NHCS Gen AI

NHCS Stance for Artificial Intelligence Use

New Hanover County Schools (NHCS) recognizes the value and prevalence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), including Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)* in our world and in education. We seek to leverage the use of AI in student learning and staff productivity. Best practices for the use of AI in planning and instruction will be shared with NHCS staff. As with all digital resources, AI resources must go through the District Quality Resource Review Process to be properly vetted.  

NHCS Staff and students will follow all rules and recommendations outlined in the NHCS Guidance on the Use of Generative AI in Our Schools.

NHCS Staff and Students will follow all terms and conditions set forth by AI tools, including but not limited to age and parent permission requirements.

NHCS Staff and Students are prohibited from entering confidential or personally identifiable information into AI tools, including GenAI. Sharing confidential or personal data with any AI system violates a person’s privacy.

NHCS Staff will follow, model, and explicitly teach best practices for AI use. Through syllabi, rubrics, or course descriptions, staff will communicate expectations on the use of AI tools in their classroom to parents and students. 

NHCS Students will follow teacher expectations according to each individual course syllabus or assignment rubric. Students will not rely solely on content generated from AI tools but rather use these tools as a resource to support learning. Students will correctly cite the usage of AI tools in content generation to avoid plagiarism.

NHCS Board Policy 4310 Integrity and Civility: In addition to any standards or rules established by the schools, the following behaviors are in violation of the standards of integrity and civility and are specifically prohibited:

• cheating, including the actual giving or receiving of any unauthorized assistance or the actual giving or receiving of an unfair advantage on any form of academic work;
• plagiarizing, including copying the language, structure, idea, and/or thought of another person or of a work produced by artificial intelligence and representing it as one’s own original work.

*Generative AI (GenAI) learns from inputs, recognizes patterns in human writing and creation, and then mimics those patterns to create new content based on the user’s prompt and its data set. It may create text, images, audio, video, and code.
 

 New Hanover County Schools 
Guidance on the Use of Generative AI (GenAI) in Our Schools

A Definition of Generative AI
Generative AI (GenAI) learns from inputs, recognizes patterns in human writing and creation, and then mimics those patterns to create new content based on the user’s prompt and its data set. It may create text, images, audio, video, and code.

Purpose                                                                                                                                                             
This document guides our students, staff, and school communities on the appropriate and responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI (GenAI) tools, in classroom instruction, school management, and systemwide operations. Generative AI has potential benefits for education and risks that must be thoughtfully managed. 

This guidance document aligns with existing district policy on technology use, academic integrity, and civility, including:

 

Policy Code: 3220 Technology and Educational Program
Policy Code: 3225/4312/7320 Technology Responsible Use
Policy Code: 3226/4205 Internet Safety
Policy Code: 4310 Integrity and Civility
Policy Code: 4329 Bullying and Harassing Behavior Prohibited

Scope
This guidance applies to all students, teachers, staff, administrators, and third parties who develop, implement, or interact with approved GenAI technologies used in our education system. It covers all GenAI systems used for education, administration, and operations, including, but not limited to, Generative AI models, intelligent tutoring systems, conversational agents, automation software, and analytics tools. This guidance complements existing policies on technology use, data protection, and academic integrity. 

Guiding Principles for GenAI Use
The following principles guide the appropriate and safe use of GenAI and address current and future educational goals, teacher and student agency, academic integrity, and security. We commit to adopting internal procedures for each principle.

1. We use GenAI to help all of our students achieve their educational goals. We will use GenAI to improve student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school operations. We aim to make GenAI resources universally accessible. We are committed to evaluating GenAI tools to ensure they effectively serve our diverse educational community.
2. We reaffirm adherence to existing policies and regulations. We will thoroughly evaluate technologies for approval to ensure they align with our existing and future policies on acceptable use and internet safety. 
3. We educate our staff and students about GenAI. Students and staff will be given support to develop their GenAI literacy, which includes how to use GenAI, when to use it, and how it works, including foundational concepts of computer science and other disciplines. We will create professional development opportunities to support teachers in the use and management of GenAI tools in the classroom.
4. We explore the opportunities of GenAI and address the risks. We will work to realize the benefits of GenAI in education, address risks associated with using GenAI, and evaluate if and when to use GenAI tools, paying special attention to misinformation and bias.
5. We use GenAI to advance academic integrity. Honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility continue to be expectations for our school community. Students, teachers, administrators, and district personnel will be given guidance on how to appropriately give credit to GenAI sources and tools.
6. We commit to auditing, monitoring, and evaluating our district’s use of GenAI. Understanding that GenAI and technologies are evolving rapidly, we commit to frequent and regular reviews and updates of our policies, procedures, and practices. We will use Learn Platform to communicate approved GenAI tools for teachers and students.

