Trustees discuss AI policy
HUTTO — The Hutto Independent School District board has postponed its decision to join the new lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency over its accountability rating system.
It will continue its participation in the 2023 lawsuit against the agency.
In a unanimous 6-0 vote, with board President Billie Logiudice absent, trustees said they want to gather more information and took no action on removing the school district from its current participation in the 2023 lawsuit. “I think that within our roles as trustees of the district, we definitely want to do what’s in the best interest of our students, for our staff, but we do want to make sure we do have all the information available at our fingertips at the time we make that decision,” board member James Matlock said. “I think that, similar to last year, this particular accountability lawsuit will be determined based off of how well our students are doing and how well our teachers are doing in the classroom.”
The trustees particularly wanted to educate themselves more on artificial intelligence, relating to another agenda item, where Superintendent Jeni Neatherlin asked for their thoughts on creating a policy on students’ use of AI and how it relates to academic dishonesty.
Some educators worry students could use AI to generate reports and other nonoriginal work.
Also linked to AI, the new lawsuit against TEA targets the redesigned State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, which is now fully scored with an automated system, including the previously hand-graded writing portion.
“I brought this forward to discuss as there are a lot of things that are coming about with AI and the development of policies. … I’ve heard that this will be tackled in the legislative session this next year as well,” she told trustees. “Particularly, we’ve had questions about our EIA Local Policy regarding academic dishonesty in regard to the use of AI.”
EIA Local Policy are guidelines to make sure grading policies are consistent in a school district.
The board asked Neatherlin to work with the school district’s policy committee to draft standards on the usage of AI regarding academic dishonesty for review at a later meeting.
Trustees recommended looking at other school districts that have already developed policies and noted AI can’t be eliminated from curriculum due to its growth in various industries.
“I just hope that the group that works on the policy really gets a feel for what other districts are doing,” board Secretary Shara Turner said. “We just went to a ‘Future of Schools’ symposium in Dallas, and they’re talking about how AI is going to be a big part of schools in the future. And, it’s really a soft skill that students have to have when they enter the workforce now.”
