Right now, in New Jersey, no official code or guidance exists for the use of AI in schools. Given the speed at which AI develops and its capabilities, is this a good idea? Students could increasingly bypass learning for convenience.
So far, many school districts are less concerned about cheating than setting guidelines for students and teachers on how to become familiar with and effectively use AI. In the eyes of some administrators, artificial intelligence is only scary if you banish it to the shadows, allowing misconceptions and fear to fester.
“I don’t think there’s any getting ahead of AI,” said Dr. James J. Albro, superintendent of schools at River Dell Regional School District in Bergen County. “Once you get out of that mindset that AI is something you can defeat, it changes the whole narrative on how you’re approaching it.”
In this new, forever evolving story, said Dr. Kristin Borda, director of academic programs and student performance at Eastern Camden County Regional School District, lies exciting possibilities. “If we only focus on the cheating part,” Borda added, “we’re really missing that big, creative opportunity.”
It’s also, like it or not, a requirement. Kids, Albro said, will be using AI for the rest of their lives.
Learning Together
“People have to look at consequences not as punishment,” Albro said. “A consequence is a reaction to an action. A consequence can be a conversation with a student. A consequence can be redirection for a student. It doesn’t need to be a punishment.”
Leading with punishment, Albro believes, doesn’t enable learning; students who want to cheat with AI will find another way. “If that’s the way you’re trying to approach it, I think you’re just setting yourself up for failure,” he said. “More importantly, you’re doing your students a disservice because you’re not really teaching them what they need to learn.”
Stephanie Woit, director of curriculum and instruction at Keyport Public Schools in Monmouth County, said the district wants “to shift that mindset from cheating to utilizing this tool appropriately and ethically. And I think our kids are quicker, but they’re too learning how to leverage the tool. In essence, we’re kind of all learning together.”
That makes sense given AI is the next generation of learning for students and teachers, Albro said.
Talk to enough school administrators and you’ll hear about how AI is a tool, like calculators or the internet before it. The analogy works to a point. It doesn’t account for AI’s power, so it can feel like comparing a hammer to the atomic bomb.
“The need for an imperative, this need for an actual identification of the impact and the change is so much more meaningfully needed” compared to those prior developments, said Amanda Bickerstaff, co-founder and CEO of the consultancy firm AI for Education. “And I think this is where we get a bit uncomfortable, because we almost need new words. We almost need a new vocabulary for what this is.”
The Power of Policy
Putting down what’s right and wrong about AI on paper provides comfort, Bickerstaff said, since some teachers and students “are getting no guidance at all.” That’s unsurprising given how AI, which has existed in some form for decades, became pervasive in months thanks to platforms such as ChatGPT.
Counsel and resources are available to corral AI into school policy. AI for Education does exactly that.
The New Jersey School Boards Association is preparing to launch a model policy on AI this spring. The policy will establish guidelines for the use of AI in not just instruction, but also district operations. A key highlight relative to student use is acknowledgment that AI should support learning rather than replace it. AI can serve as an aid for brainstorming ideas but should not be a shortcut for independent analysis or thought.
Kim Gatti, the NJSBA’s director of policy, said the policy will offer a model that embraces students’ use of AI but places guardrails on that use to ensure students do not rely on AI to replace their own thoughts or original ideas. Although the policy will be a model suitable for use by all districts, Gatti welcomes questions and discussion from districts relative to their individual needs.
Making preparations in advance is not an overreaction. At Hingham High in Massachusetts, a junior’s grade in AP U.S. History fell from a B to a C- after he was accused of improperly using AI to cheat on an assignment in December 2023, Reuters reported. The student’s parents, Jennifer and Dale Harris, sued school officials. In November 2024, U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson determined that the student and his partner “indiscriminately” copied text provided from Grammarly. A policy did protect the school, Levenson determined — its plagiarism policy.
Parameters on AI do not have to be overly complicated. It can be as simple as a student citing where AI was used in an assignment or a district specifying when it can be used, Bickerstaff said. Even encouraging students to ask how to use it helps.
“We have different forms of AI for programs that we have vetted through different third-party contracts, but also ones that we’ve discovered ourselves and we’re teaching using those platforms,” Albro said. River Dell’s guidelines for AI include how students can use it for assignments.
“If we can lower the noise,” Bickerstaff said, “we know that change is more possible.” It also becomes easier to focus on the benefits.
Since “AI detectors are problematic, we’re trying to focus very much on what are the ways that we can really transform teaching and learning instead of solely focusing on ‘are we going to catch kids who are using it a negative way?’” Borda said. “So, we’re writing our guidelines with positive language. This is an acceptable use. These are the kind of lessons you will use it for. This is what your teachers will explain to you about it. Instead of writing in terms of ‘thou shall not do this’ or ‘you are prohibited from doing this.’” It’s mixing what’s possible, she added, with guidelines for teachers to follow when a student crosses the line.