Responsible Use of GenAI Tools
Our school system recognizes that responsible uses of GenAI will vary depending on the context. The district  will ensure compliance with applicable laws and policies regarding data security and privacy, and provide direction on the appropriate use of GenAI for staff. Teachers will communicate if, when, and how GenAI tools will be used, through course syllabi, assignment directions, and rubrics. Students will follow all policies and directions on the use of AI tools.  Below are some examples of responsible uses that serve educational goals. 

Student Learning

• Aiding Creativity: Students can harness GenAI to spark creativity across diverse subjects, including writing, visual arts, and music composition.
• Collaboration: GenAI tools can partner with students by contributing concepts, supplying research support, and identifying relationships between varied information. 
• Communication: GenAI can offer students real-time translation, personalized language exercises, and interactive dialogue simulations. 
• Content Creation and Enhancement: GenAI can help generate personalized study materials, summaries, quizzes, and visual aids, help students organize thoughts and content, and help review content. 
• Tutoring: GenAI technologies have the potential to democratize one-to-one tutoring and support, making personalized learning more accessible to a broader range of students. GenAI-powered virtual teaching assistants may provide non-stop support, answer questions, help with homework, and supplement classroom instruction. 

Teacher Support

• Assessment Design and Analysis: Teachers may use GenAI to enhance assessment design by creating questions and standardized feedback on common mistakes, create rich performance assessments, and conduct diagnostic assessments to identify gaps in knowledge or skills.
• Content Development and Enhancement for Differentiation: GenAI can assist educators by differentiating curricula, enhancing lesson plans, generating diagrams and charts, and customizing independent practice based on student needs and proficiency levels. GenAI can analyze student performance data to provide insights to educators, helping them tailor instruction or interventions.
• Continuous Professional Development: GenAI can guide educators by recommending teaching and learning strategies based on student needs, personalizing professional development to teachers’ needs and interests, suggesting collaborative projects between subjects or teachers, and offering simulation-based training scenarios such as teaching a lesson or managing a parent/teacher conference.
• Research and Resource Compilation: GenAI can help educators by recommending books  or articles relevant to a lesson for consideration and updating teachers on teaching techniques, research, and methods.   

School Management and Operations

• Communications: GenAI tools can help draft and refine communications within the school community and provide instant language translation.
• Operational Efficiency: Staff can use GenAI tools to support school operations and streamline administrative processes.

Language to Include in all GenAI Documents and Training: Always review and critically assess outputs from GenAI tools before submission or dissemination. Staff and students should never rely solely on AI-generated content without review. Staff and students are prohibited from entering confidential or personally identifiable information into GenAI tools.

Prohibited Use of AI Tools
As we work to realize the benefits of GenAI in education, we also recognize that risks must be addressed. Below are the prohibited uses of GenAI tools and the measures we will take to mitigate the associated risks. 

New Additions to Prohibited Use of AI Tools:

• Wearable & Ambient AI Devices: The use of wearable or ambient AI devices (e.g., smart glasses, AI pins, or other devices capable of recording or transmitting classroom audio/video) is prohibited during instructional time unless explicitly approved by school administration for accessibility or instructional purposes. Unauthorized recording, live-streaming, or transmission of classroom instruction violates district privacy policies and may result in disciplinary action.
• Agentic AI: Due to concerns on the protection of student data and information, no use of Agentic AI is allowed on devices connected to NHCS accounts. Agentic AI are new AI tools that are used to autonomously plan, make decisions, and carry out multiple steps or actions in order to achieve a defined goal often with limited direct human interaction and instruction. In order to use these tools you must grant access to your devices memory, storage, and account information. 
• AI Chat Bots: AI Chat Bots are deployable AI tools which allow for transcription and recording of virtual and in-person meetings. While useful tools, their use should be carefully considered before implementation. AI Chat Bots must not be used to record meetings in which privileged or student information is discussed.

