Come November, as many as 1,000 School District U-46 staff members could be using Open AI’s ChatGPT Edu to do instructional and operational work free of charge.
U-46 School Board members tentatively agreed to the 13-month, no-cost deal Monday night and are expected to formally approve it at their Oct. 20 meeting.
“Our original proposal came with a cost of about $400,000 for 4,000 licenses,” Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Lela Majstorovic told the board.
“A couple weeks ago, after we had shared an updated presentation with the board of education, Open AI reached out to our team here and invited U-46 to join in its early access program, which is a program that’s only been offered to 20 school districts across the nation.”
A U-46 AI task force has been exploring ways to integrate AI into work being done by teachers and administrators, Majstorovic said, and this gives the district a way to explore what they can do in a safe, structured and cost-free manner. All data would remain secure and owned by the district and protected from use in training AI models, she said.
The task force tested ChatGPT Edu and Google Gemini Advanced from January to April and chose ChatGPT Edu, according to meeting documents. The group also put together AI use guidelines and a course to ensure responsible AI use by teachers and staff.
“Our goal is to start this partnership with granting 1,000 licenses as a pilot to diverse groups of people across the district, representing various grade levels, programs, both instructional staff as well as operational staff,” Majstorovic said.
“We would work with them and gather feedback. Of course, they would first have to take our AI 101 course to get access granted. They would have to agree to provide feedback during a three-month period.”
Once the trial period is complete, Majstorovic, Director of Information Services Jim Wolf and Coordinator of Strategic Initiatives Rola Tarek Mohamed would examine the data collected to determine if and how additional staff would be given access.
Open AI would provide training for staff members who will then be charged with training other staff members.
In terms of privacy and protection of information, the data U-46 puts into the system could be viewed by Open AI, but they would not have access to it or the ability to use it, Wolf said.
“We’re explaining to everyone that you don’t put any PII — personally identifiable information — into the model,” he said. “Even though it’s walled off, we never want to put students’ personal information, teachers’ personal information, any staff member’s personal information into the model for those reasons.”
Board member Kate Thommes said she recently checked out the free version of Chat GPT online at her job and could see the benefits.
“This last week-and-a-half I typed in a number of different things and was able to get some pretty good stuff,” Thommes said. “Most of it wasn’t 100% perfect but it saved me a lot of time because it gave me a really nice base.
“I liked it. I think our teachers will have a lot of success if they follow the rules and guidelines you’ve been talking about.”
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
