Schools across the country are training teachers to use artificial intelligence to save time on lesson planning and administrative tasks. The OpenAI Academy recently finished a series of "AI Skills Jams" for more than 1,600 educators in states like Georgia, Illinois, and Arizona. This training gives teachers practical ways to use tools like ChatGPT, even though school systems are struggling to write official policies on AI use.
What Happened
During the two-month workshop series, OpenAI worked with educators to build ready-to-use workflows, according to OpenAI’s project summary. The training focused on creating lesson plans, writing emails to parents, and managing administrative work.
In Jonesboro, Georgia, special education teacher Ava Morton showed how she uses ChatGPT to make historical texts easier to read. Morton inputs classic texts like the Gettysburg Address to quickly generate alternative versions tailored to students with dyslexia or ADHD. She said these AI-generated materials are a helpful baseline, making it easy to break complex assignments into smaller tasks. Morton estimated that using the tool as a "teacher's assistant" saves her about five hours of lesson prep every week.
Meanwhile, Township High School District 211 outside of Chicago is taking a broader approach. The district partnered with OpenAI in late 2024 to get an institutional enterprise version of ChatGPT. They have trained their entire staff, including librarians, athletic trainers, and bus drivers. The district wants to make sure that whatever adult a student talks to about AI, that staff member can guide them to use it responsibly.
The Bigger Picture
These training efforts target a major problem for teachers: a lack of time. A joint study by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation found that teachers who use AI tools at least weekly save an average of 5.9 hours per week. That adds up to about six weeks of extra time over the school year.
However, this rapid adoption is happening without administrative guidance. According to the Gallup report, only 18% of public K-12 teachers say their school or district has formal written guidelines on AI. This leaves most teachers to figure out the technology on their own.
This lack of guidance poses risks to privacy and teaching quality. For example, special education teachers spend 8 to 12 hours writing a single Individualized Education Program (IEP). While AI can help draft these documents, educators must not input personally identifiable student information into public AI models because doing so violates student privacy. Also, generic AI systems often output long, text-heavy paragraphs. These blocks of text can overwhelm students with learning differences unless teachers know how to write specific, adaptive prompts.
As we previously reported, managing school technology requires balancing work efficiency with data protection.
What This Means for Families
When used properly, AI can free teachers from tedious administrative work. This gives them more time for students and actual teaching. However, the lack of district-level rules means student experiences with AI vary wildly from classroom to classroom.
Some parents worry about how AI affects critical thinking. Research published by wellbeing expert Helen Maffini shows that 57% of teachers worry that frequent AI use could harm independent thinking. Without clear school-wide standards, parents cannot easily know if student work is graded fairly or if student data is safe.
What You Can Do
- Ask your school principal or district board if they have written AI guidelines. Make sure these rules explicitly forbid teachers from putting student data, like grades or medical histories, into public AI models.
- Encourage your district to provide formal professional development. Teachers need structured training to use AI safely instead of figuring it out on their own.
- Talk to your child about how they use AI at home. Teach them to use tools like ChatGPT as a brainstorming partner or dictionary rather than using it to write entire assignments.