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WHS and Generative AI

Wayland High School Generative AI

Wayland High School teachers and administrators have spen the last few years thoughtfully considering the role generative AI plays in secondary education.  As of the start of the 2026-2027 school year, Gemini, Gems, and NotebookLM are available to students to use as part of our educational technology offerings.

This page exists to frame the background and expectations for generative AI use at WHS

It is important to note that our work with generative AI comes with trepidation.  Students and adults alike appear to be more comfortable using gen AI services to shortcut learning in favor of product or outcome.  To ground us in our use of these tools, we developed a series of belief statements that we hope appropriately communicates our sense of fear and opportunity.

We believe...

  • We believe that the power of a secondary, liberal arts education lies in its emphasis on making us more full, well-rounded human beings.
  • We believe that education technology has the potential to both positively and negatively impact our work as teachers and learners.
  • We believe that we have the responsibility to discern and be purposeful about how using technology can diminish and enhance our individual capacities.
  • We believe it is important to be wary of the ways generative artificial intelligence can be detrimental to our core mission as it is designed to think for us and create dependency on the technology.
  • We believe that companies providing generative AI services are more interested in profit than helping people learn.
  • We believe that with intention and effort, we can design ways to use generative AI to enhance student learning through personalization and greater metacognitive awareness.
  • We believe that we have a responsibility to help students draw boundaries around their use of generative AI - knowing when to avoid its use and when and how it can be used to aid the learning process.
     

What this means

By default, students are not allowed to use generative AI on any of their assignments.

Its use must be EXPLICITLY authorized by their teacher.  This means that is has been clearly and unambiguously communicated in mutliple ways that AI is allowed and the teacher has included an AI framework outlining the specifics of what is allowed.

For non-class asdsignments (studying, hobbies, etc...), we endeavor to teach students to be in charge of their LEARNING, not their ability to produce products.  We ask them to use the tool as a learning aid so that students can still flex their congitive muscles, avoiding the commoditization of their humanity.  Some suggestions for ways to interact with generative AI are included to the right.

AI flowchart

Background

For a deeper dive into our process, please see this document.

Policy

Here are some excerpts related to generative AI use that appear in the student and staff handbooks.

Academic honesty and teacher guidelines.  Departmental level and teacher level rules through syllabi and course norms (no pasting, full history in google docs, etc...)