Board of Education (BOE) members listened to a presentation on the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in Connecticut Public Schools during a special meeting on Tuesday, March 17.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Frank Purcaro delivered the presentation alongside Matt Mervis, director of Skills21 and AI strategy at EdAdvance.

EdAdvance is one of Connecticut's six Regional Educational Service Centers; Purcaro said Newtown Public Schools has been building a relationship with the organization for years.

"We've been attending AI conferences that EdAdvance has been offering and, quite honestly, some of the best work being done in the state right now is happening at EdAdvance," Purcaro said. "We just have a continued relationship in the works in terms of how we want to roll AI out in the district and support our staff moving forward."

Before anything else, Purcaro wanted to "bring the Board back up to speed" as to where they are with AI integration in the district.

He called the 2025-26 school year "year one" of their AI rollout, primarily focused on laying a strong foundation for the work they want to do going forward.

The first step for Purcaro and Superintendent of Schools Anne Uberti was to make sure AI was written into the district's Strategic Plan for the next three years.

"We have goals that we'd like to attain every year in terms of AI rollout," Purcaro explained. "We do anticipate some of that will change because we know the technology ... is changing quickly, but we do have some written goals in there that we would like to make sure we achieve."

He added that year one focused on establishing AI "guidance documents," meaning the district included AI language in its regulations around academic integrity. It outlines what is appropriate AI use for students, with pretty explicit language as to "things that are not allowed," according to Purcaro.

He added, "We do want to acknowledge that there are ways that AI can be used that we don't want to promote in the district, so we spelled out [those items] to the best of our ability."

District regulation states appropriate AI use includes brainstorming (using AI to generate a list of potential research topics for an essay), outlining (asking AI to structure an argument for a debate), and drafting (using AI to correct grammar and spelling in the first draft of the paper).

Inappropriate use falls under plagiarism (copying and pasting an entire essay generated by AI and a student passing it off as their own work), cheating (using AI to solve a math problem on a test where calculators are not allowed), and dishonesty (not disclosing the use of an AI tool to write a poem where original, unaided work was required).

Simultaneously, they used those regulations to create an AI parent-facing document for Newtown Public School's website. This document includes the "do's and don'ts" of AI usage and was made to further community awareness on the topic.

Purcaro said they started putting together a group of people interested in this work, creating a district-wide AI Planning Committee.

The group consists of Newtown Public Schools library media specialists Katie Mauro, Suzanne Hurley, Beth Murphy, Ericka Carlson, Sara Wasley, Andrew San Angelo, Liza Zandonella, and Jennifer Dellasalla, along with administrative and teacher AI leaders Lisa Kilcourse, Myranda Panagrosso, Will Ryan, Tim DeJulio, Sandi Gagnon, Brian Walsh, Carla Tischio, and Kara DiBartolo.

Purcaro said the library media specialists seemed to be getting a lot of the questions around AI usage, so it was a "natural fit" for them to be part of the planning team. They are considering expanding the team for next year, extending membership for those who are still interested in learning more and doing leadership work around AI in the future.

In terms of professional learning, Purcaro said the district held a few events throughout the year thus far. They held an AI education camp on Election Day, where they had an opportunity to introduce a number of different AI topics to district staff. This work was primarily led by Newtown Public Schools teachers, with additional help from EdAdvance.

"Really the focus for us was, 'How can AI be a copilot for a teacher,'" Purcaro explained. "We're not talking in terms of replacing. We're talking about enhancement, empowering, building a level of comfort in district for teachers to use AI tools."

BOE member John Vouros asked if students know what the district regulations on AI are.

He added, "I know that you said someone, parents ... are supposed to have read all of this, but they don't."

Purcaro said, as with anything else, they need to revisit and remind people "where [AI] lives" and take them through the guidelines.

However, Purcaro said there are peaks and valleys with this as there are with other topics, and that the district knows it will have to revisit some points with students and staff in the future.

Vouros said he is not worried about the teachers so much as he is about the children who will use AI inappropriately, get caught, and then say, "I didn't know [the rules]."

Purcaro responding by saying they will continue to discuss it with students.

"It's not going anywhere," Purcaro said. "It's only gonna become more prevalent in our lives, so that discussion will still be there ... and we'll continue to make it something that's a priority."

Learning About AI

Before Mervis went into his portion of the presentation, he took a few comments and questions from the BOE.

BOE member Doria Linnetz asked if there is sanctioned AI technology that the district is focusing on or is a part of its Google Workspace. She also asked, with consideration for AI's impact to the economy and job market, how the district will prepare students to enter the workforce in terms of its curriculum development.

