by Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix
The body regulating Florida public schools and state colleges Wednesday approved what the Florida Department of Education calls “one of the most comprehensive, parent-centered AI frameworks in the country.”
The State Board of Education policies require public school districts and charter school governing boards to amend their internet safety policies to include specific guardrails and directives related to AI by July 1.
“We are neither going to one extreme, i.e. banning AI, nor are we going to the other extreme, which is just unfettered access,” Education Commissioner Henry Mack said during the board’s meeting in Winter Haven.
Districts and charter schools, at a minimum, must make policies to “protect students, parents, and instructional personnel from unlawful, deceptive, unsafe, or unauthorized uses of artificial intelligence systems, services, applications, and tools used in connection with educational programs and operations in Florida public schools,” according to the public school rule.
The idea, the rule states, is to “ensure that any approved use of artificial intelligence protects education records and student information, while supporting student achievement, civic literacy, academic excellence, and workforce preparedness.”
More specifically, schools will have to notify parents when teachers approve an AI instructional tool for use, including the name of the platform and classes in which it would be used and the nature of student interaction.
The policy must include a process for parents to object to AI use and provide alternatives to the tool.
“Florida will not outsource childhood to a chatbot,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news release following the meeting. “We welcome tools that help teachers teach and students learn. We will not accept tools that hide from parents, harvest student data, grade kids in secret, or pretend to be a friend. In this state, a teacher stands in front of the class, a parent has the last word, and a student still has to think.”
Schools will be required to conduct additional reviews for AI tools used in PreK-5 to ensure they are age-appropriate.
The rule looks to protect the teaching profession from being replaced by computers. It calls to “ensure that the use of AI instructional tools is limited to supplementing, and not replacing, the professional judgment of teachers and the primary right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children.”
Further, the policy must ensure AI is “accurate, transparent, viewpoint neutral, accessible to students and educators with disabilities.”
State colleges
The board approved a similar rule for the state college system, directing the 28 boards of trustees to create policies “that provide for the use and limitations of use of artificial intelligence tools in order to ensure quality of education for students, efficiency of operations, and a safe learning environment for the whole college community.”
“The rule that you accepted is not a prohibition, it empowers faculty to decide what to do, it allows the instructor to explicitly permit it or prohibit it with respect to their assignments,” Mack said of the college-level policy.
“I just think it’s a great thing that we put the guardrails, but the guardrails are so nuanced that it allows for flexibility and innovation and faculty ownership in a way that does not compromise or usurp the faculty’s ability to teach what they want.”
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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