Clarify expectations for student use
Students must be aware of what the rules are about AI use in school. They notice when expectations vary teacher to teacher, and unclear rules will leave them guessing.
The cost of leaving it unsaid
A high school senior submits a history project using AI for part of the research and does not disclose it, because nobody told them disclosure was expected. The consequence lands anyway. That student's experience of AI policy is that it was a trap.
This is not an argument for surveillance or for AI detectors, which are unreliable and should never be the sole basis for an academic integrity decision. It is an argument for saying the rule out loud, in advance, in a form students and families can actually find.
Questions to answer
- How will a student know, for a given assignment, whether AI use is welcome, limited, or off the table?
- How does this align with the academic integrity language you already have?
- What gives teachers flexibility without giving students twelve different systems to track?
- Who writes it? Teachers and students should play a significant role in shaping these norms — a rule handed down is a rule to be routed around.
A pattern that works: the stoplight
Many Arizona districts have landed on some version of a three-state signal — often described as red, yellow, and green — that a teacher sets per assignment. Red means the thinking is the point and AI is not part of it. Yellow means AI is allowed for specific, named steps. Green means AI use is expected and the student should say how they used it.
Its value is not the colors. It is that a teacher can adopt it on Monday without writing policy, and can start entirely in red while they build confidence. A system nobody has to be trained on is a system that gets used.
For specific examples from Arizona schools and districts, look to the state guidance.
What "done" looks like
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Transparency expectations
When students disclose AI use and how — written to fit your existing academic integrity language rather than sitting beside it.
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A communication plan for teachers, students, and families
Everyone who has to follow the system has heard about it before the first time it matters. Families included: they will ask.
Four districts on their student-use systems
That's all three.
Check off what your school or district has finished and download a summary to paste into an update.