At Woodstown-Pilesgrove Regional School District in Salem County, Matthew Ciociola, supervisor of innovation and student achievement, favors “teachable moments.”
Instead of teachers immediately condemning students who use AI improperly, “have that conversation,” he said. “Speak to the benefits of why I want to hear your voice and why I’m having you do this assignment.” Or as Albro put it: reteach, relearn.
Regardless of how involved a school district becomes with AI, the acceptable use policy cannot be static. Bickerstaff recommends that the policy be reviewed every six months for updates.
Policy is the foundation of a board of education’s ethos – and board members have a role to play, too.
“They’re looking at it from a balcony overlooking a dance floor where the educators are living it, breathing it every single day,” said Dr. Christopher Meyrick, superintendent of Woodstown-Pilesgrove Regional School District. “So, we’re fortunate. We have a great community, so they’re not afraid to ask tough questions. And we actually welcome it, because we don’t want to be coming back being reactive to something.”
Teaching the Teachers
To understand where the New Jersey Department of Education stands on artificial intelligence, simply visit the NJDOE website or consult Google, which now employs AI.
In late January, the NJDOE awarded 10 districts funds via its Artificial Intelligence Innovation in Education Grant. Keyport, Eastern Camden, and Woodstown-Pilesgrove were each awarded $75,000. (County vocational school districts in Mercer and Middlesex counties will receive grants of $338,872 and $375,000, respectively, to train students for AI-related careers.)
“By thoughtfully integrating AI literacy and tools into our classrooms, we’re democratizing access to these transformative technologies while preparing our next generation of leaders,” Beth Simone Noveck, chief artificial intelligence strategist for New Jersey, said at the time.
Bickerstaff defines AI literacy as knowing how to use those tools safely, ethically and effectively. The lessons aren’t just for students. Neither are the grants, which run until Jan. 31, 2026.
“I think what this grant is going to allow for in these 10 districts is teaching the literacy behind it,” said Woit, Keyport’s director of curriculum and instruction.
Woit frequently talks with teachers dealing with various AI challenges, which she addresses on a case-by-case basis. Thanks to the funding, the district “can collectively train these teachers in this tool, so that when we hit the ground running in September, everyone’s going to have been trained, policy’s going to be in place, the (AI) handbook is going to be there.”
At Eastern Camden, the philosophy with AI and teaching is tiny bites over huge gulps. “When you’re first adopting a new technology, you find a way to sort of substitute the old thing you used to do with the new technology, but as you move up this continuum, you get to a point where you’re really reimagining what is possible,” Borda explained. “And that’s where we want to get.”
Woodstown-Pilesgrove started a two month-long AI pilot program in February that involves about 200 students and 10 teachers. Results will be reported to the board of education and community, with the district “address(ing) those gray areas as we move into the 25-26 school year,” Meyrick, the superintendent, said.
Teachers play a huge part. They are, he added, the facilitators in this new world. “We’re all learning this together,” Meyrick said, “and we are all talking to each other because it all goes back to our students. And, so, it is exciting — and we’re excited to be part of it.”
It’s better if this isn’t a rush job, Borda said. “If we just can give teachers time to learn from each other, we provide them some foundational training, but then we give them time to work together, to me, that’s where the magic has always happened with our teachers.”
For AI to fit into curriculum, students must be able to do what AI cannot, Bickerstaff said.
“That is where we can build those foundational, durable skills around critical thinking, creativity, collaboration,” she said. “Even just critical analysis, like evaluation of outputs, is going to be hugely important.”
The Unknown Unknown
Bad news, Keyport superintendent Dr. Lisa M. Savoia quipped, reaches her faster than good news. She did not notice “a statistically significant” increase in cheating when AI arrived in her schools.
How quickly those tools are evolving, Bickerstaff said, is the existential problem. What a high school junior or senior learns could be antiquated by the time they finish hanging up posters in their freshman dorm.
“We’re trying to be as forward thinking as we can be,” Borda said. “But, in some ways, it’s an unknown unknown.”
Eastern Camden is giving teachers tools, hearing their concerns and providing resources and time. Teachers and administrators are willing to do the work. “I think we will grow with it, and I think that’s the best we can do,” Borda said.
Again, there isn’t a choice. AI is going to be everywhere. Who better to teach that skill to kids, Borda said, than people devoted to education?
“Everybody is afraid of the unknown, everybody is afraid of what they don’t know,” Albro said. “If you approach it as ‘we all need to learn this together, and it’s going to make us all better and we’ll end up where we’re supposed to be,’ I think it’s just a healthier way to look at it.”
Pete Croatto is a writer and author whose work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, AARP the Magazine, New Jersey Monthly and The Toronto Star.
