Webster Groves board adopts AI policy and selects School AI for classroom use

The Webster Groves School District board voted to approve a new artificial intelligence use policy, EHBD, and to adopt a classroom platform called School AI after staff described a multi-step procurement and pilot process.

Technology director Zach and instructional technology lead Tim Brown told the board they convened a cross-functional procurement group, ran vendor demos and 30-day hands-on trials, and evaluated security and privacy commitments. Zach said the framework is “human-centric” and emphasized that student and staff privacy protections would be required. Tim described the product’s guardrails: “School AI will tell them no, that it doesn't do that for them,” he said, explaining that the vendor blocks simple prompts intended to produce fully written essays and will respond to district reports of work‑arounds.

Staff said the district will appoint Aaron Winkler as part-time AI coordinator (split with a school leadership role) to manage rollout and training. Staff proposed a slow, opt‑in rollout rather than requiring platform use in every classroom next fall; training and age‑appropriate AI literacy will be provided at elementary, middle and high school grade bands. Zach and Tim also said the district required vendor assurances that data would not be used to train external models and that auditing and incident‑reporting processes would be in place.

Board members pressed staff on several practical and ethical issues: how the district will limit students’ access to outside AI tools from home, how academic integrity will be enforced, and how teachers will be prepared to explain classroom uses to families. Staff said Chromebooks will remain filtered and that district network access can block many outside systems, though personal devices may still reach external models, and that academic‑dishonesty procedures that reference AI had been added previously to district discipline policy.

The policy approval includes a governance structure for annual reporting on AI use, a required AI coordinator role, and an oversight element to review equity, bias and privacy. The motion to adopt policy EHBD and move forward with School AI passed by voice vote.

Next steps: the district will schedule teacher trainings this summer, finalize vendor agreements and post explanatory materials about AI use and privacy on the district website.