Student Learning

• Bullying/harassment: Using GenAI tools to manipulate media to impersonate others for bullying, harassment, or any form of intimidation is strictly prohibited. All users are expected to employ these tools solely for educational purposes, upholding values of respect, inclusivity, and academic integrity at all times.
• Overreliance: Dependence on GenAI tools can decrease human discretion and oversight. Teachers will clarify if, when, and how GenAI tools should be used in their classrooms, and teachers and students are expected to review outputs generated by GenAI before use.
• Plagiarism and cheating: Students and staff will not copy from any source, including GenAI, without prior approval and/or adequate documentation. Students will not submit AI-generated work as their original work. Staff and students will be taught how to properly cite or acknowledge the use of GenAI. Teachers will restructure assignments to deter  plagiarism by requiring personal context, original arguments, or original data collection. Existing procedures related to potential violations of our Academic Integrity Policy will continue to be applied. 
• Unequal access: If an assignment permits the use of GenAI tools, the tools will be made available to all students.
• Privacy: Students will not use GenAI in a way that compromises the privacy of their personal information. 

Teacher Support

• Societal Bias: GenAI tools trained on human data will inherently reflect societal biases in the data. Risks include reinforcing stereotypes, recommending inappropriate educational interventions, or making discriminatory evaluations or falsely reporting plagiarism. Staff and students will be taught to understand the origin and implications of societal bias in GenAI, GenAI tools will be evaluated for the diversity of their training data and transparency, and humans will review all AI-generated outputs before use.  
• Diminishing student and teacher agency and accountability: While GenAI presents useful assistance to amplify teachers' capabilities and reduce teacher workload, these technologies will not be used to supplant the role of human educators in instructing and nurturing students. The core practices of teaching, mentoring, assessing, and inspiring learners will remain the teacher's responsibility in the classroom. GenAI is a tool to augment human judgment, not replace it. Teachers and staff must review and critically reflect on all AI-generated content before use. 
• Privacy: Teachers will not use GenAI in a way that compromises the privacy of their or their students’ personal information.

School Management and Operations

• Privacy: The education system will not use GenAI in ways that compromise teacher or student privacy or lead to unauthorized data collection, as this violates privacy laws and our system’s ethical principles. See the Security, Privacy, and Safety section below for more information. 
• Noncompliance with Existing Policies: We will evaluate GenAI tools for compliance with all relevant policies and regulations, such as privacy laws, terms of service, and ethical principles. GenAI tools will be required to detail if/how personal information is used to ensure that personal data remains confidential and isn't misused. 

Special Consideration: Advancing Academic Integrity 
While it is necessary to address plagiarism and other risks to academic integrity, we will use GenAI to advance the fundamental values of academic integrity - honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. 

• Teachers will provide clear direction on when and how it is appropriate to use GenAI tools on school assignments. 
• If a teacher or student uses a GenAI system, its use must be disclosed or cited.
• If a product requires formal citation, as directed by a teacher, students must cite their use of a GenAI system using the assigned resource, such as:
  • MLA Style - GenerativeAI
  • APA Style - ChatGPT
  • Chicago Style - Generative AI
• If a product does not require formal citation, students and teachers must use a disclosure statement such as “This document/image was created with the assistance of ChatGPT.” 
• GenAI tools may be used for brainstorming or preliminary research, but using GenAI to generate answers or complete assignments without proper citation or passing off AI-generated content as one’s own is considered plagiarism.
• Teachers will not rely solely on technologies that claim to identify the use of GenAI, as their accuracy is questionable.
• Teachers will use strategies in assignment creation that are “GenAI resistant” or empower students to use GenAI as a resource to support their work, but not a replacement for it.
• Advanced GenAI tools can increase fairness by identifying and minimizing biases in grading and assessments. 

County Policy on Academic Integrity: Policy Code: 4310 Integrity and Civility

Special Consideration: Security, Privacy, and Safety
All GenAI systems deployed within the school will be evaluated for compliance with relevant laws and regulations, including those related to data protection, privacy, and students’ online safety. 

Staff and students are prohibited from entering confidential or personally identifiable information into GenAI tools. Sharing confidential or personal data with a GenAI system violates a person’s privacy.

Review
This guidance will be reviewed annually, or sooner, to ensure it continues to meet the school’s needs and complies with changes in laws, regulations, and technology. We welcome feedback on this guidance and its effectiveness as GenAI usage evolves.

[Last updated: 08/22/2024] 

Created with support from the NCDPI Implementation Recommendations and Considerations