Fewer Than Half of Schools Have Written an AI Policy. The Rest Are Winging It.

Fewer Than Half of Schools Have Written an AI Policy. The Rest Are Winging It.

Three years after ChatGPT arrived in classrooms, fewer than half of schools have written down a single rule about how students and teachers can use AI. According to research from Veracross — a school management platform that surveyed private and independent schools — only 41% have an established AI policy for academic integrity. And among those that did bother, most prioritized student rules over staff rules: 36.5% have policies for students, while just 28.5% have policies for faculty and staff.

That gap matters more than it sounds. A teacher uploads a student's essay to an AI tool for feedback. An administrator pastes a class roster into an AI scheduling assistant. Without staff-specific guardrails, personally identifiable student information can end up in a third-party system with no oversight and no accountability. The schools writing policies are at least asking the right questions — what counts as AI, which tools are allowed, where the line between "AI-assisted brainstorming" and "AI-written essay" actually falls. But the 59% that haven't started? Most appear to be hoping the question resolves itself.

It won't.

Gobble's Take: If your school hasn't shown you its AI policy, that's not a sign they're being careful — it's a sign they don't have one. Time to ask.

Source: Veracross

Florida Schools Barely Mention AI in Their Discipline Codes — And the Gap Falls Along Racial Lines

Researchers at the University of Florida combed through 73 codes of conduct from Florida's 67 county-based school districts and six special districts for the 2024–2025 school year. Their finding: fewer than one in four explicitly mentioned AI at all. Every district that did reference AI allowed it under some circumstances rather than banning it outright — but the bigger story is who's writing rules and who isn't.

Urban districts with larger enrollments and higher proportions of students of color and English learners were significantly more likely to have addressed AI in their discipline codes. Smaller districts, those with higher White student composition, and those with higher free/reduced lunch eligibility largely stayed silent. The researchers flag this as a potential equity problem: when AI policy is absent, disciplinary outcomes for the same behavior — a student using AI to write an essay — can vary wildly depending on which school they attend, which teacher catches them, and how loosely the word "plagiarism" gets interpreted. That's not a policy. That's a coin flip.

Gobble's Take: If your school's discipline code doesn't mention AI, your child is living under rules that haven't been written yet — and what happens next depends entirely on who's in the room.

Source: University of Florida Education Policy Research Center

States Are Issuing AI Guidance. Schools Are Nodding and Moving On.

As of July 2025, only a couple of states had moved beyond recommendations to passing legal mandates, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ohio passed a law requiring all K-12 public schools to adopt AI policies by mid-2026, with a model policy coming by end of year. Tennessee passed legislation in 2024 mandating local school boards implement policies covering students, faculty, and staff. Every other state is offering frameworks and guidelines that districts can use — or ignore.

Utah built an AI steering committee, hosted educator summits with stipends for lesson-plan development, and launched a self-paced AI toolkit through its digital broadcast network. Colorado released a statewide AI roadmap in 2024 and published a K-12 AI Skills Progression Guide in August 2025. Washington created both an AI advisory board and an AI task force. These are real efforts. But none are mandates. And most state policies remain stuck in risk-mitigation mode — focused on privacy and plagiarism, not on rethinking teaching and learning for a transformed workforce, according to Sari Factor of Imagine Learning.

The gap between policy and practice is widening, says Amanda Bickerstaff, founder and CEO of AI for Education. Implementation often falls to informal champions — an IT staffer, an innovative teacher — while funding is almost entirely absent from state guidance. "Until there is a groundswell of support — monetary, technical research, infrastructure, access, professional development at the district level and even at the school level — I don't think we're going to see a massive shift," she said.

Gobble's Take: Your state published an AI framework, your district has no budget to act on it, and that gap is where student preparation goes to die.

Source: GovTech

Teachers Are Saving Six Weeks a Year With AI — But Most Are Figuring It Out Alone

A June 2025 survey from the Walton Family Foundation and Gallup found that 60% of K-12 teachers used an AI tool during the 2024–25 school year. Teachers who use AI at least weekly saved an average of 5.9 hours per week — which adds up to roughly six weeks over the course of a school year. The tools are delivering real time back to the educators who've adopted them.

The implementation gap is stark. Only 19% of teachers said their school had a policy on how to use AI. Separate RAND Corporation research from April 2025 found that 68% of surveyed teachers didn't receive training on how to use AI tools during the 2024–25 school year — and roughly half of them taught themselves how to use it. That's widespread grassroots adoption without institutional support.

Teachers experimenting without guidance are the ones most likely to upload student data into unsecured systems or rely on unvetted tools. AI could be one of the most effective burnout-prevention tools teachers have seen in years. But schools are largely leaving them to figure it out alone.

Gobble's Take: Your child's teacher may be using AI to save their own sanity — and doing it without your school's knowledge, training, or permission.

Source: Back to School with AI

In Case You Missed It

Yesterday's top stories:

• U.S. Department of Education Finally Responds to Parents' Warnings on AI Family Risks
• Ohio Drops Mandate: Every K-12 School Must Have an AI Policy by December
• AI Classrooms Demand Deeper Teacher Knowledge—Or Risk Total Breakdown
• Canada Eyes 3 AI Teaching Blueprints—With U.S. Schools Watching Closely