Guides

Districts and charters would have to amend their internet safety policies by July 1, 2027. Parents must opt a child in before an AI instructional tool is used, and a comparable non-AI alternative is the default for anyone who does not. Tools for Voluntary Prekindergarten through grade 5 face added review, and AI built to meet a student's social or emotional needs is barred. The rule was approved with changes and has not yet been filed as final.

A one-year moratorium covers roughly 600,000 students from 2-K through grade 8, with carve-outs for assistive technology, multilingual learners and career programs. High school access is five supervised pilots reaching about five percent of high schoolers, not general availability. Companion chatbots are barred in every grade. Staff may use AI for planning and administration, but not for grading, behavior monitoring, or placement, promotion and graduation decisions.

The second-largest district in the country blocked generative AI on district-issued Chromebooks and tablets in every grade for 2026-27, affecting about 378,000 students in district-operated schools. Earlier policy had allowed supervised access from age thirteen. The change was made administratively rather than by board vote, and an ad hoc committee reports recommendations at the end of the school year.

US schools and districts can put staff into one centrally managed organization under a single set of K-12 terms, with single sign-on, role-based access and domain claiming. Qualifying organizations that sign up by June 30, 2027 get a full year of free access.

Fifty-five more school systems across twenty states add over 100,000 educators and staff, bringing OpenAI to more than 100 K-12 organizations in thirty states covering over 300,000 educators and staff. The company also announced a sixteen-state data privacy agreement through the Student Data Privacy Consortium. Accounts are for educators and staff, not students, and OpenAI says the tool stays free for verified US K-12 educators through June 2028.

The state budget act requires the governing body of every public school unit to adopt an AI policy by June 30, 2027, after the education department develops a model by December 31, 2026 and makes it available by January 15, 2027. Teachers in districts, charters and lab schools must finish ten hours of state AI training by June 30, 2028.

HB 4005 would have required instruction on the ethical and educational uses of AI in grades 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12 from 2027-28, binding districts while leaving charter schools out. The veto letter objected to setting different requirements for charters and districts, and said academic content should be left to experts rather than politicians. A second bill on student AI use policies did not pass.

Version 26.01 is a full rewrite subtitled "A Call for AI Literacy," promoting literacy from one section to the organizing frame. It is published by the Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy at Northern Arizona University, with Department of Education staff among its authors. The Department's own AI page does not link it.

The state board says the tool reaches Utah's more than 650,000 students and, by its count, 28,000 educators from 2026-27, with each district deciding for itself whether to adopt it. Utah is requiring restrictive classroom technology policy and offering a statewide AI assistant at the same time.

Every district board must adopt a policy covering six things: responsible staff, permitted and prohibited instructional uses, data protection and minimization, transparency to students and families, a review cycle, and compliance with the state's guardrails, which bar AI as the primary basis for grading, discipline, placement or promotion. Separately and already in force, districts must disclose every AI tool to parents each year and honor an opt-out with no academic penalty.

A supplemental priority published in April and effective May 13, 2026 lists professional development for educators on AI among the things a project may do. The Department may use it in any discretionary competition, or use only some of its parts, so it shapes which applications score well in the competitions that adopt it. It is not itself a source of money.

HB 273 gives the state board until December 1, 2026 to post a model policy and every district and charter until July 1, 2027 to adopt it or a conforming version. The bill is mostly about screen time and devices, and the policy districts adopt must contain an AI use component rather than being an AI policy as such.