An AI policy your school can actually adopt.
Most schools have no written AI policy — not because they don't care, but because writing one means taking a position on a subject that changes every few months. In the meantime, the rule ends up being decided by individual teachers, and students get different answers in different classrooms.
This is a starting point. Copy it, change it, cut half of it. It is written to be usable by a school that bans AI outright and by a school that permits it — pick section 4A or 4B and delete the other.
Before you adopt this
This is a plain-language starting draft written for school leaders, not legal advice, and it is not tailored to any state's requirements. Have whoever normally reviews your handbook review this too. Replace [SCHOOL] throughout.
Artificial Intelligence Policy — [SCHOOL]
1Purpose
This policy explains how students and staff at [SCHOOL] may use artificial intelligence tools. It exists so that students who use these tools honestly are not treated the same as students who use them to avoid learning.
This policy will be reviewed at least once per school year. The tools change faster than policy does, and a policy nobody has revisited is a policy nobody follows.
2Definitions
"AI tool" means any software that generates text, images, audio, code, or answers in response to a prompt. This includes general chatbots, homework-help apps, writing assistants, and any similar tool, whether free or paid.
"Assignment" means any work a student submits for a grade or for credit.
3The principle
AI may support a student's learning. It may not replace it.
The test is not which tool was used. The test is whether the student can do the thing afterward. A student who used an AI tool to understand a concept and can now explain it has learned. A student who submitted work they cannot explain has not, regardless of how it was produced.
Choose one: 4A or 4B
These are alternatives, not sequential sections. Keep the one that matches what your school actually wants and delete the other. Renumber to 4.
4AUse of AI on assignments — prohibited
Students may not use AI tools to produce any part of an assignment unless a teacher has specifically permitted it for that assignment.
Students may use AI tools to study material that is not itself being submitted — for example, to quiz themselves, to have a concept re-explained, or to check their understanding after finishing. This is studying, and it is allowed.
A teacher may permit AI use for a specific assignment by saying so in writing. When a teacher does, section 5 applies.
4BUse of AI on assignments — permitted with disclosure
Students may use AI tools on assignments unless a teacher has stated otherwise for that assignment, provided the student discloses it under section 5.
Teachers may designate any assignment as AI-free. Assessments taken in class are AI-free by default and no disclosure is needed, because no AI tool is available during them.
Undisclosed use of an AI tool on an assignment is a violation of this policy even where the use itself would have been permitted. The failure is the concealment.
5Disclosure
When a student uses an AI tool on an assignment, they add one line at the end: what tool they used and what they used it for. For example: "I used an AI tutor to help me understand how to set up the equation. I solved it myself."
A student will never be penalized for an accurate disclosure of permitted use. Disclosure is not a confession.
6Showing process
A teacher may ask any student to show how they arrived at their work. This may include drafts, notes, a version history, a record of a tutoring session, or a short conversation with the teacher about the work.
A student who can show their process has met this requirement. A student who cannot may be asked to complete comparable work under supervision.
This applies to all students. It is not an accusation, and it should not be reserved for students whose work looks suspicious — used that way, it becomes a guess about who seems like a cheater.
7Detection tools
AI-detection scores may not be used as the sole basis for a finding that a student violated this policy. These tools produce false positives, and they do so unevenly — students who write in a plain, correct style and students writing in a second language are flagged more often.
A detection score may prompt a conversation. Only evidence — the student's process, or their ability to explain the work — can support a finding.
8Consequences
A first violation is handled as a teaching matter: the student redoes the work, with the teacher, and the parent or guardian is informed.
Repeated violations are handled under the school's existing academic conduct procedures.
The purpose is to get the student to do the learning they skipped, not to remove them from the opportunity to learn.
9Assessment design
Staff are expected to design assessments on the assumption that AI tools exist and are freely available outside of class.
Where mastery must be demonstrated, it should be demonstrated in conditions the school controls — in class, on paper, aloud, or in a supervised setting. Take-home work should be weighted and described as practice.
This is the most effective single protection available to the school, and it does not depend on any software, vendor, or enforcement action.
10Staff use of AI
Staff may use AI tools to prepare lessons, materials, and communications.
Staff may not enter student names, grades, disciplinary records, health information, or any other personally identifiable student information into a general-purpose AI tool.
Staff may not use an AI tool as the sole basis for a grade, a disciplinary decision, or an evaluation of a student.
11Student privacy
Any AI tool the school directs students to use must be reviewed before it is assigned. The review covers what student data the tool collects, whether that data trains a model, how long it is retained, and whether a written agreement is in place.
This policy does not govern tools a family chooses and pays for on their own, outside of school. Families may use whatever they judge appropriate at home, subject to the same expectations about disclosure and process above.
12Communication
This policy will be provided to families in writing at the start of each school year and will be available on the school website.
Teachers will state clearly, on each assignment, whether AI use is permitted for that assignment. A rule students have to guess at is not a rule.
If you only do one thing on this page
Do section 9. Moving the demonstration of mastery into conditions you control — in class, on paper, aloud — is the only protection here that does not depend on detection, enforcement, or any vendor. Everything else on this page is a supplement to that.
Section 12 is a close second, and it is free. Most of the conflict schools are having over AI right now is not about cheating. It is about students genuinely not knowing what the rule was.
Who wrote this, and why
We build OSQR, an AI tutor for families with a setting that holds back answers and a printable record of how a student worked through a problem. So we have an interest in schools thinking clearly about this — that is the honest disclosure.
This template deliberately does not require our product or any other. Section 6 can be satisfied with a paper draft or a two-minute conversation, and section 4A is a full ban written to work properly. If it is useful and we never speak, that is a good outcome. What we do build is here.