Boston Public Schools laid out a new policy to tackle emerging issues of artificial intelligence in schools for the School Committee’s consideration, taking aim at regulating use in classrooms, technological literacy training and addressing harm to student through tools like deepfakes.
“This policy is grounded in a simple idea: AI must serve our values, not define them,” BPS Chief Technology Officer Lisa Irey said at a School Committee meeting Wednesday. “We must protect student privacy and be clear about the benefits of AI while ensuring students have the skills to think critically as we prepare for the future. All members of our BPS community deserve the opportunity to develop their AI literacy skills, not so that they are required to use it, but so they can recognize it, question it, and make informed decisions about it.”
The AI policy proposal builds on guidance first released by BPS in 2023 and update in 2025, as well as feedback from over 500 staff, students, families and community partners, district officials said.
Superintendent Mary Skipper said the policy was designed to give “healthy guardrails” that community members have been seeking, with sections on use guidelines, student safety protocols and protections, academic integrity expectations, and AI training and literacy requirements. The policy also provides for regular updates, with officials noting technology is “evolving rapidly.”
The policy presentation Wednesday follows Mayor Michelle Wu’s announcement in March that Boston would become the first public school district in the country to ensure AI fluency in schools with a targeted curriculum across high schools starting in the upcoming school year.
The policy prohibits a wide range of use, including a strict vetting process for any AI tools approved for use within BPS; a ban on entering any student data into unapproved AI resources; a ban on use as the “sole basis” for grading, discipline, or academic evaluation; and more.
Using AI to “harm, harass, or damage the reputation of others is strictly prohibited” for all BPS community member, the policy states, including deepfakes and other forms of digitally manipulated content.
Students and staff are banned from creating any AI-generated audio, video or images meant to depict real individuals without their explicit consent or to depict harmful, threatening, violent or inappropriate content, BPS states.
In instances of these types of deepfakes or digitally manipulated content, school officials are required to report the incident, stop distribution, support impacted students, and follow the district code of conduct and legal requirements.
The policy also lays out acceptable uses of AI tools in school, requiring explicit direction from teachers in narrow cases.
For families, the policy mandates access to “district-provided resources or training to build understanding of AI tools and their appropriate use.”
School Committee members extensively questioned the policy Wednesday, digging into how the success of the new guardrails would be monitored, how equity would be ensured across groups like multilingual learners and students with less technological resources and more.
“This is something that’s going to come before you — different than other policies that may be on a three-year cycle or a five-year cycle — this is likely one that’s going to come more often, just because of how rapid the technology itself is changing,” said Skipper, noting the need to “have deeper conversations” as the policy rolls out.
BPS will continue to collect feedback on the policy in the coming months, officials said.
“We’re refining the policy before bringing it back to you this June,” said Irey. “Over the summer, we’re going to act on what we heard. We’re going to be launching new resources for students, staff and families, so that as a city, we build a shared language of understanding around responsible AI. It seems like every week we’re seeing new platforms, new use cases, and this is just the beginning.”
The School Committee is scheduled to vote on the AI policy in June.
BPS Superintendent Mary Skipper (Herald file)