Northville Schools Set Guidance for Student AI Use

Northville Public Schools in Michigan is teaching students to use AI in limited ways while continuing to build writing, critical-thinking, reading-comprehension and information-processing skills. The district spent the previous school year developing guidance for teachers and students, and began rolling it out across its school buildings in the months before this report. Superintendent RJ Webber says AI can support learning, exploration and creation, but students need to learn responsible use to avoid plagiarism and retain the ability to think for themselves.

In one Northville High School English class, 10th graders put away their phones and used paper and pencils to discuss Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild.” Students chose whether Chris McCandless was a tragic hero, an arrogant and misguided person, a reckless fool or an idealist, then defended their views and could change sides after hearing classmates. The lesson required them to read, process information, make arguments and persuade peers without phones, laptops or AI. Teacher Kristin Mathis says she wants students to use AI as a tutor or to check work, not to complete assignments for them; she includes at least one pencil-and-paper exercise in each class. On homework, she had students answer a prompt themselves and compare their responses with AI’s answer.

Northville permits some controlled AI use, including by kindergarten and first-grade students. An instructional reading program called Snorkel listens as students read aloud and gives immediate feedback on fluency; coordinator Jen Lawson says it can provide all students feedback in 20 minutes, whereas a teacher with a full classroom may manage it only once a week. Teachers can restrict websites on school laptops and monitor open browser tabs. Another writing program shows teachers a student’s writing cadence and large pasted passages, which can prompt questions but does not by itself prove AI use or cheating. Teachers may also assess learning through presentations or in-class writing instead of take-home papers.

Michigan state guidance advises districts to use AI purposefully and safely, protect student privacy and integrity, and document how staff and students use the tools; it says AI should assist, not replace, educators or decision-makers. In Oakland County, 22 of 28 districts have an AI task force or similar group, 19 have guidance, 13 have a school-board-adopted AI policy and at least 15 have adopted an AI learning tool. Oakland Schools’ Justin Bruno calls tools such as SchoolAI, Magic School and Brisk “AI with training wheels,” saying they give adults more oversight of student use. Northville’s task force set four principles: student-centered, future-focused learning; amplifying rather than replacing human intelligence; closing opportunity gaps through equity and access; and promoting ethical behavior, integrity, data privacy and bias awareness.

Northville senior Malik Hadjit says AI can help students check work against a rubric, but completing an assignment solely with AI leaves teachers without evidence that a student understands the material. He opposed a red-yellow-green permission scale because AI may replace different kinds of thinking in different classes and grade levels. He uses AI for personal app and 3D-printing projects despite limited coding knowledge, while saying communication remains an important future skill. Tenth grader Katie Mazur uses AI to turn study guides into quizzes and check her math steps. Both students say students still need to learn rather than rely on AI to do schoolwork.

Northville Public Schools in Michigan is teaching students to use AI in limited ways while continuing to build writing, critical-thinking, reading-comprehension and information-processing skills. The district spent the previous school year developing guidance for teachers and students, and began rolling it out across its school buildings in the months before this report. Superintendent RJ Webber says AI can support learning, exploration and creation, but students need to learn responsible use to avoid plagiarism and retain the ability to think for themselves.

In one Northville High School English class, 10th graders put away their phones and used paper and pencils to discuss Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild.” Students chose whether Chris McCandless was a tragic hero, an arrogant and misguided person, a reckless fool or an idealist, then defended their views and could change sides after hearing classmates. The lesson required them to read, process information, make arguments and persuade peers without phones, laptops or AI. Teacher Kristin Mathis says she wants students to use AI as a tutor or to check work, not to complete assignments for them; she includes at least one pencil-and-paper exercise in each class. On homework, she had students answer a prompt themselves and compare their responses with AI’s answer.

Northville permits some controlled AI use, including by kindergarten and first-grade students. An instructional reading program called Snorkel listens as students read aloud and gives immediate feedback on fluency; coordinator Jen Lawson says it can provide all students feedback in 20 minutes, whereas a teacher with a full classroom may manage it only once a week. Teachers can restrict websites on school laptops and monitor open browser tabs. Another writing program shows teachers a student’s writing cadence and large pasted passages, which can prompt questions but does not by itself prove AI use or cheating. Teachers may also assess learning through presentations or in-class writing instead of take-home papers.

Michigan state guidance advises districts to use AI purposefully and safely, protect student privacy and integrity, and document how staff and students use the tools; it says AI should assist, not replace, educators or decision-makers. In Oakland County, 22 of 28 districts have an AI task force or similar group, 19 have guidance, 13 have a school-board-adopted AI policy and at least 15 have adopted an AI learning tool. Oakland Schools’ Justin Bruno calls tools such as SchoolAI, Magic School and Brisk “AI with training wheels,” saying they give adults more oversight of student use. Northville’s task force set four principles: student-centered, future-focused learning; amplifying rather than replacing human intelligence; closing opportunity gaps through equity and access; and promoting ethical behavior, integrity, data privacy and bias awareness.

Northville senior Malik Hadjit says AI can help students check work against a rubric, but completing an assignment solely with AI leaves teachers without evidence that a student understands the material. He opposed a red-yellow-green permission scale because AI may replace different kinds of thinking in different classes and grade levels. He uses AI for personal app and 3D-printing projects despite limited coding knowledge, while saying communication remains an important future skill. Tenth grader Katie Mazur uses AI to turn study guides into quizzes and check her math steps. Both students say students still need to learn rather than rely on AI to do schoolwork.