Leading in the Age of AI: What Every Charter Board Should Know

About the Webinar:

Marlee Strawn opened her session by grounding the audience in the basics of artificial intelligence and its place in education. Drawing from her experience as a founding principal and now as a leader of a company serving thousands of students and teachers, she emphasized the importance of AI literacy. She explained the differences between machine learning tools long used in schools—such as iReady or Turnitin—and newer generative AI tools like ChatGPT. Strawn highlighted that while AI is not new, the widespread availability of generative AI in late 2022 created both challenges, like student misuse, and opportunities for innovation in teaching and leadership.

Throughout the presentation, Strawn demonstrated practical applications of AI for educators and charter school boards. She showcased how prompt engineering—the practice of giving AI specific roles, context, and instructions—can transform vague outputs into precise, actionable insights. Examples included generating board-level questions from state assessment data in seconds, drafting policy documents, analyzing large sets of reports, and simplifying new legislation into clear summaries. She also demonstrated how conversational AI and multimodal tools (voice and camera) are changing the way people interact with technology and suggested how these same capabilities could revolutionize student support.

Strawn then shared survey data highlighting a major adoption gap. While 70% of students, including elementary-aged children, are using AI regularly for both schoolwork and personal entertainment, most teachers are not incorporating it into their classrooms, and parents rarely discuss it with their children. This disconnect, she argued, underscores the urgent need for schools and districts to establish policies and expectations. Only a handful of states currently require such guidelines, leaving many schools unprepared to address issues like plagiarism, responsible use, and ethical considerations.

To close, Strawn introduced her FRAME framework for schools developing AI policies: Foundations, Recognize risks, Align with compliance, Manage tools, and Engage stakeholders. She stressed that policies should focus on guidance rather than policing and evolve over time as the technology advances. Beyond compliance, she urged schools to embrace AI literacy so students graduate with the skills employers increasingly expect. For Strawn, the challenge is not simply preventing misuse but preparing students for a future where AI is integral across industries.