Joseph questions parent engagement and AI awareness
Councilmember Joseph asks where parents are in the AI conversation, whether they are made aware of AI in classrooms, and if they can opt in or opt out. She also asks about language access for non-English-speaking parents and who the two leads are on AI digital learning. Dr. Pate describes superintendent-level parent engagement.
Great, thank you, chairs.
Good afternoon.
As we're having this important conversation around AI, we've been in this space before.
Where are the parents in this conversation?
I heard nothing about parents.
I heard teachers, students, educators, but I have not heard
Where is parents in this conversation?
Are they made aware of AI in the classroom?
Do they have the option to opt in, opt out?
And another part of this conversation, I'm not hearing language access, and we know a lot of our parents in the city, English is not their first language.
And I have a question for the Deputy Chancellor.
Who are your two leads in this AI digital learning space right now?
Who are your two leads in your office?
Within the, thank you for your questions.
You're welcome.
You want me to lead off with that one?
Is that Mia and Tara?
Within the division of the first deputy chancellor in academics and instruction, Dr.
Pate and Tara are leading that work.
But that work hinges upon the partnership with DIIT, the partnership with data privacy.
So these gentlemen also are very integral in this work.
These things cannot...
Happen without each other.
That I know.
You're preaching to the converted.
So I've asked my question.
Okay.
So tell me, how are you taking into consideration when you deploy AI tools, how are parents made aware?
How are we using parents' voices?
Parent engagement.
Education cannot happen without parents.
Where are the parents in this conversation?
In addition to the AI guidance and the feedback loop, superintendents were provided with on-the-ground resources, and superintendents did their own engagement unique to their communities
where they utilized the different governance structures within their district to engage families, to collect insight, to collect their feedback, and then they provided us.
Those trends, the themes, and that was incorporated in addition to the 6,400 responses that we had.
Which we still consider as a low number as having the highest, the largest school system in the country, 6,400 is very little.
So here's my question.
When you took that feedback, what were the three top things that stood out for you?
So the top three concerns that stood out from the cumulative information that was gathered was around cognitive offloading, was around safety, and around privacy.
And that's been our theme, privacy, cognitive, and development.
It's a national theme, so yes.
Correct.
So we're going to put that there with the parents.
So you know when you do your playbook, council members, Gutierrez said you should throw it out.
But parents have to be center of this conversation.
And what about our educators?