By Charlotte Matherly, contributor
Rockingham County Public Schools will reevaluate its use of technology in classrooms and consider issues surrounding artificial intelligence, Superintendent Larry Shifflett said. But, he said, the school district isn’t jumping all in just yet. For now, it’s “slow and steady.”
Shifflett said he’s working to create a committee to examine how county schools are using instructional technology, what its role is and what its role should be.
“The conversation always has been, and I think it still needs to be, technology should be used when it’s the best tool for learning. Sometimes it’s not the best tool for learning, and that’s the conversation we have to have,” Shifflett said at Monday’s school board meeting. “It’s just a bigger conversation with also, understanding that technology is going to be a part of our students’ lives, and how do we prepare them? Even the conversation about AI, when is it appropriate and at what point to introduce some of these tools?”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order last year requiring local school districts to craft AI policies.
Board members attempted to reassure teachers that the district isn’t sprinting one way or another with a new technology policy just yet. Hollie Cave warned that she has concerns about AI’s use in homework, and board chair Sara Horst said she’s not trying to take any technology away right now.
Cave said she’s hesitant to charge ahead with AI and has heard similar concerns from teachers. Her main problem, she said, is if students are using AI from the get-go, it could be difficult to accurately track their progress.
“One of my great concerns with AI … is losing the relationship piece with the students,” Cave said, using a fictional student as an example. “Maybe you never even knew that he struggled, like maybe we can’t even tell that he’s not reading really well. Like, ‘Gosh, he’s writing really well, [but] we don’t know if he can even read.’ Those are all those pieces that I just want to be very careful about.”
Teachers and students in Rockingham County are already using AI, according to a presentation to the school board from the district’s AI Team last week. Students are permitted to use some AI-powered tools that deal with grammar, visual media and text-to-speech accommodations for reading. They’re not allowed to use Chat GPT or any AI chatbots.
The presentation also pitched generative AI as a way to help teachers build lesson plans and simplify reading texts for struggling students or English language learners. It also proposed having some generative AI tools approved for high school students to use in class by the start of next school year.
Horst said she wants the district to be intentional about technology use.
“We see technology as being a great tool, and so I think it’s just time to start to have some conversation about that,” Horst said. “We hear a lot of concerns from across the board, but there’s also a lot of things that I look at with my own children that are just really amazing, what technology has enabled them to do or to extend their learning. So we don’t want to lose those opportunities, either.”
Shifflett said he’ll start recruiting people for the committee this week. The answer to this issue may not be division-wide, he said. It may need to be more specific for some schools, grades or classrooms, and he said he hopes to stack the committee with stakeholders from the elementary, middle and high school levels.
Legislature’s budget favorable for RCPS
The Virginia General Assembly passed a version of the next state budget, which chief financial officer Justin Moyers said could include millions of dollars more for Rockingham County schools.
In the state budget – which isn’t finalized, as Youngkin has yet to sign it – the legislature voted to remove the cap on how many support positions the state will fund. About 15 years ago, during leaner times, the state had limited the number of positions within local school districts that it would support. The legislature is also looking to allocate more money toward special education.
These developments could mean $2 million more in RCPS’s pockets, although Moyers said he isn’t sure yet how it will trickle down to local schools.
“They are finally agreeing to take that cap off, which means they would give us more money towards our support positions,” Moyers said. “This would be a pretty significant change in our budget.”
Board members welcomed the potential influx of cash.
“That’s nice,” said Jackie Lohr.
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