- October 5, 2026
The Florida Board of Education, on Sept. 16, passed rules for the use of artificial intelligence in K-12 public schools and state colleges beginning in the 2027-28 school year.
School districts will be required to amend their regulations on internet safety to include AI by July 1, 2027. Flagler Schools technology officials say they are ahead of the game.
The new rules state that districts will be required to notify parents if their students will be using an AI product. Parental consent will be required for AI use, and the district will have to offer an alternative, non-AI instructional tool similar in quality if a parent does not allow their child to use AI.
“We’re going through the rules, and we’re really in pretty good shape,” said Teresa Phillips, Flagler Schools instructional technology coordinator. “We’ve had a board policy in place since 2024 that addresses a lot of the things spelled out in the guidelines.”
Ryan Deising, Flagler Schools’ chief of technology and innovation, said the district participates in the state’s AI Taskforce and has had the opportunity to provide feedback on some of the guidelines.
“We feel fortunate to have been part of that conversation as it moved through,” he said.
Other new state requirements include any AI used in pre-K to grade 5 will have to undergo an additional review for approval; and no AI instructional tools can be used to meet a student’s social or emotional needs or subject students to undisclosed behavior monitoring, social scoring or psychological profiling.
Teachers and administrators will also be required to undergo training regarding AI risks and safety. Students will not be able to use AI unsupervised. And school personnel must be able to immediately suspend or disable the AI product without vendor assistance.
“In Flagler, we've been vetting all of our AI tools that students have access to since we began rolling them out,” Phillips said.
Access for K-5 students has a lot more guidance than those for secondary school students, she said, so the district is already in alignment with that part of the policy.
The district currently uses Khan Academy’s AI-powered teaching assistant, Khanmigo, as a tutoring tool for all students, especially for those in grades 6-12.
“It’s a fantastic program,” she said.
But it could be banned under the rule disallowing unsupervised AI use.
In a School Board workshop on Tuesday, Sept. 22, Deising presented an agreement for future approval with a grant-funded initiative to enhance tutoring programs through the University of Florida's Lastinger Center for Learning, in partnership with Khan Academy, which would integrate Khanmigo. Deising said Khan Academy is about to release a product overhaul so that some students can continue to use Khan Academy without having to use Khanmigo.
As we've rolled [AI instructional tools] out, we've taken a really cautious, approach in making sure safety is paramount.
— TERESA PHILLIPS, Flagler Schools instructional technology coordinator
“As we've rolled [AI instructional tools] out, we've taken a really cautious, approach in making sure safety is paramount,” Phillips said.
Deising told the board that the district is preparing policy recommendations.
“There clearly are some pieces that we're going to be working through,” he said. “It will change some of the policies that we have in place on how we manage our student devices, when access is for parents. But I think the feedback from our vendor partners has been pretty good. Clearly, there’s some work to be done, but I'm pretty optimistic that we'll be in a good position. Our intention is to start working on some of the policy recommendations to bring to the board, so it gives us an opportunity to have some conversations rather than pushing things back.”
The News Service of Florida contributed to this story.
