Building AI Guidelines with Community Input
A few weeks ago, we co-hosted a GenAI Guidelines Development workshop with Charleston County School District that brought together educators, students, parents, researchers, and community members. We can confidently say that this was one of the best conversations we have had due to the commitment by the District to bring in and encourage diverse perspectives.
That session laid the groundwork for presenting at CCSD's board meeting this week, which continued the district's collaborative and transparent effort to develop AI policy and guidelines for the upcoming school year
We explored important topics like:
Concerns about academic integrity and cognitive offloading
The impact of GenAI on the workforce
Ethical concerns like bias and artificial companionship
The importance of community-wide AI literacy
What stood out to us was the range of perspectives in the room from enthusiastic, to cautious, to “I need to learn more”, which is consistent to what we hear across our work with Boards.
These conversations are now informing the policy review and guidelines we're developing with CCSD—one that equips students to use AI responsibly while we build their understanding of data privacy, security, and digital well-being.
CCSD's approach is a model for what intentional AI adoption looks like: starting with stakeholder input, moving through transparent policy development, and building toward sustainable implementation.
