Wake board seeks tougher AI policy, teacher training before fall launch

Wake County school leaders pressed for a more detailed artificial intelligence policy before students return in the fall, warning that the current draft says too much about opportunity and too little about the risks families and teachers will face. The Wake County Public School System told the board’s policy committee it wants a draft approved and in place in schools by August, but board members said the proposal still needs clearer safeguards on student privacy, bias, cheating and teacher guidance.

The draft policy emphasizes AI literacy, equitable access, responsible and ethical use, citation of AI use and prevention of plagiarism. But board members said those broad goals do not answer the harder classroom questions: what happens when a student is falsely flagged by an AI detector, how staff should handle suspected misuse, what protections will keep student data from being mishandled and what rules should guide discipline when AI use is in dispute. Board vice chair Sam Hershey called the draft “just way too rah-rah,” while board member Wing Ng said, “Having a more robust policy is important for us to have.”

Wake’s AI work began in fall 2024, when the district created an AI Task Force and later released a draft policy nearly a year ago. Since then, teachers have already been getting training on AI use. District leaders have also blocked ChatGPT for students and steered them toward Google Gemini instead, saying Gemini can be used without storing and using the data. Earlier district discussions in 2025 also raised the possibility of limiting AI use to students age 13 and older.

The push for tougher safeguards has been sharpened by the case of Green Hope High School freshman Eleanor Canina. Canina was accused of AI-assisted plagiarism after a teacher used an AI detector, and she initially got a 0 on an English I assignment with the note, “evidence of AI, Please redo.” After an appeal, another teacher changed the grade from a 0 to a 100. The dispute has become a warning sign for Wake leaders who want more explicit due-process protections before the policy reaches classrooms.

Superintendent Robert Taylor said the district recognizes AI’s value but wants a policy that can keep pace with a technology changing quickly. Wake’s effort also follows state guidance released by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction on January 16, 2024, when the agency said it was the fourth state education department in the nation to issue generative-AI guidance and urged districts to develop their own local rules.