Scottsbluff Public Schools

Purpose

This page guides Scottsbluff Public Schools on responsible AI use, especially generative AI, in education and operations, highlighting its benefits and risks. Generative AI creates content from learned patterns but may produce inaccurate or misleading results. This document offers guidance on a constantly evolving topic that may not apply to every situation. 

Scope

This guidance applies to everyone in Scottsbluff Public Schools interacting with educational technologies, including AI models and analytics tools, and aligns with existing SBPS technology and data policies.

Guiding Principles for AI Use

1. SBPS uses AI to enhance student goals, learning, teaching, and operations. As technology evolves, SBPS is committed to evaluating tools for accessibility, biases, and ethical concerns.

2. SBPS ensures AI use aligns with policies on data privacy, accessibility, and content safety. Staff and students must protect personally identifiable information. 

3. SBPS promotes AI literacy, teaching staff and students how and when to use AI and understanding its workings to mitigate risks.

4. SBPS values integrity: staff and students must be honest, fair, respectful, and credit sources accurately.

5. SBPS staff and students are accountable for AI use, using judgment to evaluate AI content, and accepting responsibility for decisions.

Scottsbluff Public Schools is aware of the increasing presence of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in our daily lives. These tools can generate new content like text, images, and even music. SBPS has been exploring how these AI tools might be useful for teachers and students and considering possible liabilities.

Recently, SBPS has:

• Created a cross-departmental group to analyze and advise on AI topics 

• Developed and shared guidelines for using AI technology 

• Reviewed Google’s terms of use for their AI tool

• Created the Guiding Principles of AI Use in SBPS

These Guiding Principles explain how SBPS staff and students should approach the use of AI. They outline the district’s stance on using AI tools in classrooms, procedures, and systems. They also emphasize the responsibilities that come with using AI.

We encourage all staff to read the Guiding Principles and consider the implications of AI use. This foundational understanding is essential if we are to implement AI technology safely and responsibly.

• Don't input personal information. No matter what type of generative AI you're using or how you're using it, do not include any personally identifiable information (PII) about yourself or your students. 
• Use it for language tasks, ideas, explanations, and editing. Generative AI is most helpful as a thought partner, a starting place, and a distiller of information. It's not as reliable for research or fact-finding because it can make things up, or hallucinate. 
• Keep in mind what you gain and what you lose. Depending on how you're using generative AI, you may save time brainstorming but lose true creativity. Similarly, you may get a quick summary but lose nuance, or draft efficiently but lose your authentic voice.
• Verify, specify, and clarify. Double-check the information you get for accuracy, refine your prompt until you get the output you need, and tell the bot how it can improve its response even further.
  Include reputable sources in your prompts. If you're using AI to ask for information, include some trustworthy sources so it pulls from those first. This isn't a guarantee that it won't hallucinate, so it's still best to verify, but it's a helpful starting point.
• Ask for citations (and make sure they're real). If you decide to use AI as a research tool, ask the bot to include citations and then make sure they're real, reputable sources.