The Richmond School Board is in the beginning stages of drafting a policy surrounding artificial intelligence in schools.

Four board members have been meeting monthly since January to discuss what the policy will look like.

“The presence of AI offers both possibilities and challenges in the educational spaces,” Wesley Hedgepeth (4th District) told The Richmonder. “An AI policy is necessary to provide support for both our students and employees.”

Board members have so far reviewed a sample policy drafted by Shonda Harris-Muhammed (6th District). She said it comes from a multitude of sources, including discussions about AI while participating as a cohort member with School Board Partners, an organization that connects and trains members of local school boards.

“I Googled sample AI policies and pulled some basics that appeared in alignment with what I gathered from discussions,” she told The Richmonder. “The sample is just that, a sample to start with. My desire was to have something drafted so the school board can have a start. Nothing has been carved in stone.”

Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order establishing guidelines for AI integration in education throughout the state in January. The order said that schools should “embrace innovation, experimentation and new educational opportunities,” while ensuring “guardrails and necessary constraints.” Hanover and Stafford counties are among the public school districts in the state that have implemented a policy. 

The creation of the policy falls under the modern systems and infrastructure priority of the school division’s strategic plan, Dreams4RPS. The strategic plan calls for student and staff training on the policy, investment in cybersecurity to protect information and a task force to adopt the policy and make recommendations about the use of AI. 

Ali Faruk (3rd District) said that the task force needs to be grounded in and aware of the work AI does, which is to regurgitate what’s already publicly available, and discussions around the ethics of AI. Board members have yet to discuss who will be on that task force. 

Emmett Jafari (8th District) asked how teachers’ would be able to discern genuine student work from AI produced work, to which board members and RPS administrators at the meeting suggested filters on RPS computers in schools and trust in the discernment of teachers. 

Harris-Muhammed said she thinks the goal is to have a finalized sample policy to review with the entire school board by the summer.