teaching, the use of artificial intelligence.

“A lot of the adults in these spaces don’t really fully understand AI’s capabilities or what it can do. So we talked a lot about having mandatory teacher training,” she said. “Just so that they can understand AI and they can learn how to use it within their workspaces.” 

They also talked about what responsible use of AI looks like. Their discussions are very similar to the ones many school districts across the state had this summer.

“We formed a committee of teachers and administrators this summer. We met a couple times and really looked at what can we do,” said Wayne LePard, superintendent of the Royalton Public Schools.

Royalton’s new AI policy

On Monday, the Royalton school board approved a new AI policy for its students and staff.

“There’s probably three themes,” LePard said. “One is safety for staff and students, and how they use things with AI, student academics and staff instruction.”

He said teachers will be posting the guidelines in middle and high school classrooms.

He said they primarily fall into four quadrants.

“Anywhere from the continuum of no AI use to full AI use,” he explained. “And then somewhere in between there, whether it might be just brainstorming or it might be using it as a resource or a source in their schoolwork.”

Next week, he said, the district’s teachers and staff will begin reviewing the new policy.

Designed for students in middle and high school, Royalton’s new policy puts an emphasis on responsibility and transparency.

“Everybody has different knowledge levels and experience levels, and the more we can communicate with each other, with our staff, with our students, with our community, parents, the better we’re going to be,” LePard said.

It’s a very similar attitude to the one at the St. Cloud Public Schools.  

St. Cloud leads the way

“Our amazing superintendent was actually one of the first in Minnesota to … bring up an AI policy and to implement one in our school. So we kind of were the leaders of the line,” said Acho. 

Yet, even there, administrators like Kensy say they learned a lot from what the kids had to say over the summer.

“I think our young people understand the barriers and the benefits (of AI), and they’re really passionate about how it can help and how it hurts,” Kensy said.

Some districts still working on it

Some schools, like the St. Paul district, are still working out their AI policy. St. Paul Public Schools told KSTP, “the Board of Education has created a goal for the district to adopt one by spring 2028. Here is the language of that goal:

“By the end of the 2027–2028 school year, the Board will adopt an Artificial Intelligence Governance Policy that addresses the safe, ethical, human-centered, equitable, environmentally responsible, and instructionally meaningful use of AI across teaching, learning, critical thinking, workforce readiness, accessibility, data privacy, academic integrity, staff support, and district operations. The policy will include expectations for public reporting on how SPPS is preparing students and staff to use, question, evaluate, and create with AI.”

In the meantime, SPPS says it has robust resources around responsible staff and student use of AI, available on its website.

Click here for the Minnesota Department of Education’s guiding principles for AI in the classroom.

*The headline for this story was generated by AI, vetted by a journalist for accuracy.

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