By Camryn Bowden and Alexa D’Amato
Since the first signs that ChatGPT would be a tool to disrupt traditional learning, schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, and even beyond in higher education, have weighed what policies are appropriate to curb the use of artificial intelligence. On Feb. 5, the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District detailed its attempts to embrace AI rather than shy away from it.
During the monthly Board of Education meeting, CHSD trustees heard from teachers and administrators from across the district. Joseph Innaco, the director of administrative and instructional technology, led the presentation, emphasizing a key point in the district’s approach to AI.
“How about we look at this as an opportunity to enhance teaching and learning? And that was our perception, you know, collectively,” he said.
“It wasn’t so long that ChatGPT was launched by OpenAI, and that created a great amount of buzz, especially in education. We never saw anything like this before,” Innaco said. “There were many questions that were raised, such as what about plagiarism?”
Instead of focusing on the negatives that generative AI can bring, Innaco and his team wanted to learn about the benefits that other AI programs can offer schools. “We took the direction of, how about looking at this as an opportunity to enhance teaching and learning, and that was our perception, collectively,” Innaco said. “It’s our duty to make sure that we provide this opportunity to our teachers and our students. We want to stay ahead of the curb.”
“It wasn’t so long that ChatGPT was launched by OpenAI, and that created a great amount of buzz, especially in education. We never saw anything like this before.”
Joseph Innaco, Director of Administrative and Instructional Technology
Teachers and students are both in various technology training classes, allowing them to learn what programs to use, how to use them and how to get the most out of AI, while still maintaining academic integrity. Their hope is that students will learn how to use AI properly and take that with them into their future careers.
“I cannot think of any industry that doesn’t have any sort of AI integration,” Innaco said.
Richard Perry, a Calhoun High School English Language Arts teacher and technology integration mentor, continued to emphasize the need to use AI responsibly , which he believes is necessary for the school district to embrace. Teachers have tailored their lesson plans to allow students to experiment with generative AI, with restrictions. Perry has worked with students to find ways to use AI to assist with writing essays, without plagiarizing.
“When it comes time to write an essay, students would write the essay by hand in class, make sure that the original ideas are theirs, that they have invested time and energy in that essay to make it their own,” Perry said. “The second thing we would do is conference on the essay, talk about it like we normally do, and then we would drop it into ChatGPT.”
As the teacher, Perry was the only person signing into ChatGPT, and he would ask specific questions to elicit feedback back on the essay, rather than asking questions that would change the student’s initial ideas. Perry was surprised by students’ reactions to the feedback from the AI software.
“We would expect the students to be like, ‘Oh, OK, GPT is right.’ And they weren’t,” Perry said. “They were actually sort of offended by the writing recommendations. They were taking ownership of their work because of the time they invested in it.”
According to RAND research published in April 2024, English and social studies teachers are the most likely to employ AI in their classes, usually due to more customizable lessons for such coursework. Other statistics regarding AI use from the 2023-24 school year can be found in the graphic below.
Instead of relying on educators only from the English or social studies areas, Innaco welcomed Scott Azar, a Mepham High School earth science teacher, to detail different applications of AI in the classroom.
Azar highlighted how these programs can assist people who have different learning styles or abilities, as AI models like SchoolAI have been known to “help students who can’t necessarily express themselves to figure out how to organize their thoughts more clearly and to explain themselves.”
Azar, who had a 504 plan to assist him with learning disabilities throughout his school career, said AI models would have been a game-changer had they been around during his time as a student.
Maura Kempton, assistant director of special education, further expressed this point, explaining that she, as an administrator, hopes to employ AI tools to “create and adapt lessons and materials to address the variety of strengths, learning styles in our classroom and the students’ needs.”
Innaco ended by thanking the CHSD board, Superintendent Michael Harrington and school board President Nancy Kaplan. He also said next steps for the district would be to determine an acceptable use policy for the district.
At the end of the presentation, a parent who did not offer a name did pose a question to the presenters: How are educators preparing students for artificial intelligence in the workforce?
Scott Bersin, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, stepped in to quell that parent’s concern, saying, “The truth of it is, technology in America has always proven to create jobs.”
“There are always short-run dislocations that occur as technology is changing, but it’s our hope, of course, that we’re preparing kids for the future where there’ll be more and more jobs related to this,” he said.
