SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — With artificial intelligence becoming more prevalent, Slippery Rock Area School District educators and officials want to establish guardrails for students and staff.

That initiative started during an educational programming committee meeting on Monday evening, Feb. 23, when district board member Leslie Colosimo brought up the topic for discussion.

She said looking at AI now reminds her of quotes she heard of people doubting that cars or the television would take off.

“I think when we look at it in that perspective and we think about back then and now that we’re just going into AI, there is so much we need to talk about and see how we can use it in education,” Colosimo said.

Currently, the district’s only policy regarding AI in the 2025-26 student handbook can be found under the cheating and plagiarism category.

“When appropriate, students are expected to use AI responsibly and honestly. Unless specifically stated by the teacher, students cannot claim AI generated work as their own. Unauthorized use of AI (i.e. claiming AI generated work to be a student’s own work) will be considered cheating,” the handbook says.

Colosimo first asked the principals what their experience has been, to which high school principal Cory Hake said their work has been mostly combating it. He said focus would need to be on finding out how schools can embrace it while still educating.

“Right now, the fear is that kids are doing their homework on it and they’re not learning,” Hake said.

He said students seemingly are split about AI usage as well. He recently had a conversation with a teacher where a group of students were claiming another student was cheating by using AI as a study tool.

“We have some kids using it, harnessing it and figuring out ‘this is an easy way for me to recategorize my thoughts and to reorganize my thinking,’” Hake said. “Then, you’ve got other students looking at that and saying ‘that’s cheating. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that.’”

Slippery Rock Area Elementary School principal, Crystal Johnston said she tried using AI to organize her teacher observation notes into a report, which worked well and saved her “hours.”

Assistant superintendent Susan Miller said one thing that will be important to highlight when exposing students to AI is that it is a tool, not a companion.

“The pieces we want to talk about are privacy issues, data issues, appropriateness and safety issues. AI is not your friend. AI is not your therapist. This is not to have a personal relationship. They’re not a medical doctor. And you need to recognize the shortfalls and shortcomings in order to use it effectively,” she said.

Superintendent Alfonso Angelucci added the district is looking to set up a “professional development day” over the summer for staff to learn more about AI implementation in their classrooms.

“We never want to be a district that’s accused of teaching kids what to think, but we will stand behind teaching them how to think. I think using AI as a tool and using it properly is a great way to continue to teach them how to think,” he said.

Miller said the next steps are to continue having conversations on the matter with board members, staff and students while putting together a formal stakeholders meeting.