FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - The Florida Board of Education approved new restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence in public schools, colleges and universities.
In a multi-hour meeting on Wednesday, state officials unanimously passed new rules and guardrails surrounding the emerging technology.
Part of the sweeping rules puts parents in the driver’s seat, requiring schools to notify them if their child will use AI products in the classroom and allowing them to opt them out.
Districts across the state must offer alternative, non-AI instructional tools for those students who get opted out of the AI lesson.
Other guidelines prohibit students from using AI on graded assignments unless the teacher allows it.
In grades Pre-K to Fifth Grade, student assignments using AI will face additional review before approval, and students in these grade levels cannot use the technology unsupervised while in school.
Board officials touted the new measures as the first in the nation.
“It sets Florida apart. I don’t know any other state in the nation that is regulating it in the way that we’ve done it—a response to artificial intelligence in the classroom,” Commissioner Dr. Henry Mack said.
Parents in Fort Lauderdale say the technology worries them about their child’s future.
“Absolutely! It’s a little scary what you’re seeing on the TV and what people are doing on the phones, TikTok, and whatnot,” said parent Melissa Collado Ruiz.
“It is concerning a bit because when I was in school, we just used our books and teachers helped us,” said parent Kinda Boodhram.
But after hearing about these new parental controls on AI use in their child’s education, these parents said they supported them.
Absolutely! I’m old school. Yes, definitely I approve. We need to have control over that before it gets out of hand,” said Collado Ruiz.
“I would rather they learn the old school way so they can actually learn something,” said Boodhram.
According to the newly approved rules, teachers and administrators will have to complete training on AI risks.
Emily Freitag, CEO and Co-Founder of Instruction Partners, a national K-12 education group examining AI in classrooms across the country, says some AI tools can truly help children.
“What we learned is that leaders need to do two things at the same time: they need to mitigate the risk while they leverage the benefit,” said Freitag.
Freitag points to Florida’s move to ban AI companionship, which was a law aimed at protecting students’ social and emotional needs.
“We saw products that were designed for kids to use them together while having small group discussions that were really valuable. But I think Florida’s focus on making sure that kids are not getting emotional advice from chatbots feels really good to me as a mom,” she said.
Experts like Freitag said the key is for parents and teachers to understand the technology as schools navigate the evolving tech landscape.
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