Mervis said the topic naturally comes up in the presentation, but he and Purcaro will make sure they do not lose that thread.

BOE member Melissa Beylouni told a story about how she sent her son an article and asked what he thought about it, only for her to realize the response he sent back was entirely AI-generated. She asked Mervis how they will teach parents to learn the difference between what is and what is not AI work.

Mervis described that as the "most complicated part of the puzzle" and he will describe how they are seeing schools handle this.

Going into his presentation, Mervis said his team, Skills21, is focused around project-based learning. Skills21 got very involved in AI when AI use started to become more prolific several years ago, according to Mervis.

"In general, there are some big ideas and themes and patterns because [AI] is moving very quickly," Mervis said.

One way he has kept track of this fast-paced change in technology is that current high school seniors have had AI presence throughout their entire high school career.

Mervis said generative AI, a type of AI that creates text, images, or other forms of content based on user input, launched in the fall of 2022.

A ninth grader who is assigned to write a five-paragraph essay on cell mitosis could type a prompt into a generative AI tool such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and have it write the essay for them. In this case, Mervis said there could be several "tells" for an AI-generated essay, such as essay length, inconsistent capitalization and punctuation, and multisyllabic words that the student has never really used before.

However, he said students have found work-arounds to avoid detection, whether it be purposefully shortening the essay or misspelling every fifth or sixth word.

Mervis said detecting AI has only gotten harder thanks to tools called "humanizers," which strip out common AI cues.

"[A student] can say what grade they're in, what the status of their Individualized Education Program is, and [AI] will match that," Mervis explained. "And it's much harder in those circumstances for teachers to be able to identify this content."

The first months of generative AI could let people translate text into different languages or generate simplistic looking artwork.

Mervis went on to show BOE members different ways people use generative AI, from translating text into different languages to generating diagrams. Further AI development, he said, went beyond text modification and image creation into generating audio and video.

He told them about Udio and Suno, generative AI platforms that produce music based on user prompts. Mervis showed everyone this first-hand by playing a Udio-generated song based on the prompt, "Make a song in the lyrical and musical styling of the musical Wicked about cell mitosis."

While AI-generated videos had historically "not been very good," Mervis said this changed last summer with tools such as Google's text-to-video model Veo 3. Mervis played everyone a short video generated by Veo 3 based on the prompt, "Make an eight-second movie of a young girl sitting next to her mom." The video, much like the song he played earlier, matched the prompt.

Mervis said it took about 30 seconds to generate the video.

"It's a lot to take in," he added.

AI And Education

Mervis said AI in education can be broken down into several big ideas, such as positioning AI as a purposeful learning tool for both teachers and administrators, giving people more time for tasks that are otherwise hard to do, and having AI serve as a "teacher co-pilot" that can support multilingual learners or students at different reading levels.

However, Mervis said this is all done while being mindful of the real risks that come with AI, such as data privacy, bias, deepfakes, and potentially developing an emotional attachment to an AI companion.

As AI becomes increasingly prominent, Mervis said there has been more appreciation towards human relationships. He added that there are a good chunk of kids who are not into or are flat-out opposed to AI, whether it be for environmental, ethical, or intellectual property reasons.

"I think there's a good signal in that, where they're really valuing these human relationships," Mervis said.

In response to these different applications of AI, Vouros said the creative aspect of this technology "is key."

"If [students] can be taught how to use it correctly or how to enhance their work ... then we've elevated their work," Vouros said.

Mervis said students can harness AI for learning as well. He opened NotebookLM, an instructional resource and note-taking tool, and showed everyone how he could use it to transform a set of social studies notes into a set of slides, flashcards, quizzes, or a video. Students could also use it to generate a podcast based on the material, "join" the podcast, and ask the AI hosts a question.

He noted that students should walk out of the high school starting next year with some fluency around these technologies because they are "absolutely a requirement in the labor market."

As for how they will teach students about AI technology, Purcaro said it will be in conjunction with the advisement of EdAdvance. He added they are trying to find places where it naturally fits within the curriculum.

He emphasized that this would not be for elementary students. Purcaro said they are talking about having AI-specific courses available for students at the secondary level, some as elective offering, but some potentially as an assured experience for all students, where they will take a course regarding AI before graduation.

"So it's a matter of where are we putting that ... but I do think this inevitably probably ends in a course that's offered on AI," Purcaro said. "The emerging technology is getting too big, it's everywhere to this point where having something that's in play, that's been dictated, that we know all kids are passing through, is the best way to handle it."

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.