I have spent the last three years helping educators understand AI—its biases, its possibilities, its risks. I have written about how we need to approach these tools with intent, and how uncritical adoption harms our most vulnerable learners. I wanted to take a moment and talk for a bit about how I believe blanket rejection is equally problematic. I understand the complexity of this moment in education and the trouble that teachers are facing with students using AI on their assignments. For a few years, I was one of them.
I had hoped we were beyond the point of an all out ban because of the inherent inequities we create when we implement certain zero tolerance policies and practices. I was recently helping one of my own children on some school work and thought of a few ways that a LLM could support him, and I quickly realized I was experiencing it from another perspective.
My kids attend a district that has blocked all AI applications on student devices. And as someone who has spent 25 years in classrooms and now consults on AI integration, I find myself in an uncomfortable position: I understand why districts do this, and I still think it is the wrong approach.
The Logic of the Ban
I am not unsympathetic to district administrators making these decisions. They face real pressures. Academic integrity concerns are legitimate. The tools are evolving faster than most educators can keep up. Legal questions around data privacy remain unresolved. And many (most?) educators have not had adequate professional development to guide students in using these tools responsibly.
A blanket ban feels safe. It feels decisive. It feels like leadership.
But safety and decisiveness are not the same as wisdom.
What My Children Are Missing
Here is what I see at my table that district leaders may not see in their policy meetings:
My child is stuck on a collection of assignments and needs to do some catching up. The teacher explained it one way in the directions, and it did not click. In a world with AI access, they could ask for the same concept explained differently. Maybe through an analogy, a visual approach, broken into smaller steps. Instead, they wait. They fall behind. They lose confidence. Even though I have been a teacher for decades, my advice may not necessarily align with what his teacher wants him to do.
If he completes a draft, he could use some feedback before submitting it. Not to have it written for them, just another perspective on if what he did makes sense, whether he has supported his claims, if he’s including everything he needed to. This is exactly what we teach students to seek out. But the tool that could provide instant, judgment-free feedback is blocked.
And I think about the students who are not my children. The ones with IEPs whose accommodations are not being fully met in overwhelmed classrooms. The ones who need text read aloud, or simplified, or translated. The ones who could use AI as the assistive technology it genuinely can be… If they are allowed to.
The Hypocrisy Problem
Here is what makes this especially difficult to explain to my children: adults use AI constantly.
Their teachers may be using it to draft emails, create lessons, rubrics, or generate discussion questions. District administrators likely use AI-assisted tools for communications and planning. I use it in my own work—thoughtfully, critically, but I use it.
We are telling young people that these tools are too dangerous for them to touch while we use them every day. We are asking them to prepare for a world we will not let them practice navigating. This is not protection. It is a preparation gap we are actively creating.
The Equity Issue No One Wants to Discuss
Blanket bans do not actually prevent AI use. They just determine who gets to learn how to use it well.
Students with educated parents, with devices at home, with the social capital to navigate around restrictions are learning AI right now. They are developing AI literacy. They are understanding what these tools can and cannot do. Even what they should or should not do. They are making mistakes in low-stakes environments and learning from them.
Students without those advantages? They get nothing. Or worse, they get caught using AI without guidance and face disciplinary consequences for doing exactly what their more privileged peers do at home without penalty.
School is supposed to be the equalizer. School is where students who lack resources at home can access what others take for granted. When we ban AI in schools, we are making a choice about who gets prepared for the future. And that choice has the same inequitable outcomes that so many of our other educational choices have produced.
The Conversation That Never Happened
What frustrates me most as a parent is is how the policy was made.
No one asked me. No one asked any parent I know. If there was a community forum I was not aware. I get no fewer than three text messages a day that are largely irrelevant to me so they go ignored. Those are also repeated in emails. Schools that send out that kind of volume of information on a daily basis are basically guaranteeing that nothing will be read. I saw no survey, no acknowledgment that this decision affects families in ways that extend beyond the school day. The policy appeared, and we were expected to comply.
I would have welcomed a conversation about appropriate use. I would have appreciated guidance on how to talk to my children about AI at home. I would have valued being treated as a partner in my children’s education rather than a potential obstacle to institutional risk management.
Instead, I got a notification that a website was blocked when trying to help.
What I Want Districts to Understand
I am not asking for a free-for-all. I have written extensively about the biases embedded in these tools, about the real harms of uncritical adoption, about the ways AI can perpetuate inequity if we are not careful. I am perhaps the last person who would advocate for throwing open the doors without guardrails.
But guardrails are not the same as locked doors.
What I want is what I have always advocated for: intentional use. Guided exploration. Transparent conversation about benefits and risks. Professional development that prepares teachers to facilitate rather than forbid. Policies that acknowledge students will encounter these tools and focuses on preparing them rather than pretending the tools do not exist.
School should be where my children learn to use AI critically, ethically, and effectively. It should be where they develop the judgment to know when AI helps and when it hinders. It should be where the playing field gets leveled, not where the gap gets wider.
There are ways to put guardrails on generative AI tools so that they won’t just do an assignment for a learner. I’ve been working on developing a few of those myself (BrAInstorming Assistant — Your Thinking Partner! and ELA AIssistant for High School Students)
Instead, school is where my children learn that AI is forbidden, while the rest of the world moves on without them.
I am both an educator and a parent. I understand the fear. But I also understand the cost of letting fear drive policy. And right now, my children are paying that cost.